Just about the most popular sports in America and Canada is American football. This contact team sport is a combination of physical play along with strategic motion together with the ultimate objective of scoring points by furthering the ball in the opponents goal line or reaching their end zone by either carrying the ball and running along with it or passing it to a team member. The team which scores the most points within the stipulated time is declared the winner.
American football has its origins in rugby football but has adapted itself with a few changes to the American and Canadian system. Though Canadian football and American football are predominantly quite similar there are a few differences in the forms like in the team size, playing area, number of downs, time rules etc. The differences are not major and each may be adapted into another with some amount of tuning.
There are 2 major forms of American football played in the United States, namely, collegiate football and professional football. Together with the growth as well as the increasing popularity a number of football leagues were born in the country. The two most powerful and prestigious leagues which are around in the United States presently include the National Football League as well as the United Football League.
American football games that see the participation of student athletes from the various colleges, military academies and universities across the nation is called collegiate or college football. It was through college football the American football got into the news and became as big a sport as it is today. Though football or rugby was played mostly in schools in England, the game was exported to America. The 1st American football game to get played in the United States was in 1874 between Harvard University and McGill University, Montreal. The first collegiate football competition was held the following year in 1875 in the match played between Tufts University and Harvard.
Present day college football is in the sports news with the first kick off in the football season on the first Labor Day weekend a week ahead of the NFL games and continues till the beginning of December. The penultimate weekend in the college football season sees most of the rivalry matches and conference games being played.
The professional football players are teams that play American football at a professional level. These professional teams are a section of the two leagues in the U . S known as the NFL and the UFL. The NFL enjoys the status of being the biggest professional football league on the globe. Formed with eleven teams this league has now grown in strength and now consists of 32 teams. The league is further split up into the American Football Conference and the National Football conference and the conferences contain four divisions made up of four teams each respectively.
The NFL season especially the Super Bowl, which is the final championship game is followed by sports enthusiasts and news providers equally as it is the most significant games among the Americans.
