American Football

Regional popularity: Europe, Africa, Asia, America, Australia

In other words this game is commonly referred as the national obsession of millions of Americans. Most probably these millions have propelled the sport into the list of most popular sports in the world. Its impact is negligible outside of North America.

Analyzing many estimations from various sources, we conclude of around 400 million fans around the globe for this particular sport. But the surprise is, nearly half of the total are counted from the United States and Canada.

It is believed that American football was actually evolved from Rugby in the late 19^th century. Mainly, the sport was seen as a club or collegiate sport. Then, in the year of 1920, everything had just changed after the establishment of NFL.

Generally there are two variants of this popular sport. One is the Canadian Football or the Canadian version. And the other one is well known as the Arena League Football. Mostly players are seen to move between these leagues at times.

Some historic teams: the Dallas Cowboys, Pittsburgh Steele-rs, San Francisco 49ers

Previously said, most of the teams are from North America. But NFL is arranged every year in England and other countries of Europe via NFL Europe. Recently more and more Australian and African people are getting interested about the game. And still very fewer from the Asia. American Football is now at the 10th in the list of most popular sports in the world.

The sport is played by two teams of eleven players. The rectangular field is 120 yards long and 53.3 yards wide with goalposts at each end. Surprisingly an oval ball, which is carried on hand is known as the football. And the offense attempts to advance with the ball down the field. There are option of either running with the football or passing it through the posts. The offense must advance it at least ten yards in four downs to receive a new set of four downs. If they fail to continue, they have to turn over the ball to the opposing team