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American football in the United States | |
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![]() The U.S. Navy Midshipmen (at left, in blue) line up on offense against the Army's Black Knights | |
Country | United States |
Governing body | USA Football |
National team(s) | United States |
First played | 1869, New Brunswick, New Jersey |
Registered players | 5 million+ [1] |
Club competitions | |
List
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International competitions | |
American football is a form of gridiron football and the most popular sport in the United States. In the United States, the game is most often referred to as simply "football". Football is played in leagues of different size, age and quality, in all regions of the country.
There is no single national governing body for American football in the United States or a continental governing body for North America. There is an international governing body, the International Federation of American Football, or IFAF. The National Football League has the highest revenue and average attendance of any sports league in the world.
American football is the most popular sport in the United States. [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] It is a form of gridiron football. In the United States, the game is most often referred to as simply "football".
Befitting its status as a popular sport, football is played in leagues of different size, age and quality, in all regions of the country. A team / academy may be referred to as a "football program". [9]
There is no single national governing body for American football in the United States or a continental governing body for North America. There is an international governing body, the International Federation of American Football, or IFAF.
The governing body for American football in the United States is USA Football.
The 32-team National Football League (NFL) is currently the only major American football league in the United States. There have been numerous attempts over the past several decades to create a second major or high-level professional league, most of which failed within a few years or, in the cases of the All-America Football Conference and 1960s American Football League, merged with the NFL. The National Football League has the highest revenue and average attendance of any sports league in the world.
The NFL has not operated any developmental minor leagues since the folding of the NFL Europe League in 2007. There are some "independent" leagues operating in the US, but they are not overseen by the NFL and the teams has no affiliation to NFL franchises.
The United Football League is the predominant professional spring football league. It consists of two four-team conferences, the XFL and the USFL, that originally were founded and played as separate eight-team leagues in 2020 and 2022 respectively before agreeing to a merger with each other. Both conferences bear the names of leagues before them: the USFL was named after a 1980s major professional league known as the United States Football League and reached a settlement with the remaining rightsholders to that league; the XFL was a revival of a 2001 league of the same name from the same founder, Vince McMahon, who sold the league and brand after the 2020 season.
Other active minor league are the Gridiron Developmental Football League and the Rivals Professional Football League which are viewed as low-level or semi-pro leagues.
There are several professional and semi-professional indoor American football leagues, played at hockey-sized arenas. The largest and oldest operating leagueis the Indoor Football League which has 13 teams spanning from Ohio to California. Historically the Arena Football League, which launched in 1987 was the most prominent league but as the league had operational issues following its 2008 bankruptcy, teams folded and left for other leagues before the Arena Football League folded in 2019.
Other pro leagues, which are regional in nature, are the National Arena League which includes several former AFL teams, and the Champions Indoor Football which are viewed as second-tier leagues; and the American Indoor Football Alliance, American Arena League and American West Football Conference which are third-tier or semi-pro leagues.
Indoor football leagues play by significantly different rules that accommodate a smaller field of play.
Some American players go to Canada and play in the Canadian Football League, which operates professionally on a somewhat older rule system with a number of differences from the American game but still recognizable as "football" to the casual American football observer. The CFL allocates half of its teams' rosters for players born and raised in Canada but allows the rest of the players to be foreign born (in practice, these spots are almost always filled by Americans); the CFL also has television presence in the United States and as recently as 1995 played games in the U.S.
College football is also popular throughout North America. [10] Most of college football in the United States is governed by the NCAA. Many colleges and universities have football teams, often with dedicated football stadiums. These teams mostly play other similarly sized schools, through the NCAA's divisional system, which divides collegiate sports teams into four divisions (I-FBS, I-FCS, II and III). The largest, most popular collegiate teams routinely fill stadiums larger than 75,000. [11] Eight college football stadiums—the University of Michigan's Michigan Stadium, Penn State's Beaver Stadium, Ohio State's Ohio Stadium, Texas A&M's Kyle Field, the University of Tennessee's Neyland Stadium, LSU's Tiger Stadium, Alabama's Bryant–Denny Stadium, and Darrell K Royal–Texas Memorial Stadium at the University of Texas at Austin—seat more than 100,000 fans and usually sell out. The weekly autumn ritual of college football includes marching bands, cheerleaders, homecoming, parties, the tailgate party; it forms an important part of the culture in much of small-town America. [12] [13] Football is a major source of revenue to the athletic programs of schools, public and private, in the United States. [14] Top college football players enter the NFL Draft after their college careers are over, in hopes of signing with an NFL team.
"FBS" and "FCS" are abbreviations for the Football Bowl Subdivision and Football Championship Subdivision, two sections of Division I that exist only in football. These two subdivisions were formerly known as Divisions I-A and I-AA respectively. The Championship Subdivision, consisting mostly of smaller schools than the FBS but larger than D-II, has a multiple-round playoff system just like Divisions II and III, while the Bowl Subdivision has only a limited, and unofficial, four-team playoff and has historically only featured division championships and bowl games. FBS and FCS teams can, and often do, play against each other. Unofficially, the Bowl Subdivision is divided into two further subdivisions, "major conferences" (also known as "Power Five conferences") and "mid-majors" (known in modern parlance as the "Group of Five"). In practice, only major conference teams are eligible to compete for the national championship and receive significant favor in the opinion polling over mid-majors, and it was not until the addition of the BCS National Championship Game that mid-majors had a realistic chance at appearing in one of the major bowls. Although the FCS has a playoff, three conferences do not participate (the Ivy League does not allow its teams to play in the postseason, and the historically black SWAC and MEAC instead play each other in a bowl of their own). Division III teams do not offer scholarships to their players; two Division I FCS leagues also do not offer scholarships—the Ivy League, which prohibits athletic scholarships in any sport, and the Pioneer Football League, which only competes in football and whose members all offer scholarships in non-football sports.
With the exception of the annual Army–Navy Game, only Power Five conference teams air on national broadcast television, although mid-majors, FCS teams, D-II and D-III games can see more limited coverage on cable and local television.[ citation needed ]
Though the NCAA is the most publicized college athletic organization, the NAIA (which houses mostly smaller private colleges in the midwest), NJCAA (an association for community colleges), and California Community College Athletic Association (CCCAA) (that state's equivalent to the NJCAA) also sanction football games. There also exists a club football circuit for student-run teams and colleges that choose not to compete at the varsity level. In addition to this, 10 colleges field teams in the Collegiate Sprint Football League, a league in which all players must weigh no more than 178 pounds (81 kg) in order to be eligible to play; four of those teams are long-established sprint teams that co-exist alongside their NCAA counterparts (two from the Ivy League and two military academies), while six teams that have been added since the CSFL began an ongoing expansion in 2008 either never had a varsity squad (one recent addition, 2015 expansion team Chestnut Hill College, was an all-women's school that did not even admit men until 2003) or downgraded from an NCAA team to a sprint team.[ citation needed ]
Most American high schools field football teams. High school football is popular; top schools regularly fill stadiums holding over 10,000 fans, and can afford artificial playing surfaces.[ citation needed ]
High school teams generally play only against other teams from their state (notable exceptions include matchups between nearby schools located on opposite sides of a state line and occasional matchups between two nationally ranked teams for television purposes). Still, some private Christian high schools play for national championships through organizations like the Federated Christian Athletic Association. Public high school football in most states, as is the case with other high school sports, is governed by the National Federation of State High School Associations (NFHS).
For rural schools that do not have the student body to support a full football team, the NFHS sanctions nine-man football (most popular in the upper Midwest), six-man football (most commonly used in Texas, although previously more widely popular and undergoing a minor revival elsewhere), and eight-man football (which the most common reduced-man format in most other states).
Adult amateur football, also known as semi-pro football, is a level of American football. It is commonly known as "working man's" football, meaning the players have regular jobs and play football on the weekends. Though the players do not get paid, the leagues and the games are run in a somewhat professional manner. For most leagues, it is against the rules to pay its players to play. The rules of the game are usually a hybrid of NFL and NCAA rules.
There are several different leagues, regional in nature, playing in the United States:
League | First season | Type | Geographical area |
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Amateur to Professional Developmental Football League [15] [16] [17] | 2013 [18] | Outdoor | Southeast |
East Coast Football League [19] [20] | 2013 | Outdoor | New England |
Eastern Football League [21] [22] [23] | 1961 [24] | Outdoor | Northeastern |
Empire Football League | 1969 | Outdoor | New York State |
Florida Football Alliance | 2008 | Outdoor | Florida |
Mason-Dixon Football League [25] [26] [27] | 1978 [28] | Outdoor | Mid-Atlantic |
MidStates Football League [29] [30] [31] | 1999 [32] | Outdoor | North Central |
Minor Football League [33] [34] [35] [36] | 1993 | Outdoor | Eastern & Central United States |
North Louisiana Football Alliance | 2020 | Nine-man football | South Central |
New England Football League | 1994 | Outdoor | New England |
Pacific Coast Football League [37] [38] [39] | 2006 [40] | Outdoor | California |
Pacific Northwest Football League [41] [42] | 2016 | Outdoor | Pacific Northwest |
Rocky Mountain Football League [43] [44] | 1997 [45] | Outdoor | Rocky Mountains |
Several leagues supporting women's semi-professional football play have existed. The current major league is the Women's Football Alliance (WFA). The WFA started to play in 2009 stocked with teams from two dissolved leagues, the National Women's Football Association and Women's Professional Football League (NWFA and WPFL respectively).
American 7s Football League (A7FL) is a semi-professional league which plays a seven-man version of gridiron football, while the American Flag Football League plays a variant of American football where, instead of tackling players to the ground, the defensive team must remove a flag or flag belt from the ball carrier to end a down.
USA Football assembles a national football team for competition in the IFAF World Championship every four years. Because of concerns over competitive balance, USA Football did not field teams for the first two events in 1999 and 2003. The 2007 team consisted solely of amateur players who had graduated from college that spring, from a diverse mix of smaller and larger colleges and universities. The 2011 squad's criteria were looser, allowing some professional players to play (mostly unemployed, lower-end and minor league players; no NFL or NCAA stars participated). Both the 2007 and 2011 incarnations of the team won their year's respective world championship.
The IFAF also fields an U-19 team composed of high school football players that has participated in the 2009, 2012, 2014 and 2016 junior world championships. The national U-19 team won the 2009 and 2014 contests but lost the 2012 contest to Canada.
Women's football teams in the United States have had many sports leagues. Among them are the Women's Professional Football League (1965–1973), the Women's Professional Football League, the Independent Women's Football League, the Women's Football Alliance, and the X League. In 1970, Patricia Palinkas became the holder of the Orlando Panthers and became the first woman to play in the Atlantic Coast Football League, [46] and in 2010 Katie Hnida became the kicker for the Fort Wayne FireHawks in the Continental Indoor Football League. [47]
College football refers to gridiron football that is played by teams of amateur student-athletes at universities and colleges. It was through collegiate competition that gridiron football first gained popularity in the United States.
Women's gridiron football, more commonly known as women's tackle football, women's American football, women's Canadian football, or simply women's football, is a form of gridiron football played by women. Most leagues play by similar rules to the men's game. Women primarily play on a semi-professional or amateur level in the United States. Very few high schools or colleges offer the sport solely for women and girls. However, on occasion, it is permissible for a female player to join the otherwise male team.
Flag football is a variant of American football where, instead of tackling players to the ground, the defensive team must remove a flag or flag belt from the ball carrier ("deflagging") to end a down. The sport has a strong amateur following with several national and international competitions each year sponsored by various associations but is most popularly played in America where it was invented. A flag variant of Canadian football also exists.
In North America, a bowl game, or simply bowl, is one of a number of postseason college football games that are primarily played by teams belonging to the NCAA's Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS). For most of its history, the Division I Bowl Subdivision had avoided using a playoff tournament to determine an annual national champion, which was instead traditionally determined by a vote of sports writers and other non-players. In place of such a playoff, various cities across the United States developed their own regional festivals featuring postseason college football games. Prior to 2002, bowl game statistics were not included in players' career totals. Despite attempts to establish a permanent system to determine the FBS national champion on the field, various bowl games continue to be held because of the vested economic interests entrenched in them.
Gridiron football, also known as North American football, or in North America as simply football, is a family of football team sports primarily played in the United States and Canada. American football, which uses 11 players, is the form played in the United States and the best known form of gridiron football worldwide, while Canadian football, which uses 12 players, predominates in Canada. Other derivative varieties include arena football, flag football and amateur games such as touch and street football. Football is played at professional, collegiate, high school, semi-professional, and amateur levels.
Sports in the United States are an important part of the nation's culture. Historically, the national sport has been baseball. However, in more recent decades, American football has been the most popular sport in terms of broadcast viewership audience. Basketball has grown into the mainstream American sports scene since the 1980s, with ice hockey and soccer doing the same around the turn of the 21st century.
The Illinois State Redbirds are the athletic teams that represent Illinois State University in Normal, Illinois. Teams play at the NCAA Division I level. The football team competes in the Missouri Valley Football Conference while most other teams compete in the Missouri Valley Conference. The fight song is Go, You Redbirds.
The United States national American football team often referred to as Team USA represents the United States in international men's Flag football and American football competitions. It is currently controlled by USA Football and is recognized by the International Federation of American Football (IFAF). The team is currently ranked no.1 in the world in both flag and tackle Football by the IFAF.
USA Football is the governing body of American football in the United States. It is the United States' member of the International Federation of American Football (IFAF), and a recognized sports organization of the U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Committee. It selects and organizes the U.S. men's national team and the U.S. women's nation team in federation-sanctioned international competition.
The Villanova Wildcats football program represents Villanova University in the NCAA Division I Football Championship Subdivision.
The Brown Bears are the sports teams that represent Brown University, an American university located in Providence, Rhode Island. The Bears are part of the Ivy League conference. Brown's mascot is Bruno. Both the men's and women's teams share the name, competing in 34 National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I sports. In football, the Bears, along with all other the Ivy League teams, compete in the Football Championship Subdivision (FCS).
American football, also known as gridiron football, is a team sport played by two teams of eleven players on a rectangular field with goalposts at each end. The offense, the team with possession of the oval-shaped football, attempts to advance down the field by running with the ball or passing it, while the defense, the team without possession of the ball, aims to stop the offense's advance and to take control of the ball for themselves. The offense must advance at least ten yards in four downs or plays; if they fail, they turn over the football to the defense, but if they succeed, they are given a new set of four downs to continue the drive. Points are scored primarily by advancing the ball into the opposing team's end zone for a touchdown or kicking the ball through the opponent's goalposts for a field goal. The team with the most points at the end of a game wins.
The Campbell Fighting Camels football program is the intercollegiate American football team for Campbell University located in the U.S. state of North Carolina. The team competes in the NCAA Division I Football Championship Subdivision (FCS) and is a member of CAA Football, the legally separate football league operated by the multi-sports Coastal Athletic Association (CAA). Campbell's first football team was fielded in 2008. The team plays its home games at the 5,000 seat Barker–Lane Stadium in Buies Creek, North Carolina. Mike Minter, former safety for the National Football League's Carolina Panthers, is the head coach.
The Penn Quakers football program is the college football team at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. The Penn Quakers have competed in the Ivy League since its inaugural season of 1956, and are a Division I Football Championship Subdivision (FCS) member of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA). Penn has played in 1,413 football games, the most of any school in any division. Penn plays its home games at historic Franklin Field, the oldest football stadium in the nation. All Penn games are broadcast on WNTP or WFIL radio.
Although there are no major league professional franchises based in South Carolina, the state does have numerous minor league teams. The Carolina Panthers and Carolina Hurricanes major league professional teams are based in neighboring North Carolina. However, the Carolina Panthers, a professional American football team of the NFL, are based near the South Carolina border, have training facilities in Spartanburg, and have shown their desire to represent both of the Carolinas, with the motto "two states, one team". Similarly, Charlotte FC, a professional men's soccer club of MLS, is also based near the border and has a primary jersey which represents both states. College teams throughout the state represent their particular South Carolina institution, along with the state being a prime destination for golf and water sports.
The National Football League (NFL) and the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) are respectively the most popular professional and amateur football organizations in the United States. The National Football League was founded in 1920 and has since become the largest and most popular sport in the United States. The NFL has the highest average attendance of any sporting league in the world, with an average attendance of 66,960 people per game during the 2011 NFL season. It is played between the champions of the National Football Conference (NFC) and the American Football Conference (AFC), and its winner is awarded the Vince Lombardi Trophy.
The modern history of American football can be considered to have begun after the 1932 NFL Playoff Game, which was the first American football game to feature hash marks, the legalization of the forward pass anywhere behind the line of scrimmage, and the movement of the goal posts back to the goal line; it was also the first indoor game since 1902. Other innovations to occur in the years after 1932 were the introduction of the AP Poll in 1934, the tapering of the ends of the football in 1934, the awarding of the first Heisman Trophy in 1935, the first NFL draft in 1936, and the first televised game in 1939.
The North American continent is the birthplace of several organized sports, such as basketball, charrería/rodeo, gridiron football, ice hockey, jaripeo/bull riding, lacrosse, ollamaliztl, mixed martial arts (MMA), racquetball, ultimate, and volleyball. The modern versions of baseball and softball, skateboarding, snowboarding, stock car racing, and surfing also developed in North America.
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