Just about the most popular sports in the United States and Canada is American football. This contact team sport is really a blend of physical play along with strategic motion with the ultimate objective of scoring points by furthering the ball into the opponents goal line or reaching their end zone by either carrying the ball and running with it or passing it to a team member. The team which scores the most points in 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 variations in the forms like in the team size, playing area, number of downs, time rules etc. The differences are certainly not major and each can be adapted into another with some amount of tuning.
There are two major forms of American football played in the United States, namely, collegiate football and professional football. With the growth as well as the ever increasing popularity quite a few football leagues were born in the country. Two of the most powerful and prestigious leagues that are around in the country presently include the National Football League and the United Football League.
American football games that see the participation of student athletes through the various colleges, military academies and universities across the country is called collegiate or college football. It had been through college football the American football came 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 first American football game to get played in America was in 1874 between Harvard University and McGill University, Montreal. The 1st collegiate football competition was held the following year in 1875 in the match played between Tufts University and Harvard.
Modern 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 of the college football season sees most of the rivalry matches and conference games being played.
The professional football players are those teams that play American football at a professional level. These professional teams are a part of the two leagues in the Unites States called the NFL and the UFL. The NFL enjoys the status of being the biggest professional football league in the world. Formed with eleven teams this league has now grown in strength and now consists of 32 teams. The league is further divided into the American Football Conference plus the National Football conference and these 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 truly is one of the biggest games among the Americans.