FooTRALL AND ITS GREATEST PLAYERS been for some time the country s most popular sport It draws larger television audiences than does any other sport and in parts of the country college games attract crowds that exceed 100 000 The champion ship game of professional football is the Super Bowl which is the biggest annual American sports event Football is a highly organized sport in the United States It is played at youth high school college and professional levels Various forms of recreational football also are very popular HiGH SCHOOLS AND CoLLEGES Football inspires passion at every level but nowhere is this more true than at high schools and colleges At these levels local teams are often an important part of the community The schools in the National Collegiate Athletic Association NCAA are grouped into Divisions I II and III Division I which includes the major football powers is fur ther divided into two levels I A and I AA Most schools that meet Division I A criteria belong to a conference made up of eight to 12 teams Major I A schools that are not in a conference are called independents 12
ORGANIZED FooTBALL In high school football each state also has different conferences and divisions All of the states hold championship tournaments in each division and some states may have as many as eight divisions PROFESSIONAL LEAGUES There is only one major professional league in the United States the National Football League However the appetite for football in the United States is so great that rival pro fessional leagues have been attempted with mixed success The professional Arena Football League plays an indoor version of football RECREATIONAL FOOTBALL Recreational football has led to spin off ver sions of the game that are less violent and can be played without pads and helmets In touch football the player with the ball is tackled simply by being touched by an opponent Some teams play one hand touch football and others play a two handed version In flag football all the players wear belts with plastic or cloth flags attached The ballcarrier is considered stopped when an 13
FoOTBALL AND ITS GREATEST PLAYERS Rather than tackling each other flag football players try to pull strips of material from the belt of the player who has the ball Shutterstock com opponent grabs one of his or her flags Flag football is somewhat more challenging than touch football and less open to disagree ments about tackling THE IMPACT OF TELEVISION Few sports in the world have benefited from the arrival of television as much as profes sional football In the 1950s leaders of college 14
ORGANIZED FooTBALL football worried that television coverage of games would drastically reduce attendance and the NCAA held a tight rein on the num ber of games that could be broadcast The NFL under the leadership of commissioner Bert Bell quickly embraced the new tech nology The 1958 NFL Championship game between the Baltimore Colts and New York Giants was an overtime thriller that capti vated a large national audience and is widely considered the turning point in the fortunes of the NFL Bell was succeeded as league commis sioner in 1960 by Pete Rozelle who would oversee one of the largest growth periods experienced by any sport Rozelle increased the NFL s television revenues television generated income jumped from 350 000 per team in 1961 to 14 million per team in 1982 and established NFL Properties to manage the merchandising and marketing of the game He also was responsible for the advent of Monday Night Football in 1970 The first regular primetime broadcast of a sporting event Monday Night Football proved to be a major hit As more games became available on television interest in the sport grew 15
