Ten Reasons Why Americans Love Football:

1. We are the best at football.  No other country comes close to us.  We own football like we own proceesed lunch meat, Disney World, neck tattoos and Beyonce.
 
2. It’s violent. Who ever  watched “The Sopranos” or any Arnold Schwarzenegger movie for the acting.

3. Little kids look funny playing football.  Kids play tackle football in full pads at five and six years old. Have you seen a live 3 ½ foot bobble head try to run sixty yards with 21 other bobble heads in hot pursuit? That’s funny.
 
4. It's appointment television. Our commitment is manageable. You know when (and where) to find games on your television.  Games are either in prime time or on the weekend. If you want to be a casual fan, it's easy.  You don’t have to keep up with football everyday through 80 plus, or even 160 plus games like other sports.


5. It’s appointment gambling and for some, it’s a manageable vice … if you want it to be. And yes, fantasy football is also a form of gambling.  Then, again so is paying taxes via buying lottery tickets.

6. The players look like superheroes. Do you really want to see C. C. Sabathia or Shaquille O’Neal without a shirt? Adrian Petersen is a walking anatomy lesson. And even the fat guys on the offensive line look cool when they put on twenty-something pounds of space age kevlar, impact resisting body armor.

7. Football players are Americans, and they speak English.  The athletes and coaches are predominately Americans. This is not so true in baseball, hockey and lately basketball with the globalization of the NBA. We don't need a translator for football. (Although sometimes, subtitles would be nice).

8. Kickers. They really don’t fit in with everybody else. They are lees than pint-size, and they don’t practice with the team.  These hummels only play for a few seconds every game, yet their success is critical to the outcome of every close game. We either jeer them like the nerdy kid with one entire hand up his nose, or we celebrate them like the guy (not Al Gore) who created the interweb.

9. The Super Bowl. You can lose yourself, and your interest and your girlfriend in the legnthy baseball or basketball play-offs.  It doesn't make sense to come off a the beach sunburnt and browse sixty channells to find a second round NBA play-off gamre.  Then, there is the soccer.  Even if  soccer were  a very minor part of the American sports fan’s consciousness, we still could not tolerate the vuvuzelas and the World Cup every year. Finally, golf and NASCAR are not even clearly sports to the guy making dents in his couch every weekend, and the PGA and Cup play-offs are about as manufactured yet inconsistent as a fast food value menu.

10. Ask any coming of age high school boy, and he will tell you … cheerleaders.

 

Did I leave something off the list? Post a comment and let me know.  Also, please check out my SEC football posts at:
Sean Conway on 2010 University of Tennessee Football
Sean Conway on 2010 University of South Carolina Football