1) American football is commercially oriented. Each short play allows for that much more time devoted to adverts.
2) American football allows for very little creativity, with little to no thinking being done by the individual players.
3) To call american football 'football' is a misnomer, because the feet are rarely in contact with the ball, and the ball is not a ball at all. 'Handegg' would be a more accurate title. And the fact that Americans refer to association football as soccer is just idiotic.
4) American football players are pansies. If you want to see real men, watch a game of rugby.
For people who haven't seen much of John Cleese's more politically charged material, this may seem pretty venomous. It is hard to determine whether his gripes are born out of legitimate annoyance or a needlessly confusing attempt at humor*, or some combination thereof.
However, since Cleese is a well known master of satire, I think that it is reasonable to give him the benefit of the doubt. The problem is that his sentiments are echoed by thousands of others who are quite serious in what they say. So for all of those people, here is the other side of the story.
1) American football is indeed commercially oriented. This is because our networks operate in a capitalistic system. It costs money to gain broadcasting rights; ergo, to remain competitive, they must advertise up the wazoo. But in the UK, citizens pay for television with government taxation, which means they don't have nearly as many commercials.
2) I don't know how much american football John Cleese has ever played. Probably none, but he is getting up there in years, so statistically there is a reasonable chance he has at least once. It is a very tactically oriented game in which the coach and the various coordinators duel with their opponents by trying to exploit the other team's weaknesses and to capitalize on their own team's strengths using carefully designed plays. It's really hard to compare this system to that of association football since it is effectively an apples and oranges debate. The level (player vs coach) in which 'creativity'** occurs in each sport is determined primarily by where such creativity serves to benefit the most.
3) Where to begin? In case you didn't know, a lot of field sports in the UK are called 'football'. Rugby is short for rugby football, american football is actually called gridiron football (because the field resembles a gridiron), and of course there is association football. When rugby football was imported from the UK to the US, we modified the rules to our liking and named the result gridiron football, because that was the naming convention. We also kept the rugby style ball, which, you guessed it, happens to resemble an egg. We also decided to start calling a lot of these sports by their abbreviated names to make things simpler. This is why you rarely hear rugby referred to as rugby football anymore and you will hear american football called gridiron from time to time.
This is also why we call association football soccer, because soccer is short for association. If that seems a little dumb, blame the Brits, because they coined the term soccer long before anyone in the US ever used the word. Really.
4) American football players are pansies. If you want to see real men, watch a game of rugby.
For people who haven't seen much of John Cleese's more politically charged material, this may seem pretty venomous. It is hard to determine whether his gripes are born out of legitimate annoyance or a needlessly confusing attempt at humor*, or some combination thereof.
However, since Cleese is a well known master of satire, I think that it is reasonable to give him the benefit of the doubt. The problem is that his sentiments are echoed by thousands of others who are quite serious in what they say. So for all of those people, here is the other side of the story.
1) American football is indeed commercially oriented. This is because our networks operate in a capitalistic system. It costs money to gain broadcasting rights; ergo, to remain competitive, they must advertise up the wazoo. But in the UK, citizens pay for television with government taxation, which means they don't have nearly as many commercials.
2) I don't know how much american football John Cleese has ever played. Probably none, but he is getting up there in years, so statistically there is a reasonable chance he has at least once. It is a very tactically oriented game in which the coach and the various coordinators duel with their opponents by trying to exploit the other team's weaknesses and to capitalize on their own team's strengths using carefully designed plays. It's really hard to compare this system to that of association football since it is effectively an apples and oranges debate. The level (player vs coach) in which 'creativity'** occurs in each sport is determined primarily by where such creativity serves to benefit the most.
3) Where to begin? In case you didn't know, a lot of field sports in the UK are called 'football'. Rugby is short for rugby football, american football is actually called gridiron football (because the field resembles a gridiron), and of course there is association football. When rugby football was imported from the UK to the US, we modified the rules to our liking and named the result gridiron football, because that was the naming convention. We also kept the rugby style ball, which, you guessed it, happens to resemble an egg. We also decided to start calling a lot of these sports by their abbreviated names to make things simpler. This is why you rarely hear rugby referred to as rugby football anymore and you will hear american football called gridiron from time to time.
This is also why we call association football soccer, because soccer is short for association. If that seems a little dumb, blame the Brits, because they coined the term soccer long before anyone in the US ever used the word. Really.
4) I should probably skip this one, because it's not really related to the question of football vs soccer, but I'll go ahead and talk about it anyways. As a person who has played quite a bit of american football and a little rugby, I can honestly say that american football is much, much more violent. Rugby is a contact sport, american football is a collision sport. The reason pads are required in american football is because the death toll in the early 1900's was too high.
So that's the end of part 1. Now that those complaints have been covered, I'll probably spend more time talking about which game is more enjoyable to watch and play.
*Since I am a yank, it could very well be I just don't get Cleese's British humor.
**Also, players in american football probably don't get enough credit when it comes to individual contribution.
So that's the end of part 1. Now that those complaints have been covered, I'll probably spend more time talking about which game is more enjoyable to watch and play.
*Since I am a yank, it could very well be I just don't get Cleese's British humor.
**Also, players in american football probably don't get enough credit when it comes to individual contribution.
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