Is popularity of football in North America in decline?

Tough question to pose if you’re a fan of football, but don’t worry, the picture is not that grim. Football is an integral part of American sports history, but it is actually more than that. It is part of culture and it is so mainstream, foreigners and those who are not familiar with it, often complain that football references are all too common in American movies, TV shows and series.

It has been reported that a lot more Americans are starting to watch the sport that’s known as football on the other side of the pond, namely soccer. Many international legends decided to come to America to conclude their careers, and it has been reported that they are quite thrilled with the success of the MLS. Soccer’s popularity is growing in Canada as well. Soccer is already first in terms of participation and three Canadian clubs are competing in the American Major League Soccer.

All three Canadian clubs boast impressive attendance figures, with the average attendance of Vancouver Whitecaps exceeding 30,000. However, do all these figures and tendencies automatically imply that football is becoming less popular? It’s pretty much like saying that the growing popularity of online casino and games like Starburst slot that automatically implies that land-based casinos, or roulette as such are less popular. And while that could be the case, we want to reach a conclusion that’s based on facts, not something that might be the case.

The NFL and football in general is a large industry

Football is still the most popular sport in the US and before going into an analysis of what the future holds, we want to explore the game’s past and see how it came to be the most popular sport in the US.

The participants in the first game of football back in 1869 surely didn’t dream that they are creating something extraordinary that will grow to become the most popular sport in most of North American and an industry worth $9 billion (that’s the NFL alone).

As you surely know, the game started as a combination of soccer and rugby and got its name after a rule shift from soccer to a more rugby-based game. Many claim that at that point it could’ve been called rugby, but the name football was implemented as a sort of a compromise and it caught on. The newly developed game changed over the years and it looked less and less like rugby, although the two are still quite similar. Rugby isn’t particularly popular in the US, but American football is making a breakthrough in Europe.

Things are changing and sports are ‘migrating’

And that brings us to our next and most important point. For almost a century, certain games have been popular in certain countries and the landscape of sport popularity across different regions remained pretty much the same. However, in this day and age, especially with the widespread use of the internet and related technology, sports are spreading to areas whether they haven’t been played nor popular before. There are a lot more nations where football is played, and basketball has made its way to China, for instance.

Just as football is becoming popular throughout the world, other sports are becoming more popular in the US and Canada, it’s a two-way street. Statistics show that a lot more North Americans are becoming interested in soccer for instance, but many European TVs, including cable and satellite now broadcast NFL matches and many Europeans are becoming interested in football, not to mention that football leagues have been established in all over the world. Even smaller countries like Croatia, Serbia, Slovenia, Slovakia and the Czech Republic have their own American football leagues and there’s also a Central European Football League where teams from multiple countries compete.

Football is not going anywhere

So, it is not that football is becoming less popular in North America, just like soccer isn’t becoming less popular in Europe, simply because American football is gaining popularity. On the contrary, with the growing popularity of American football elsewhere, we can expect that a lot of the tourists who are visiting America will want to watch a Football game, so more instead of fewer people might be attending football matches in the upcoming years.