American football is prevalent in the United States. Since the 90s, its level of popularity has surpassed that of baseball, thereby achieving classification as the most popular sport of that nation. The professional league, the National Football League ( NFL ), consisting of 32 teams, is very popular.
The Super Bowl is the final of the season, where the champions of the two conferences (AFC and NFC) of the league compete for the Vince Lombardi Trophy.
American football at the university level is also very popular. Many colleges and universities participate in the NCAA, the first division of college football, which fills huge stadiums again and again. University matches are broadcast on television. Other universities compete in the NAIA. In addition to these leagues and teams, there is also the American Football World Cup.
In Canada, American football is very popular, and they have the ” Canadian Football League (CFL)”, (Canadian Football League). This sport is similar to American football and is the second most popular in that country. This professional league is made up of eight teams located in different cities and divided between the East and West divisions, which have four teams each. The competition lasts 20 weeks between June and October; Each team plays 18 games and has two weeks off. After the regular season, six of the eight teams play for three weeks the playoffs, which end with the winner of the Gray Cup title.
American football in Mexico is the fifth most popular sport in the country and fourth in the metropolitan area of Mexico City. 11 In the country, there is a great interest in the United States NFL on a professional level. In the country, the match between the teams of the two largest public universities in the country, the Pumas of the National Autonomous University of Mexico and the White Eagles of the National Polytechnic Institute is considered the national classic and has been played for more than 70 years making it the oldest national classic match of any sport. Monterrey city, since 1945, it also has its classic among the Wild Borregos of the Technological Institute of Higher Studies of Monterrey and the Authentic Tigers of the Autonomous University of Nuevo Leรณn.
Outside the United States, football as a sport has never exerted an enormous influence globally. The NFL experimented for more than 10 years with a European league (the NFL Europe ), having franchises in Amsterdam, Cologne, Dusseldorf, Barcelona, Frankfurt, London, Edinburgh, Hamburg, and Berlin. The Spanish franchise, the Barcelona Dragons, existed until 2003. However, in July of 2007, The disappearance of the NFL Europe was announced.
The NFL has taken professional matches (the American Bowl ) to Paris, Tokyo, Osaka, London, Monterrey, and Mexico City, among other places. In this last location, the first regular-season game played outside the United States was held on October 2 , 2005 at the Azteca Stadium. That night, the Arizona Cardinals beat the San Francisco 49ersand an attendance record was set. In October 2006 the NFL announced that it would hold at least two games every year in other countries.
In 2007, the first regular-season NFL game outside of North America was played at Wembley Stadium, the second in its history, which faced the New York Giants and the Miami Dolphins, with victory for the first.
This discipline is also practiced at an amateur level, and enjoys adherents in countries such as: Nicaragua , Dominican Republic , Germany , Japan , Spain , France , Finland , Australia , Paraguay , Uruguay , Argentina , Brazil , Philippines , Chile , Colombia , Panama , Peru , Honduras , Ecuador and Puerto Rico , among other countries.