History of American football

As professional American football reaches its 100-year anniversary, the sport only seems to increase in popularity. The power of football and the influence of the NFL is all around us, appearing in numerous aspects of our lives including TV, politics, food, gaming, business, fashion, and more. 

“There isn’t the same kind of media coverage of any other extracurricular activity that matches the media coverage that’s given to sports and football in particular,” Coakley said.

Credit: NFL on ESPN

As televisions arrived in American households, the NFL provided at-home viewers with the Super Bowl, which would become the biggest television event of the year. Statista reports that last year’s Super Bowl LVI was aired in front of almost 100 million viewers, nearly a third of the U.S. population in 2022.

“Football is the most popular spectator sport in the United States,” Coakley said.

Despite the football craze Americans partake in today, in the 1920s, football was not as respected as it is today by many Americans. However, football evolved and began to stand for much more than just a hobby. 

“Back in the day when football was really big in Ivy League institutions, it basically became this nationalized sport for a certain type of muscular, Christian masculinity,” said Alex Manning, a lecturer and research scholar at Yale University.

A major turning point in the history of football in America was the merging of the NFL and the American Football League. Professional football teams began to expand rapidly across the country as the two major football leagues combined to create an all-powerful force of football that swept in an immense number of followers as it continued to spread to the Western coast. 

Professional football has developed in the new millennium, and new factors such as celebrity statuses and social media have played into the popularity of football and the NFL. 

“The media became a megaphone for the sport and provided tremendously valuable and yet free publicity. And so the two institutions developed together. Football and the media are inextricably intertwined with each other,” Montez de Oca said.

The tradition of football remains as firmly rooted in American culture as ever, and the professional leagues even endeavor to branch out internationally. But taking a closer look on the inside, the prevalence of football is not only a staple in America but specifically so in high school culture. The tradition even transcends the rising popularity of other sports.

The History of American Football by Zara Hai