The European Football Conference (EFC) and the National Football League (NFL) have been meeting for 53 years. These conferences have played out very differently in these decades, from the physicality to the viewership of games.
In American football, a touchdown results in six points being scored by a team. In European football, teams score only two points with a successful conversion kick after scoring a touchdown. Also, in American football there are eleven players on each side while European football has fifteen players per side. Other differences include the number of downs that may be made before possession is changed and how many yards must be made to achieve a first down depending upon where it occurred between the two forty-yard lines at the beginning of play.
Additionally, the footballs are different in size. The American football is larger than its European counterpart by an inch and a half. The process of making games equally entertaining for both audiences is called “globalization”. Many people have similarities with the sports but each region has its own expectations when it comes to how they play or watch football. One example of this would be the length of time it takes teams to prepare for a game during practice weekdays before the game on Sundays. Compared to American football players who play once every Sunday, European football plays up to five times per week resulting in their coaches having less time to spend on preparation compared to American football’s coaches whose only focus is preparing for one game per week.
The United States has the highest viewership of any sporting event in American football. With games being aired on Sunday, Monday, Thursday and now Saturday during the NFL season, multiple people have the opportunity to watch a game now instead of having to go to a stadium. In Europe, almost half as many people would watch a football game as opposed to Americans watching their own football league. In America there are 18 million viewers per week but in Europe that number is only 8 million viewers per week due to different views on sportsmanship. It takes much longer for European football players to rise up from their club teams onto national teams compared with Americans because it is a lot harder for them to make a good living playing professional ball in Europe than it is for Americans who turn into professional players at a very young age.
The pads that football players wear during games differs between the two places. While American football has solid pads, European soccer has padding made of foam which is not as thick and does not cover the entire body like American football player pads do. The rules for tackling differ also because of this padding difference. In America, you are allowed to tackle someone’s legs but in Europe they only allow people to tackle above the waist due to their lack of padding on their legs compared to American football players who can be tackled anywhere on their bodies. For example, rugby only allows tackles above the waist while European football tackles must include contact with shoulders or heads no matter how hard it hits them.
