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Practice dictation & shadowing on the daily life story: National Football League
National Football League
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National Football League
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The NFL National Football League is one of the wealthiest and most powerful sports organizations in the world.
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Many of the single franchises or teams are worth 200 to $300 million each.
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As such, each team should be thought of as a major corporation.
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American Style football, of which the NFL maintains a complete monopoly over the elite professional ranks, has its roots in English rugby, which was played in US Eastern colleges and universities in the 19th century.
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However, rugby did not have features in keeping with American cultural norms.
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So US football aroused out of norms consistent with American Society, such as clearly measured possession of territory and the expansion of frontiers through conquering new land.
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Walter Camp, a Yale player, devised the rules of the American game in 1880.
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He introduced downs into the game, or breaks so that teams could reassess their position and prepare for the next attack.
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This was in stark contrast to rugby's non-stop and more flowing play.
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This move would, years later, be crucial to the sport's success with natural breaks and play.
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The game would be 1 conducive to American commercial television, which relies on advertisement breaks for the generation of revenue.
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Equally important was the later inclusion of the forward pass into the game.
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This made the game appear more offensive, and the famous Hail Mary Long Pass is, to this day one of the most dramatic plays in sport.
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Football.
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Success as a dominant American sport alongside baseball, was secured in the 1960s with some important contracts with television networks.
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The ABC Television network sponsored A rival American Football League to compete with the other dominant National Football League.
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ABC Television did not hide the fact that the rival league was created for the sole purpose of creating more leverage with advertisers.
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After gaining greater legitimacy and earning more revenue, the upstart AFL was able to negotiate independently with other television networks and sign on big name players.
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The most notable was Dark quarterback Joe Namath.
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With the AFL rising as a legitimate business competitor, the NFL and AFL negotiated A merger resulting in the NFL League as it is known to this day.
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Since the merger, the NFL has maintained almost a complete monopoly over American professional football.
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Football.
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Success then, has has been a reflection of the ideals of American Society and more specifically of American style commercial enterprise.
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The league's success has in no small part been due to the relationship between the media and the sport.
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In a sense, football is a perfect example of a modern media generated sport successfully linking American norms and values with a sport tailor made for commercial profit.