Greed

Greed

            In the United States, sport entertainment has become an American tradition.  The various cities have teams that citizens relate to through a family tradition or some kind of affiliation to their place of residence.  American football is a corrupt sport. 

            To see the corruption in American football is notice the number one objective, revenue.  American football is not about the players, but rather the money players generate.  Objectification of the players limits the players to running billboards of the franchise.  Although, popular players like Ray Lewis and Elli Manning have a positive fan base that extends beyond the field into commercials and charities.  The end game is how they represent their associated teams.  In addition, any bad publicity can end a player’s career in a heartbeat.  Franklin Foer notes “Americans call their sporting teams franchises” (116), note that major sporting stadium is named by a commercial organization.  To name a few, M&T Bank has the Baltimore Ravens, FedEx field has the Washington Redskins, and up north, Lincoln Financial has the Philadelphia Eagles.  These companies purchased the right to have their name on the stadium.  This shows the franchise symptom.  

On the other hand, soccer has sponsors, but these sponsors do not take over the love the game. Comparatively, American football and soccer differ with the love of the game.  Soccer signifies their teams as clubs.  Foer notes about the Brazilian soccer club, “Brazilians call their teams clubs, because most are actually clubs…swimming pools, tennis courts…places for the middle class to spend a Saturday afternoon” (116).  The fans have a place to work out and enjoy their favorite club association.  Different from the American football franchise, fans mostly watch at sporting bars like Hooters.  Not at all is the argument about the general health of the fans, but rather how the fans relate to the sport. 

Globalization of American football cannot reach the level of soccer because soccer is the world’s sport.  The recent world cup was the most televised sport, nearly topping the super bowl in America.  Even though, the NFL had a game in London to globalize the notion of American football as possibly reaching the eastern hemisphere.  This action was not for the love of the game, but for the love of money.  In addition, the American football name is contradicting the actual play of the game.  The ball only touches the foot ten percent of the time of play, yet in soccer the ball is touching the foot ninety percent of the time.   

            American football and soccer have a strong fan base, but differ in the quality of the sport.  Soccer players unite countries as a whole, where as American football uses players as objects to make money.  The finical greed of the National Football League is evident with the amount of advertisements along side of the team’s logo.  Soccer will over turn American football because revenue is not the sole purpose of the sport. 

Works Cited

Foer, Franklin. How Soccer Explains the World. New York: Harper Perennial, 2006. Print.