Football has outranked baseball as the most popular sport in the United States ever since the 1960s. The National Football League (NFL) is the most popular and only major American football league participated in by 32 teams, and the game is the most watched sport on U.S. television alone. Its championship Super Bowl game is watched by almost half of US television households, and televised in more than 150 other countries. Super Bowl Sunday has actually come to resemble an annual ritual during late January or February.

Perhaps the popularity of American Football can be attributed to it being a sport of contrasts, where there’s action on every play witn in-between calms. Most football players are big and strong, but some others are small and fast. Brute strength is a key element in the game, but not without intelligence, agility, skill, grace and athleticism.

Walter Camp contributed much to the development of the game. He was once a general athletic director and head advisory football coach in Yale University. After that, he became the chairman of the Yale football committee on 1888-1912. He helped develop the rules of the game away from sports like rugby and soccer. The following are examples of rules from rugby and soccer adapted for use in American football:
• creation of the safety, interference, penalties, and the neutral zone
• tackling as low as the knee was permitted - 1888
• a touchdown increased in value to six points and field goals went down to three points - 1912
• one side retained undisputed possession of the ball, until that side gives up the ball as a result of its own violations
• the line of scrimmage
• 11 on a team instead of 15
• created the quarter-back and center positions
• forward pass
• standardized the scoring system, numerical scoring

American football is known in the United States and Canada simply as football. The NFL, or the National Football League, was formed in 1920.

Rules of the game
Hall of fame