by John Welford

Created on: January 07, 2008

I'll come clean at the outset I'm not an American. I therefore expect to be shot down in flames at having the appalling nerve to even hint at the suggestion that American sports might not be perfect in every possible respect indeed, I'd be disappointed if that didn't happen!

But the fact still remains American sports ARE boring! At least, when compared with their equivalents (or near-equivalents) on my side of the Pond.

For starters, it has always struck me as odd that, at least as far as team sports are concerned, Americans don't care to play with anyone else. OK they claim to play "soccer" up to a point, but they're not really any good at it, and they much prefer their version of "football" the one where foot and ball only rarely make any connection. The problem here is that hardly anyone outside America is remotely interested in playing the same game.

Which brings me back to my original point the rest of us don't play American football because we find the other codes much more exciting to play and to watch. There was a match played in London a few months ago between two professional American teams. I watched the highlights on television, and it seemed to me that the closest we get to it over here is Rugby League the version of the running-ball game played mostly in the north of England (and in Australia, New Zealand and South Africa). This is where a tackled player retains the ball and is allowed to pass it back, unimpeded, to a team-mate, unlike in Union rules where the ball must be released.

In both codes of rugby there is plenty of scope for free running, passing and skilful ball play and tackling. But in the American game I watched, the same thing seemed to be happening over and over again a second or two of action followed by everything coming to a grinding halt. We even had the absurd spectacle of a couple of officials running on to the field with a tape measure to check whether the ball had really travelled ten yards! And when the ball was lost to the other side, everyone trooped off the field and another lot of players came on!

But it's not just on the football field that the boredom factor is so much to the fore. For one thing, American sports watchers don't seem to be able to concentrate for more than five minutes at a time, so they don't protest at the constant interruptions in play for team talks, be it in basketball, ice hockey or whatever. In what sense is all this actually interesting?

Moving to Summer, we can compare baseball with cricket, both

• 1
• 2
• Next Page >>