Society & Culture Things in life you just don't understand - Part 2

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Boston tiger

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Not really understanding the USA love for college sport. Are the fans all ex uni students for that college or does the general working class population follow a college as well ? Is it completely parochial or do people follow teams from other states etc.
 

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Not really understanding the USA love for college sport. Are the fans all ex uni students for that college or does the general working class population follow a college as well ? Is it completely parochial or do people follow teams from other states etc.
The fans base is made up of current students, alumni, and regular people. You need to remember that many states do not have professional sports teams so they hang their hat on College teams. From what I can gather it is way more popular in the south- particularly those states with teams in the SEC conference (Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Kentuky etc.). Those supporters are very parochial and passionate about it with many of them not caring at all about the professional teams. There was a thread on a Georgia board I frequently read about why people care more about college football than the NFL and a lot if it came down to loyalty of players, no affinity to any NFL team, money thrown around by teams to recruit players, ego and poor behaviour of NFL players, and the general product of the NFL being inferior to what is on offer at College level. Of course there are other factors but those are the main ones IIRC.

As a fan of both College Football and the NFL, I think College is a much better and more enjoyable spectacle than the NFL.
 

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The US sports system is very different to here. There are exceptions like LeBron James but most players are drafted into the professional leagues in their 20s. Steph Curry was drafted at 21, Tom Brady at 23. That's unheard of here. If you are playing state league footy at 21 then chances are you will never make it to the AFL. The standard of college sports is very high. Our population is obviously a lot smaller but if you took all the players 21 and under out of the AFL and had them all playing state league footy the standard of the state leagues would improve.
 

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The fans base is made up of current students, alumni, and regular people. You need to remember that many states do not have professional sports teams so they hang their hat on College teams. From what I can gather it is way more popular in the south- particularly those states with teams in the SEC conference (Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Kentuky etc.). Those supporters are very parochial and passionate about it with many of them not caring at all about the professional teams. There was a thread on a Georgia board I frequently read about why people care more about college football than the NFL and a lot if it came down to loyalty of players, no affinity to any NFL team, money thrown around by teams to recruit players, ego and poor behaviour of NFL players, and the general product of the NFL being inferior to what is on offer at College level. Of course there are other factors but those are the main ones IIRC.

As a fan of both College Football and the NFL, I think College is a much better and more enjoyable spectacle than the NFL.
Do you have a visual example you can provide to show the difference in quality?
 

gaskin

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Do you have a visual example you can provide to show the difference in quality?
I didn't say it is better quality. I said to me it is a better spectacle. Of course the pros are going to be better quality football but that doesn't necessarily make it a better product.
 

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I hate the US sporting culture, and I hate how these NBA draftees are basically celebrities with millions of fans before they've even played a single pro game.
You could say the same for football in Europe too, the wages are so huge that most players are so out of touch with reality it's not funny. It least your jobbing AFL player on half a million a year while nothing to be sniffed at still has their feet on the ground.
 

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You can make a living playing in all 3 levels of the EFL. Average salary in League 2 (4th tier below Premier League, Championship and League 1) is GBP50k which while hardly Paul Pogba territory is more than most people in the UK earn. The gap from the PL down gets bigger each year, though.

Aaron Mooy's Huddersfield spent GBP11m on player wages last year and won promotion to the PL which will net them at least 100m in TV rights money for the year. Crazy, crazy money.
 
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