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No.
If softball couldn't survive having 2 teams (US, Australia), how will football survive having one competitive nation?
Also, I'm confused by question #1. If you're asking how many olympic season would the US dominate, my answer would be all of them forever.
Basketball survived
Basketball is very widely played. More importantly, it's fairly cheap to set up a basketball venue. The problem with baseball and softball was that countries that don't play them didn't want to build stadiums for those sports just for the Olympics.
That problem isn't really applicable here. A football game can be played in just about any soccer stadium.
has a better chance of being an Olympic sport than Football
I watched the BGSU quidditch team beat the MSU quidditch team a year ago.
The BGSU seeker is up for All-American honors.
Juicy Girls (below), winning the MAC Championship in football and a wicked quidditch team. FALCONawesome!
/s
I don't think this is a good idea. It's called American football for a reason - until there is a full-fledged national participation in the sport, I don't think it should be considered.
When baseball and softball were taken out, it was a blow. Baseball has an international appeal and softball's growth has been excellent. So why add a sport that is dominated by one country and doesn't have international appeal? 15's rugby probably should take precedent.
And then wrestling got taken out in favor of golf, and I'm not interested in seeing any sport get added until wrestling returns.
*international participation
I thought wrestling did get put back on already?
Axing wrestling is some bullshit.
I see no point in adding American football.
I'm all for getting rid of super boring wrestling and replacing it with golf. Golf is at its peak of popularity and wrestling simply doesn't appeal to most people in the world.
Also is not what I would call an international sport of appeal because it's not designed for just anyone to play. Wrestling is a historic sport, to the inception of the Olympics. That's why I advocate for it. I don't watch it but I respect it.
I understand your point to a certain degree, but golf is absolutely an international sport.
not designed for everybody to play? Why? Because it is hard?
Acessibility? I can give you the name of 20 courses in two counties where you can walk 18 holes for less than $20 and driving ranges where you can hit 200 balls for $6.00 (or the nearest high school where chances are you can find acres upon acres of open grass to hit golf shots). I will point you to ebay where you can get a full set of used playable clubs for $40.
I would actually say that wrestling would be the sport not designed for everybody to play.
Another great post.
Regarding your last sentence, that is so true. Wrestlers have to be in top shape in order to compete - less than 5% body fat, incredibly disciplined diets, etc. Golfers can be in just any shape and play the game well.
But neither is football for the exact same reasons.
Wrestling is a discipline that requires that kind of dedication. It's difficult and time-consuming, but it is a traditional sport of strength and excellence. To shut that sport out after centuries is not fair to the sport or to the spirit of the Olympics. What, should we take out every sport that "not just anyone" can play? We wouldn't have sports.
They replaced it with a more popular sport. This is a fact. More people like to watch and play golf compared to those who like to watch and perform wrestling. The IOC knows this to be true. They want people to watch their games and adding golf will accomplish that.
HAH! Someone calling wrestling boring thinks golf isn't? I admit some matches can be boring but as a sport I would think it's far from boring.
Ah yes, here we go with the juvenile "GOLF IS BORRRRRRRING" response. I'm sorry that you don't get it. There are several people who post on this blog who love golf and even more who play it. It's an excellent game to watch and play.
But to call wrestling boring while at the same time calling golf exciting is, well, weird.
Your point about juvenile complaints would hold more water if you hadn't referred to wrestling as "super boring" yourself just above.
that is the techincal term for it. You can also go with OMG-BORING!!
The last time I watched a wrestling match the Ultimate Warrior was beating Hogan for the title. The next time I will watch one is when they have a rematch.
My point is that the "golf is boring" response is so cliché and played when the popularity of the sport, especially compared to wrestling (and the decision to get rid of wrestling and have golf instead is proof of that), is at its height of popularity.
Regardless, it's pretty ridiculous to get offended over someone calling a sport you like "boring" when you just said the same thing about another sport. Personally, I find both sports boring, for what it's worth.
I do think wrestling should be in the Olympics because it has a long, long association with them, and there aren't that many other opportunities for wrestlers to achieve glory. Golf is doing fine as it is with the pro tour.
Fine, you have a good point. I take that back then. Wrestling is not fun to watch though.
what is boring to one isn't necessarily boring to another, which you both have highlighted. The key is that there's a list of sports, those you both mentioned, that unless you played that sport its hard to find it boring. I was a swimmer in college and watching any swim meet, let alone the Olympics, is fun for me. I wouldn't expect others to necessarily agree with me, but hey ...that's fine.
For the Olympics, it seems that wrestling has always been one of the iconic competitions. I was surprised when they got rid of it, even though I didn't really watch it. Golf, as an Olympic sport, makes slightly less sense to me, but still plausible. Football...makes no sense to me. But like one person noted, our opinions on this aren't really being sought out.
Calling golf boring is indeed juvenile. Calling wrestling SUPER boring, well that right there just reeks of class.
If you were a golfer you would realize that it's the most humbling game in existence. You will go absolutely nuts when the game brings you to your knees and you can't figure out why. The bitch of it is the harder you try to fix something, usually, the worse it gets.
The reason golf is exciting is because when you go through struggles with your own game, you are in absolute awe of someone who is able to play the game so well, under the most difficult conditions, against the best players in the world.
The PGA tour is so awe inspring because there are mini tours around the world that are filled with unbelievably skilled players that can't even sniff the PGA tour.
This is a great post. Look, obviously any sport is difficult, especially when competing against the world's best athletes in your respective sport, but golf is amazingly challenging. I understand why some people don't like it. It's a slow game and seems so simple (that is how I feel about baseball and why I hate it with passion), right? "Gee, all I gotta do is swing a club and put a ball in a stupid hole? Come on..." Yeah, not even close to being that easy. The concept is simple, but it's one of the most challenging sports in the world and that cannot be denied.
That exact same argument can be made for every sport ever played. That is the essence of sport, not a reason why golf is so exciting.
No matter how hard I try, I will never be as fast as some football players, I will never be as tall as some basketball players, and I will never be able to throw the ball as hard as some baseball players.
Golf is a sport that can be played at the highest levels without winning the genetic lottery. That's what distinguishes it.
Professional golfers have to make themselves, many of them aren't blessed with god given physical talent. When you start out in the mini tours if you don't win, you don't make any money, there are no signing bonuses.
You don't think professional golfers are blessed with any physical talent? According to you, if I wanted to, all I would need to do is hit golf balls long enough, and I would eventually be good enough to join the PGA (or senior PGA, since it would take a while). I don't think that is the case.
Just like any sport, it takes more than physical skills to excel enough to become a professional. Justin Verlander throws a baseball harder than most people, but I'd guess he doesn't drive a golf ball as long as other people. And tell me what genetic lottery Prince Fielder or Ryan Howard won. I'm pretty sure there are guys at my local YMCA that are just as strong as they are.
Golf is a sport. Just like any other sport, you need some combination of physical skill, determination, luck, and hard work to get good enough to make it your career. Does that make it more exciting than any other sport? I don't think so. You find it more exciting because you understand what goes into it and you appreciate it.
but no matter how hard you try, you will never be as good as PGA tour golfers either.
This is one of the funniest posts I've ever seen here.
Rugby has been added to the Olympics - but in sevens format, so teams can play multiple games during the two weeks of competition.
How long is the Olympics? 2-3 weeks? You just aren't going to have time for a football tournament of any size unless you go to an Arena format or something similar where teams can play multiple times in a week.
15's rugby for a reason.
I don't think that can be done in the Olympics. Sevens is the only way to have the depth to play multiple games in a week.
I have to say, lots of international folks i've met are intrigued by american football. I'm a diehard baseball fan, but you have to admit, football is just easier to understand and watch.
I'd say one additional challenge though, would be athletes (or the NFL) wanting players risking injury for the Olympics. Also, how many games can you get in? It takes a few days to recover after a game.
Football has to be the most complicated main stream sports by a long shot. It's really the only one that has no intuitive flow. Between all of the rules and the seemingly out of place kicking game it's pretty hard to pick up on. My friends who grew up abroad and finally picked up the game after being here for a couple of years would echo this sentiment. Baseball on the other hand is a pretty basic game to pick up and watch. 9 innings, 3 outs, a strike zone, 3 balls and 4 strikes, runners are pretty much always live. The game is more nuanced than that, but that's really about all you need to know to watch and understand the game. People may like watching football more, but I don't think there's a case for it being easier to pick up on.
I don't quite get golf (or tennis) as an Olympic sport. So we take the same competitions we have almost every week during the summer and give someone a medal at the end, instead of a cup and a giant check? Golf and tennis seem so individual as sports, doesn't make sense as an Olympic sport to me. Maybe I just don't understand the format that the Olympics uses for these sports.
No.
Risk of injury is too high, I don't think pros would be interested.
This is likely a major reason. Not only would the pro players have little to no interest, but the owners would have absolutely no interest. They're running a business and would never want to risk their players in exhibition games that do nothing for them from a business standpoint.
They would almost assuredly use college players then x amount of years down the road have the Dream Team
It's not big enough anywhere else in the world (to my knowledge) to the point where any country could even remotely challenge the US.
Is the US allowed to field 16 teams? If so, I could see this as entertaining. Otherwise, not so much. The obvious problem is the turnaround time between games and the time period of the Olympics overall. How many games could be played realistically? 3?
Japan could have a hell of a running game behind an OL of Sumo wrestlers.
The good news is that Northwestern has already desinged the uniforms.
QB: Tom Brady
RB: Adrian Peterson
RB:?
WR: Calvin Jhonson
WR:?
T.E: Gronk or Jimmy Graham?
QB: Tom Brady
RB: Adrian Peterson
RB: Jamal Charles
RB: Marshawn Lynch
WR: Calvin Johnson
WR: A.J. Green
WR: Wes Welker
TE: Jimmy Graham
TE: Vernon Davis
TE: Julius Thomas
Holy moley. Great googly moogly. Try stopping that.
I think you could take ANY NFL quarterback and they'd be just fine...
Even Brandon Weeden? (Yes, I'm a Browns fan)
What about Tim Couch or Ryan Leaf coming out of retirement. This would be purely for handicap purposes. We don't want to crush everyone the first Olympics now do we?
If it somehow did become a sport, no one is going to go risk injury against a bunch of teams that most American Arena Football teams could beat handily.
Do it for your country.
This isn't war.
No they would do like they did for hoops and it would be college players.
Based on IFAF results I would say Japan.
Canada would probably be the only country to even remotely compete with the US, and even then it would be a blood bath (possibly literally). Even in 7on7 it would be completely unfair, considering really no other countries even play this style of football or intentionally develop this kind of talent. I know that there are leagues in Europe and Asia, but it's really a niche sport in those areas. It seems absurd to create an international competition for a sport that only two countries play, and only one really dominates. Even in the CFL most of the players are American (I think I read that somewhere, maybe wrong), and I would imagine the same in any competitive international league.
CFL teams have a 42 player roster limit of which half (21 to do the math) must be "non-import" players. Most CFL teams have US QBs and US position players while linemen and defensive players are filled in by Canadians. So it would be a lie to say that "most" of the the CFL players are american. Other than that Canadian football is a much different game than American football. With only 3 downs to get 10 yards, 12 men per side, and a longer wider field most teams pass the ball almost every play. There is not much MANBALL in the CFL and they let multiple people go in forward motion before the snap.
Thank you for the correction. I remember reading an article relatively recently that the sport is still being "dominated" by American players, but that might have meant at traditionally defined "skill" positions.
I wouldn't say dominated. There are a number of good Canadian players who contribute and even star at key positions.
But, at the same time, there are a lot of "Hey, I remember that guy" Americans who forge long careers there. Worth noting: Starting QB in the CFL is one of the most exclusive clubs in sports. If a guy establishes himself, he's set for years on one team or another. Marcus Allen's brother Damon played effectively for over 20 years and only recently retired, and "younger" players like Darian Durant (Hey, I remember that guy) are basically inextricable from the league now.
I think right now there are 0 non-import QBs in the CFL.
1. America would dominate for the first 5-8 games until one country starts to train players just to spite us.
2. I would probably guess one of the initail coutnries to give us a fit would be England, seeing as they at least have some football fans out there. Afterwards, who knows.
I can't imagine that football would really become an olympic sport just yet. It is predominately seen as an American sport, where Europeans still laugh about how we call it football. I'm not even sure that 95% of the rest of the world even knows that we have our own thing that we call football.
Then again, I can totally see how the Olympics would look at America's viewership ratings and the sport's net revenue and say, "We've got to get us some of that!"
There's no way this is happening. Maybe some football guy has a dream that someday football will be an Olympic sport and happened to tickle the ear of an article author or one person on the USOC, but this is not a thing. Never will be.
As others have said, Baseball doesn't even pass muster anymore, and there are actual power countries that care about it.
Competitive Starcraft has a better chance of making the Olympics than this.
Well, that's because it's baseball. That sport is never entertaining.
"That sport is never entertaining, in my opinion."
FIFY
How juvenile.
Best troll account since Terrelle Pryor.
Oh yes, I missed the part where every time you see a post you disagree with, then the person who posted that is a troll. My bad.
I would bet any FBS team would wipe the floor with any other nations teams. It'll never happen. How many non-US players do you even know that are playing FBS football right now? Less than five? Eastern Michigan could probably win the gold medal. Seriously.
Well, there are at least two on Michigan's team alone in Chesson and Darboh.
As posters have noted and the article notes, there are different types of American football. I can imagine enough countries fielding 7 on 7 teams to make it happen. You don't need very many people to particpate in a sport for it to become an Olypmic event. How many people luge, do individual dressage, or train for biathlons?
All of the sports you name are internationally competitve - they aren't dominated by one country all the time. Football would be. It's not just that the sport isn't played that much outside the U.S., but that it isn't played at a high level anywhere else, aside from Canada and American Samoa.
People are apparently playing one version of football or another around the world more and more. And I don't think the US necessarily would dominate in 7 on 7 for very long - if at all, because I'm not sure elite guys would want to play in the Olypmics. The international competition linked above has been won twice by Japan.
I think it's very doubtful. Rugby has seized the international terrain already, and people around the world who are interested in a more physical game than soccer mostly play that.
It was won twice by Japan because the US didn't play, and the US won it the two years they did play with heavy restrictions on who could participate. Just looking at 2011, the US didn't lose a match, and won their three matches by a point differential +112 and won their Gold Medal match by 43 points against Canada in their first year of playing. The US won this so dominantly with more than half of their players coming from below D-IA college athletes.
Maybe in the long run, with heavy restrictions, your point about elite players not participating from the US, and the international spotlight to attract skilled athletes from other countries, this could be a competitive international sport. However, it seems as though the US would make this pretty ugly for the near future.
I would be inclined to agree about the US dominating for the foreseeable future if we hadn't seen the world catch up to our professional basketball players so quickly. I remain amazed that it took so few games for a non-US team to win in men's basketball...None of this is to say that the world would catch up to the US, but it's believable to me that it could, especially given that (as I said) I wouldn't expect the best US players to particpate.
This isn't directly in response to anything you said: Soccer is undoubtedly the world's sport, but more and more people are seeing US sports on TV. I've watched a Cubs game in a small barbershop in West Africa. I think the world can catch up to us pretty quickly (at least enough to make things competitive) in any sport if they become connected to the sport via television and only need a field and a ball to play.
Actually, it took a long time for the world to catch up with us in basketball, and it hasn't really done so even now. From 1936 to 1968, the U.S. not only won every gold medal but went undefeated that whole time. It was a total shock when the USSR won in '72, and it took some horrible officiating to pull it off. We didn't lose another Olympic game until 1988.
Even today, we're still a huge favorite whenever we play. 2004 is the only time we've lost in the Olympics with pro players, and that was with our "B" squad because none of the A-list guys wanted to risk what seemed at the time a dicey security situation in Athens.
The last two final games we've won 107-100 and 118-107 (both over Spain). And that is with guys like Kobe, Lebron, Carmelo, and Chris Paul participating both times.
We now really have to bring our A game and it still isn't a walk in the park. Certainly not as competitive as hockey yet, but the basketball tournament has gotten really good in a fairly short period of time (roughly 20 years since the Dream Team destroyed everyone).
...basketball is still an Olympic sport, and it's not a given that the US will win any paritcular games.
True, but in any event, do not expect football to be like this anytime soon. It took decades before other countries could even challenge us in basketball.
You also forget that the rest of the world "caught up" to us in basketball because they have had professional leagues for a long time. It isn't like Argentina and Spain just started playing basketball in 2004; there are professional basketball players all over the world. How many professional American football leagues are there in other countries? How many foreign football players get drafted by the NFL each year?
"B" team or no in Athens, Argentina and other countries made great leaps from 1992-2004 as far as catching up to the US...And again, I'm thinking anyone who is a pro prospect in the States wouldn't participate out of fear of being injured, though of course that might prove to be an incorrect prediction...In any event, putting a sport in the Olympics might make it more popular. You might even see some small 7 on 7 leagues crop up around the world. Give some poor kids who aren't quite good enough to play elite soccer another way out, and they just might become pretty good football players. We're basically talking about throwing a ball, catching a ball, and running. Many people can learn to do that...A cool story bro story: I lived across the road from a dirt field in Ghana for three months. Every day, an intensely competitive soccer game would be held on the field with teenagers and guys in their early twenties playing like mad while wearing one shoe, no shoes, shoes held together by tape, etc. They weren't going to be noticed by anyone by playing in that game, and most of them would presumably never make a dime off of soccer, but they certainly seemed to play with everything they had. And they were great athletes to my eye. I could see a US coach turning them into a pretty good 7 on 7 team if the players were motivated by the possibility of improving their lives through football. That coach wouldn't have to train them to be athletes or instill in them the love of sport or willingness to work hard.
Who needs elite guys? The US doesn't just own the top-end talent, but has all the depth too. There are plenty of guys who don't quite make the NFL or who made it but left the league who would be physically able and willing to participate in such an undertaking. You could organize a permanent national team with regular try-outs and produce a great team with no effort.
You make a good point, that it doesn't take a whole country of people growing up playing that sport to field a team, especially 7-on-7, but still that said team would get annihilated by the country (USA, USA...) that plays that sport predominantly. I know other countries have plenty of big, fast, skilled athletes, but not ones that spent their lives mastering a position in the sport (thinking skilled 7-on-7 positions like QB, RB, WR, LB, DB) and have played it at or near its most competitive levels. You can train, say for instance, people in Germany at those positions, the way you train for biathlons, but those people won't have the experience American players do of even playing at the Texas D-I High School level, which matters. Maybe that come off as American arrogance or exceptionalism, but it remains difficult to imagine otherwise.
According to this related story in Syracuse.com, the 7-on-7 version is more or less what they would seek to implement. Supposedly, this is not the first time an attempt has been made to do this either - according to that same article, it was a demonstration sport in 1932.
For the board's education, here is the IFAF announcement. Needless to say, they are most grateful for the provisional recognition that they are getting here. They reperesent teams (not all tackle, but also flag and beach football) in 64 nations, so there is some interest, it would seem.
I hadn't read any of the information that you linked to, but I was going to mention that flag football would be the way to go. Then you don't need any equipment aside from a ball and some flags. Hooray, everyone can play!
The problem with that is I could see ultimate becoming a better international fit than even 7-on-7 flag football.
Has there ever been any talk about football being played in the winter games? The bar for importance seems a bit lower.
Winter games, by definition, must require a component of ice or snow in the sport. Anything that does not require those elements to be played is played in the Summer Games.
Just replicate those game conditions and we're good to go for a Winter Olympic sport. This can easily be done with snow-making equipment. Let's do this.
I can't imagine any major college or pro team would allow its players to risk injury on the eve of camp in order to participate in the olympics. So even if there were other countries that could compete with the US I'm not sure who we would get to play.
I would imagine it would be mostly below D-IA guys or "retired' D-IA guys who didn't make professional teams. Think for instance all of the major NCAA program players who didn't make it or cut it in the NFL, CFL, Arena or some non-North American league, which at Michigan alone we know of plenty. As someone else pointed out before, the depth of football talent in the US is astounding.
I hear Spain and Brazil are very good at football too.
While we're debating things I would like to propose that all "sports" that involve judges and not a clock or a scoreboard be moved to separate category. Events like ice dancing, rythmic gymnastics and other performances are more art than sport and should be treated as such.
What would the ramnifications of this move be? A rousing, yet irrelevant, argument from the head cheerleaders at local high schools? That's about all it would change.
The US wouldn't even compete. With our pros and even our "amateurs" (college), there is too much money on the line for them to risk their career in a competition they will handedly win when only pride is on the line.
Imagine somebody from Venezuela trying to cover Calvin Johmson
1. USA
......
2a. Canada
2b. Germany
4. Japan
The Germans actually have a pretty decent football base compared to almost every other country. But they are still miles behind USA. This would be an awful Olympic sport and would only be implemented to add to America's win total. As far as an Olympics sport, which is to look at world sports in general, this is about as bad as it would get compared to many of the other proposed sports.
The Olympics should be for the very best in the world. Not a cheesy knockoff just to get a popular sport into the competition. That is why Olympic basketball and hockey are awesome now, while baseball (before it got the boot) and soccer suck. Seeing Lebron and Kobe go up against legit international stars, or the great competition on the ice from US/Canada/Czechs/Fins/Swedes/Russians is a lot more interesting than a 2nd tier youth soccer tourney or watching American college kids play the one legit/organized baseball team participating (Cuba).
Since the top guys in the world wouldn't be interested in playing, there shouldn't be a football competition.
would you conduct a tournament in the 2 1/2 weeks of the Olympics?
It'll never happen.
But it's not because of the time constraint - if a gold medal winning soccer team plays 6 games during the Olympics, then why can't an American football team do the same thing? Because we're used to having only one game a week? How about you man up and play games with only 2 full days of rest between games.
You are comparing apples and oranges. In soccer, it's normal to do that. Soccer tournaments always ask teams to play every few days, and club teams are regularly playing mid-week cup tournaments (or European competitions) in addition to their regular league games on the weekend.
Football never, ever does that. It's far harder on your body than soccer. You simply cannot ask football players to play every 3-4 days (outside of extreme, once-a-season kinds of things like playing on Thanksgiving).
I wish Football would become an olympic sport but I dont really see it happening. As far as who would be our greatest competition I guess it would have to be Canada but I think our boys would take care of business.
