Quote:
Originally Posted by Proof Sheet
I find the ratio of people who follow NFL/CFL versus those who actually play to be quite a huge gap. Lots of armchair/beer drinking chair types who watch it and very few actually play other than throwing the ball in the park. It is a sport with lots and lots of expensive equipment.
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The barriers to entry for football are fairly high... if you want to play a game for real, then you need a team of 40+ players, coaches, a shitload of equipment... and then you get into the sheer physical challenge of playing for anyone over 30. I played when I was younger but the thought of playing at my age now would be daunting. An injury would be pretty much guaranteed if I tried to play a game at my old offensive guard position. As I recall Jeff Reinebold once saying at a dinner I attended... football is pretty unique among sports in that once you take the pads off, that's it. There really isn't any kind of old-timers league or beer league.
A better basis of comparison for tennis is something like golf. You don't need much to play, with tennis you need you only need one other person (golf can be played solo), and you can play it at least on some level well into your later years. And unlike golf, there are often neighbourhood courts for tennis where you can play for free. Among the people I know who follow pro golf to at least some extent, virtually everyone plays. Among the people I know who follow pro tennis, few do. I find that kind of interesting. I sometimes to go to a neighbourhood court to play with my kid and most of the time if there's anyone else there, it's usually older people (not necessarily seniors, say the 50+ crowd) playing pickleball.