AHC: Prevent Football's popularity

Hadley

How would you make it so that American football would be less popular in the US than it currently is? Im not saying abandon it, but keep it on the popularity level of Soccer (in the US at least) or something like that.
 

Son of Sphinks

American football established itself in the cultural consciousness in the late 1800's on college campuses. The violence of the early game however led some to call for its banning in the early 1900's. Had the ban on football actually come into play, it would have really chopped the knees out from the game as it was crawling out of the cradle.
 

BigDave1967

Banned
You would have to end Rugby because that's what American Football evolved from. The football used in American football had the same dimensions as a rugby ball until the 1920s.
 

mudhead

Poor US -Canada relations may prevent the Harvard-McGill games that kicked off football in the USA. Of course, a war might be a bit too much of a POD for preventing the adaption of gridiron as a national game.

Early death of Walter Camp, perhaps?

Or you could just have rugby as the dominant sport, with the League 13 per side variant arriving to cater for a professional league.
 

DTF955Baseballfan

It would be hard unless you do stop it in its infancy as others have noted. Once it got going on college campuses, it ws bound to develop into a pro game and catch on somehow.

I did do a TLIAD about the NFL losing a lot of steam, but the advent of television means it was going to be more popular than soccer once it got past the '50s. In this TLIAD it's possibly lower than basketball, though,
 

Devvy

Donor
Rather then killing American Football, is it possible to "re-merge" it back into rugby?
 

zoomar

Not after the down and distance and forward pass rules came into existence. It would be possible to imagine a less structured and fast moving American football that played more like adult flag football, but with tackling the ball carrier permitted Unlikely that it would revert to rugby rules, however.
 
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