Bluesock
Banned
If football is banned in schools and universities it won't have the ability to grow and expand. We are talking about a very early point in footballs history where it wasn't even close to being as big as it is now or even would be 20 years later. In the early 1900's its basically an elitist sport restricted to colleges which is just starting to grow, so its momentum can easily be killed.Honestly though soccer and rugby would take either second and third place behind baseball.
Rugby could be popular in the west coast while the east coast would be soccer. Central and Midwest is up to debate for me?
Even if American Football is banned by governments, it would still be played by people anyways. Just not in colleges and universities. It would be a grassroots type sport. Something that still would be popular but not as big as those three.
Maybe I went off topic but I am curious about this now and need some opinions.
I think Lacrosse works as a good foil to football as it is also a college sport played in Autumn which would have the same kind of backing as football from college adminstrators and also has the benefit of being a "truly american" game. Soccer may be seen as too foreign to have wide appeal but again the soccer leagues were pretty big before the depression so they have a chance to grow but it won't nearly be as a big as baseball.
Perhaps you could work a scenoria where instead of being outright banned the sport is seen as too violent and dropped by most Major colleges but is retained in certian regions, like the midewest and south. In this scenorio you'd have west coast colleges playing Rugby, eastern colleges playing lacrosse and soccer and then Mid Western and Southern Colleges playing Football but perhaps with different rules depending on the region. So you could have Southern Football and Mid Western football diverge like American and Canadian Football. College and school Sport becomes more regional in the US with different regional "confrences" playing their own regional sport. That could be really interesting.