The Monday after the NFL conference championships the football news is pretty scarce. There is some analysis of the Colts victory (they looked bored until the Jets scored their second touchdown, at which point they outscored New York 24-3) and the Saints overtime win (they struggled to win despite winning the turnover battle 5 to 1). In other news, the Pro Bowl replacements have been announced for the four players playing in the Super Bowl. Then, there was a little ditty about the league canceling a second game in Britain next season…and possibly expanding the league with a team in the UK. That’s right; the NFL is publicly championing expanding American football to a country whose sports fan base is upset that we call their version of football soccer.

In the PR world, this statement came as a story to downplay the league’s impending financial disaster with collective bargaining talks coming up and the general uncertainty that the current fan base has the disposable capital to transplant their ass from the couch to a seat in an NFL stadium. Sure they are cancelling a second game in the UK since the owners and league operators are worried that there could be some serious financial issues next season and there could even potentially be a strike, but they are optimistic that at some arbitrary date in the future “American” football could be played eight Sundays a year in London.

Of course, with the Pro Bowl a week away (a schedule alteration that should have come years ago) and the Super Bowl the week after that (I am insanely excited about an Indianapolis Colts–New Orleans Saints game), I’d rather let my mind ruminate on something less depressing than a possible football strike- the absurdity of American football co-existing alongside European football in England

The ramifications of the cultural differences between the two sports must be considered. To pretend that there is no animosity between football fans and soccer fans (or American football fans and Football fans depending on the point of view) is a huge mistake.

Many fans here belittle the “World’s Most Popular” sport and many soccer fans deride our own version of football. I personally think this is the silliest sports argument of all time.

The entire conflict is based on the sports names. It is like two guys despising each other because they are both named Tom. The sports are the antithesis of each other. American football is more physical game with lots of stops that allows the players to use there hands (though I suspect the league will soon be discussing only allowing defensive players to run into the quarterback with their hands tied behind their back to protect commodities like Tom Brady, Brett Favre, and Peyton Manning) while European football is a game that does not stop the clock and does not allow the use of the hands by any other player than the goalie.

Nonetheless, there is a palpable hate in the air. NFL fans celebrate the Super Bowl while soccer fans mock them and scorn Super Bowl parties with rebukes mentioning the world-wide popularity of the World Cup. NFL fans say soccer players are weaklings that would not last two plays in a football game while soccer fans call football players fat, out-of-shape athletes that could not last two minutes in a soccer match.

The criticism and bickering goes back and forth (though I think fans over here win since we had the gall to renamed their sport completely while they just diplomatically added an adjective in front of football), and until there is some fundamental peace between the two camps any discussion of American football as anything more than a fringe sport with club leagues in England is ludicrous (like the annual predictions that the MLS will really take off here, ever).

The NFL may pound their chest and roar, announcing that the past three NFL regular season games at Wembley Stadium in London have attracted more than 80,000 fans. However, this is an exhibition game played by physical freaks (our offensive linemen are typically over 300 pounds and are called athletes!). ESPN and the NFL network can talk to the extremely biased club players that believe our football has a real chance there, but the evidence (both factual and anecdotal) is too powerful to ignore.

NFL Europa, the last re-branding of a minor football league that began as the World League of American Football, folded in 2007. By the end of the league’s existence, the league had six teams remaining, with one in Amsterdam and five in Germany. There were no teams from the UK left. The London Monarchs folded in 1998 and the Scottish Claymores shut down in 2004.

It seems quite ludicrous to think that the success of a single exhibition game is really representative of the potential attendance of an entire eight-game schedule after two teams failed so miserably. The Monarchs could not draw more 6,000 fans toward the end and the Claymores were unable to average more than 11,500 fans a game over their franchise history. Those numbers are more telling than a single experimental game every season.

Anecdotally, I love sports and love talking sports with people from Europe. Believe it or not, there are quite a few English nationals in Chicago, or at least that was my impression after working/living over/drinking at a faux-Irish/British pub. They loved soccer and were simply confounded by the popularity of American football. The major factor that turned them off was the time factor. In soccer, the clock does not stop, and in football the last three minutes of a close game take 30 minutes in real time.

This is a very valid point. In America our football has plays, while in Europe, and the rest of the world, football is played. Both games employ strategies, but it is how these strategies are enacted that makes a difference. Soccer fans (native soccer fans at least) are accustomed to enjoying a football game in constant motion while football fans are used to the many breaks that we have come to learn to ignore.

We have simply learned to watch our prospective football games differently. Expecting each side to completely immerse them in the other sport is to expect them to relearn how they have grown accustomed to enjoy our sports. Until this little bit of learned behavior has been overcome and both camps have been able to learn to respect each other’s football and even enjoy it, I have a hard time imagining there being a place for NFL tickets in London for eight games a season.