pro football

Professional football (gridiron)

In the United States and Canada, the term professional football includes the professional forms of American and Canadian gridiron football. In common usage, it refers to former and existing major football leagues in either country. Currently (2009), there are multiple professional football leagues in North America: the three best known are the National Football League (NFL) and the Arena Football League (AFL) in the U.S. and the Canadian Football League (CFL) in Canada. The NFL has existed continuously since being so named in 1922.

professional footballer

Organization

Compared to the other major professional sports leagues of the United States and Canada, football has comparatively few levels of play and does not have a well-developed minor league system, either official or otherwise.

In North America, the top level of professional football is the National Football League, with the Canadian Football League second to the NFL in prominence and pay grade. Despite the lower level of play, the CFL has greater popularity in Canada because of its long history in the country, the lack of NFL teams in Canada (except the annual Bills Toronto Series game), and a general environment of Canadian cultural protectionism.

Indoor football has also developed in the United States, beginning with the Arena Football League, which formed in 1987. The AFL is the second longest running professional football league in the United States after the NFL, although its current incarnation is a separate entity from the original, which folded due to bankruptcy in 2008. From its debut until 1997, the Arena Football League operated with a monopoly on the indoor game, due to a broad interpretation that virtually all of the league's rules, collectively known as arena football, were covered under its patent; the Professional Indoor Football League successfully defeated the AFL's legal action against it in 1997, opening the possibility for other indoor football leagues to form. Only one significant aspect of the patent, the large rebound nets the AFL has used since its debut to keep balls in play, was fully protected; the patent expired in 2007, although no other professional indoor league has adopted rebound nets since. As of 2011, two national leagues (the AFL and the Indoor Football League), along with several regional professional and semi-pro leagues, are in operation. As of 2011, no professional indoor football league has had any significant presence in Canada (despite an abundance of hockey arenas that are ideal for the game); only one indoor team, the AFL's short-lived Toronto Phantoms (2000 to 2002), has ever played its games in Canada. The all-female Lingerie Football League is planning a Canadian expansion (including the Toronto Triumph, which began play in 2011), but that league is currently playing at the amateur level.

Up until the 1970s, semiprofessional and minor football leagues would often develop lower end players into professional prospects. Though there are still numerous teams at the semi-pro level in both the United States and Canada, they have mostly dropped to regional amateur status, and they no longer develop professional prospects, in part due to the rise of indoor football.

Though Japan (X-League) and Europe have professional football leagues composed primarily of national citizens, they are generally of a lower level of play than the Western Hemisphere counterparts, and they do not generally contribute players to North American leagues either.

Player development

Professional football is considered the highest level of competition in gridiron football. Whereas most of the other major sports leagues draw their players from the minor leagues, the NFL currently draws almost all of its players directly from college football. College football, in turn, recruits players from high school football, with most potential stars receiving scholarships to play. The source for the vast majority of professional football players is the Division I Bowl Subdivision, with most coming from the six Bowl Championship Series conferences. Under current regulations, players must be at least three years removed from high school graduation to qualify to play in the NFL. Because of these barriers, players who do not play college football have very few options for breaking into the league.

The college football development system is a unique feature in the professional football system, stemming from the fact that the game of American football originated at the college level, unlike other sports that were products of independent clubs. Although ostensibly amateurs, college athletes are compensated with five years of free undergraduate college education (more than enough time to pursue abachelor's degree), room and board for their time. As a result of the college system, first-time players (rookies) enter professional football older, more mature and more prepared for the professional game than players in other sports.

The Canadian Football League has a special requirement that a minimum of half of each team's roster be composed of persons who have lived in Canada since childhood. As such, Canadian Interuniversity Sport feeds players to the CFL to meet these quotas, much as the NCAA does in the United States. The remaining half of the roster may be filled by either Canadians or by imports (American players who play in the CFL).

The NFL has, over the course of its history, recruited rugby union, association football and Australian rules football players from other countries (particularly those who are retired from competition in their home countries) to play in the league, almost always as kickers and punters.

Rules

The rules of professional football are more likely to vary from league to league than the high school and college levels. Since interleague play is extremely rare, there is no need for a nationwide standard for all leagues, and each league will adopt and discard rules as they see fit. The Arena Football League had a patent on several of its rules that expired in 2007. Several professional leagues have experimented with rules in an effort to improve the quality of the game or to create a novelty. Nevertheless, the rules of professional football at the outdoor level are nearly identical to those at the high school and college levels, with some minor exceptions (such as the locations of hash marks, procedures for overtime, and the number of feet required to be in-bounds to catch a forward pass). Indoor football's rules are closely based on outdoor football but are heavily altered to compensate for the smaller field.