A Field Guide to Football 🏈
Touchdown!!
Field Guide Vol. 239
While beloved by many in the United States, around the world American football is not nearly as popular as international football (aka soccer) or basketball. But thanks to some concerted efforts by the NFL and others, the sport’s global influence continue to grow with a diverse and expanding fanbase. So, in honor of the NFL playoffs which kicked off this past weekend, this week we're bringing you a glimpse into the presence of American football around the world. Whether you’re a die hard football fan or you only know Travis Kelce because of Taylor Swift, join us as we explore the popularity of this American sport from Japan to Canada and beyond.
Under the Glare of Friday Night Lights
By Jessica Luther
There is an entire mythology of Texas football wrapped up in the phrase, “Friday night lights.” It conjures up images of dusty small towns whose storefronts are decorated in the colors of the local high school football team. There is always a stadium packed with raucous crowds, the lights shining brightly onto the field, cheerleaders on the sideline and a band in the stands. The quarterbacks are hometown heroes, the coaches are legends and the town lives and dies by the success of these teenage boys on the gridiron.
The phrase became famous beyond the borders of Texas after the 1990 publication of H. G. Bissinger’s best-selling nonfiction book, Friday Night Lights: A Town, A Team, and A Dream, which was about the 1988 Permian High School football team from the west Texas town of Odessa. The film and TV adaptations only further cemented its place in US popular culture.
The idea of “Friday night lights” is rooted in truth: Texans love football. There are over 1,200 high school football stadiums in the state of Texas. Combined, they can hold more than 4 million spectators.
On any given Saturday during football season, 12 universities across Texas compete in the highest division of college football, more than any other state in the country. The University of Texas at Austin and Texas A&M in College Station have two of the largest college football stadiums in the country, each able to hold over 100,000 people. Those teams are also the two most valuable college football programs, each with an annual profit of over $90 million, according to Forbes. And on Sundays (and sometimes Mondays or Thursdays), the NFL’s Dallas Cowboys and Houston Texans play in front of tens of thousands of fans. According to Yahoo, Dallas is valued at $5 billion, more than any other team in the league.
But mythology often serves to paper over inconvenient truths. In his 2017 book Thursday Night Lights: The Story of Black High School Football in Texas, sports writer Michael Hurd traces the history of Texas football at Black high schools in the twentieth century when segregation was the law of the land. Black schools often played on the same fields as the White schools, but never on sacred Friday nights. As one former Black high school player told Hurd, “Friday night lights? That’s White folks.”
Between 1920 and 1970, Black schools played in the Prairie View Interscholastic League, the parallel league to the University Interscholastic League, which was for White students only and which is still the governing body of extracurricular events in the state. According to Hurd, the largest high school sports event in the United States during that half-century of segregation was the Turkey Day Classic, a Thanksgiving Day football game played between two Black high schools in Houston, Texas: Wheatley and Jack Yates. In 1946, the first official Turkey Day Classic drew upwards of 15,000 spectators. In 1961, the number was closer to 40,000.
Continue reading in Stranger’s Guide: Texas
Did you know?
Japan has a strong American football culture, with college football being particularly popular. At the end of the college season, the East and West champions battle each other in the Koshien Bowl. The highest level of American football in Japan is called the X-League and their season concludes with the Japan X Bowl. The country then hosts a championship game between the winners of the Koshien Bowl and the X-League champions called the Rice Bowl.
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to Stranger's Guide to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.