The NFL is the greatest sports league in the entire world. Period.  Please don't whine to me about baseball when the most exciting thing that could happen in a game is that one team gets no hits.  The NHL seems to do more to shoot their sport in the foot than to help it.  Soccer?  Are you kidding?   My theory is that soccer is popular because you can not really pay attention to the game at all while you are drinking and singing then lookup at the last minute to catch the only goal of the game.  In football, you have to pay attention. But it's not justthe sport of football that makes the NFL so great.  The NFL is the best run organization in all of sport, in the entire world.  That includes the International Olympic Committee, the English Premier League, you name it. The NFL kicks their ass.

David Letterman does his top ten list; I'm giving the NFL eleven. Partly because I couldn't think of which point to omit to make ten and partly because the guitar amps for Spinal Tap went up to eleven and I thought that was cool.  So here they are, in no particular order, drum roll please...

1) Football is Made for TV.
Former commissioner Pete Rozelle is credited for making the NFL what it is today and a big part of that is television.  And while I will take nothing away from Rozelle, we should also give credit where credit is due: Football is the perfect sport for TV much in the same way that baseball was the perfect sport for radio.  Football features 20 seconds of action followed by 45 seconds of lull, allowing announcers to review and show replays of what just happened and talk about what is about to happen. In other sports, the action is continuous like Hockey for example. You might have a great save but if the puck hasn't stopped, you have to wait till the next play stoppage before you can show the highlight.  In football, there are plenty of breaks for commercials which is good for business.  It is a business after all.

2) The Super Bowl
I could write ten pages on everything right about the Super Bowl.  It's the NFL's big show and to quote Carly Simon, nobody does it better. First, you get two weeks to hype the game and then it's played on a neutral site chosen years in advance so cities can make preparations and roll out the red carpet, seizing their moment to shine before millions of people who come to their city and countless millions watching on television. Janet Jackson aside, the pre-game and halftime shows are bigger than life. But NFL does that little something extra like the NFL Experience, giving fans a chance to kick a field goal or throw a pass or even make their own video tape where they get to call the big play.  From top to bottom, there is no spectacle in the world that compares to the Super Bowl.  While the final game of the World Cup in soccer might attract more international viewers, the Super Bowl makes more money and frankly, puts on a much better show. 

3) The United Way
OK, this might seem like an odd one to you but to me, it's one of the keys to why the NFL is head and shoulders above other sports leagues.  From Roy Williams pushing kids on swing sets to Tony Gonzalez working in a kitchen and dropping everything thrown at him, the NFL's relationship with the United Way is not only a good, charitable thing to do, it's also a PR Goldmine.  It's puts a caring and human face on an otherwise violent sport.  The NFL and the United Way created their partnership way back in 1973, led by, you guessed it, the man, Pete Rozelle. Yet another example of how Rozelle shaped this league to be the powerhouse it is today.

4) Parity / Revenue Sharing
Revenue sharing may be one of, if not the biggest reason for the NFL's success and the less success of other sports leagues and let's start with television. In baseball, for example, teams can negotiate their own television contracts with local broadcasters. The TV contract for the New York Yankees is so much higher than what other teams are able to get for their TV rights...then combine that with no salary cap and it is obvious why the Yankees win all the time. Teams in smaller markets just can't compete and teams in Canada? Forget about it. The combination of revenue sharing and a salary cap in the NFL gives every team a level playing field year in and year out.  You will never see this in any other league at any time in the future. Try asking Steinbrenner to share his TV contract money with the Toronto Blue Jays. Fat chance.

While this parity and salary cap can be annoying at times when you see your favorite player cut or traded due to cap reasons, on the final weekend of the regular season there may be eight teams competing for the last wild card spot.  That is awesome.

5) Strategy
Football is truly a team game, 100% of the time.  In basketball and hockey, a single player can take over game.  In baseball, the real essence of the sport is a man on man duel between the pitcher and the hitter.  In football, you need all eleven guys to do their job. If one person misses a blocking assignment or a receiver runs an incorrect route, the whole play is a bust and may possibly result in a turnover or worse, a touchdown for the defense. Everyone has to play every down, all eleven.  An while Ladianian Thomlinson might get all the glory in the press and his highlights shown on Sports Center, LT would be nothing if it weren't for his offensive line and the plays called by the coaches.

The more you understand about the nuances of the game, the more awestruck you become watching the chess match carried out each week between the two coaches and every player and the entire team must work together to win.

6) You must attend college to be drafted
Maurice Clarett challenged the NFL on this and ultimately lost in the end. And while you don't actually have to go to college to enter the draft, you do have to be three or more years out of high school. While in theory you can get drafted without having gone to school, you could count the number of players who took this route and were successes on one hand if you were bad in woodshop back in junior high. While the three other leagues are snapping up high school players, the NFL is designed for you to at least get some amount of post-high school education.

7) NFL Films
Former World War II vet and coat salesman Ed Sabol started his career in sports by filming his son Steve's high school football games. From there, a true legend was born. Using a combination of music, filmed highlights and incredible voices, NFL Films...well, I was going to say ‘is a cut above the rest' but truthfully, there is no ‘rest.' As I write this, I am getting goose bumps imagining the voices of Harry Kalas and especially Jon "the voice of God" Facenda.  Even outside of the sports world, I can't think of anything that compares to NFL Films.

8) Fantasy Football
While the concept of fantasy sports originated with baseball and rotisserie leagues, Fantasy Football long since blew past the popularity of baseball. Why you might ask? Because you can play fantasy football and only really pay attention one day a week. Fantasy football has completely changed the game and created more dedicated fans from otherwise casual fans.  People who years ago might watch a game or two are suddenly arguing about Peyton Manning and Chad Johnson.  In any businesss, you will have people who are dedicated to your product and people who will never buy your product but the big money is with the huge group in the middle.  The undecided.  Nothing has done more to convert the undecided to football fans than fantasy football.

9) Monday Night Football
The massive impact of Monday Night Football on the NFL cannot be overstated.  The brainchild of that Rozelle guy (him again?), the first prime time broadcast for the league happened in 1970 and was a contest between the Jets and Browns in which MNF garnered a whopping 30% of television viewers and thusly a legend was born.  Monday night games changed the game in way younger fans can't imagine or appreciate. Movie theaters were empty, people changed their schedules and even a hospital in Seattle refused to deliver babies during the Monday night games. 

The NFL and ABC had struck gold. Initially featuring Keith Jackson as the play by play man the first year, the team that will always be remembered came together in year two featuring Frank Gifford, ‘Dandy' Don Meridith and the often abrasive but always entertaining Howard Cosell. Even in my youth, no matter how bad the game might have been, I was always in front of our TV for Cosell's ‘Half Time Highlights.'  I can still hear Howard say "The place, Three Rivers Stadium..."

10) 16 Games
Because the NFL season is only sixteen games per team, every single game means something. When baseball plays 162 games per team and most teams are eliminated from playoff contention by the middle of the season, lose a game, no biggie.  Well, it is a biggie in the NFL and therefore, teams bring their best every game. Combine that with NFL parity and each game takes on every more importance as teams that are  struggling by mid season can still rally and make it into the playoffs by season's end. In 2006, the Philadelphia Eagles were sitting at .500 and a super long shot to even make the playoffs. They won their last five games, won the division, won their first playoff game and came a field goal away from playing for the NFC championship.

11) Rivalries
Yes, there are rivalries in other leagues but they just aren't the same.  As an example, the NBA had a great rivalry between the Lakers and Celtics back in the day. Larry Bird. Magic Johnson.  Amazing games.  But that rivalry depended on both those teams being great and as you notice, not much of a rivalry between them now. The great games between the two are long since gone. I would liken this to the great rivalry between the Forty-Niners and Cowboys in the early to mid-nineties.  Amazing games but not much of a rivalry these days.  What the NFL does have is the Raiders and Broncos or the Bears and Packers, or possibly the biggest one, the Cowboys and Redskins.  It doesn't matter if either of these teams are any good or not, the games are still great and very heated.  Case in point, the year Dallas went 1-15, the only game they won was against the Redskins at RFK.  The Redskins were a very good team in 1989 and they went 10-6 that year.  Thankfully, the NFL recognized these rivalries and kept most of them intact when they restructured the league.

There is no question that the NFL is the most successful of any professional league.  Partly because football is a great sport but beyond that, the NFL does many many things right that other leagues don't.  That is not to say that there aren't things that could be better, but I will discuss those in my next blog. Now, let the flame war begin. I certainly expect baseball geeks to trash me for this blog but I'd also like to hear about things the NFL does well that I didn't mention.