This Monday’s edition of Peter King’s Monday Morning Quarterback had two quotes that jumped out at me on the very first page. King kicked off Monday’s column with a look at the preseason Green Bay Packers, who are preparing to defend their Super Bowl win.
“The game is bigger than us. The team is more than us. It’s a community team, blue-collar and understated and not at all about self-glorification.” – Aaron Rodgers, Green Bay Packers quarterback
“When you win in this town, you become a little bit immortal. Just like those before us. That’s the beauty of this place: We didn’t invent it. We’re just continuing it.” – Ted Thompson, General Manager of the Green Bay Packers
This is why football is the most popular sport in America: the tradition and the opportunity. You have a team like the Green Bay Packers, who represent a small city who by the tenants of modern professional sport, should not have a major league team. The Packers are a relic that survived from the day where towns like Duluth, MN, Pottsville, PA and even my hometown of Rochester, NY had NFL teams. And yet the Packers win Super Bowls, field a competitive team most years and pack their stadium with fans to this day.
In football more so than any other sport, it doesn’t matter how small the city is or how blue collar it is: any team and any player has a chance. The Packers can win the Super Bowl, and cosmopolitan Los Angeles, CA doesn’t even have a team. Players can come from the poorest of families or the wealthiest of families, and both can achieve great success. Because football is relatively inexpensive to play, cost is less of a barrier for entry for interested youngsters and their families. As I mentioned last week, even the shortest of the short and the widest of the wide can dream of an NFL career.
Football is the most popular sport in America because of the tradition of opportunity. Americans love the underdog, and it is football that gives the underdog its best chance. Green Bay, Wisconsin is an underdog in America – except in the NFL.