Rugby and American Football

Sports are typically defined as established competitive physical activities, usually governed by an officiating body, in which participants are motivated by internal and external rewards. When considering the networks in sports, this definition provides useful guidelines for understanding the social connections people make through sports.

American Football and Rugby are very popular sports. This game is played in every continent throughout the globe. This is the sport which has no borders. Everywhere people enjoy this game with the same passion and emotions. The passion can be felt from the players on the field, the management off the field to the fans sitting in the stadium.

Many individuals who have heard of rugby and American football would assume that they are almost the same, but actually that is not the case at all. When taking these two sports and comparing them, a person will realize how incredibly different one is from another.

Rugby union is a highly physical game played by more than 3 million men, women, boys, and girls ranging in age from 6 to 60 in more than 100 countries across five continents. It is a collision team sport with a significant risk of injury. The game is played by two teams of 15 players each on a field measuring a maximum of 100 meters (m) by 70 m plus 2 m in goal areas. Teams attempt, by carrying, passing, kicking, and grounding the ball, to score as many points as possible. The game of football is one of the most popular sports in the United States, with an estimated 1.5 million participants yearly.

The number of players on who are allowed to participate on the playing field at one time is a big difference in the two sports. Rugby consists of 15 players on the field from each team, all players having a certain positions on the field depending if they are playing offense or defense. No player is allowed to have substitutes during the game unless an injury occurs (Mood, Musker and Rink, 397). On the other hand, football only consists of 11 players, from each team, allowed on the field at one time. Each of the 11 players also has a certain positions depending if they are on offense or defense. Unlike rugby, football is allowed to substitute at any time after a play is over and the referee blows the whistle.

The game length between these two sports is another major difference based on the professional leagues they are in. Rugby consists of two halves. Each half is approximately 40 minutes. The clock runs continuously unless of a serious injury on the playing field. In that case, the referee has the option of adding more time on at the end of regulation if the injury took up a lot of the playing time the players could have had (Mood, Musker and Rink, 397).

Football's game length on the other hand, is a lot more complex. Football consists of four quarters. Each quarter is 15 minutes in ...