Top 10 Fun Football Facts:
- American Football grew out of English sports such as rugby and soccer and became popular on American college campuses in the late 1800s.
- Only two players have caught, rushed, and thrown a touchdown against the same team in the same game: Walter Payton in 1979 and David Patton in 2001
- While football originally was popular in Midwestern industrial towns, its growth in popularity around the U.S. is typically traced to the 1958 NFL Championship game, which has been called the “Greatest Game Ever Played.”
- Dallas Cowboys running back Tony Dorsett is the only player to rush for a 99-yard touchdown, in 1983.
- The most watched television event in the United States is the Super Bowl.
- Just two years after finishing their careers, approximately 78% of NFL players go bankrupt.
- Deion Sanders is the only person in history to both hit an MLB home run and score an NFL touchdown in the same week. He’s also the only person to play in the World Series and the Super Bowl.
- The NFL has an annual revenue of $9 billion, with a profit of 1 billion. MLB has an annual revenue of $7.2 billion, with a profit of $49 million.
- Though wings and pizza are the most popular Super Bowl snacks, around 11 million pounds of chips are eaten on Super Bowl Sunday. Additionally, around 4 million pounds of pretzels and 2.5 million pounds of nuts are eaten that day.
- Helmets weren’t mandatory for football players until 1939.
courtesy of: fact retriever