Even though American football is the biggest sport in the nation, it is also the most miniscule of America’s major team sports on the global stage. Soccer is, of course, enormous throughout the world—except here. Even as the women’s national team is set to compete for the World Cup, interest in the United States is fairly minimal.
Hockey has a wide reach, as does baseball. Even basketball has competitive leagues all across the world that field Olympic-quality teams, even though the US, whenever it tries, easily wins the gold. But American football? It remains primarily the phenomenon of our peculiar little country in which it was invented.