# American football in the United States

{{Sport overview | country = United States | sport = American football | image = American Football, play from scrimmage, isometric press and muscular preload.jpg | imagesize = 260px | caption = The Navy Midshipmen (left in blue) line up on offense against the Army Black Knights in the annual Army–Navy Game at Giants Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey, in December 2002 | union = USA Football | nickname = | first = September 17, 1869 (155 years ago) (1869-09-17)
American football is a form of gridiron football and the most popular sport in the United States. In the United States, the game is most often referred to as simply "football". Football is played in leagues of different size, age and quality, in all regions of the country.
There is no single national governing body for American football in the United States or a continental governing body for North America. There is an international governing body, the International Federation of American Football, or IFAF. The National Football League has the highest revenue and average attendance of any sports league in the world.

## Description

American football is the most popular sport in the United States. It is a form of gridiron football. In the United States, the game is most often referred to as simply "football".

## Organization in the United States

Befitting its status as a popular sport, football is played in leagues of different size, age and quality, in all regions of the country. A team is sometimes referred to as a "football program".
There is no single national governing body for American football in the United States or a continental governing body for North America. There is an international governing body, the International Federation of American Football (IFAF).
The governing body for American football in the United States is USA Football.

### Professional
#### National Football League

The 32-team National Football League (NFL) is currently the only major professional American football league in the United States. There have been numerous attempts over the past several decades to create a second major or high-level professional league, most of which failed within a few years or, in the cases of the All-America Football Conference and 1960s American Football League, merged with the NFL. The National Football League has the highest revenue and average attendance of any sports league in the world.
The NFL has not operated any developmental minor leagues since the folding of the NFL Europe League in 2007. There are some "independent" leagues operating in the US, but they are not overseen by the NFL and the teams has no affiliation to NFL franchises.
The Dallas Cowboys drew the highest average home attendance during the 2023 season. These figures reflect the popularity of professional American football as a spectator sport:
| # | NFL team | Home games | Average attendance |
| 1 | Dallas Cowboys | 8 | 80,000¹ |
| 2 | New York Giants | 8 | 79,307 |
| 3 | New York Jets | 9 | 77,890 |
| 4 | Green Bay Packers | 8 | 77,829 |
| 5 | Denver Broncos | 9 | 76,388 |
| 6 | Los Angeles Rams | 8 | 73,150 |
| 7 | San Francisco 49ers | 8 | 71,655 |
| 8 | Carolina Panthers | 8 | 71,635 |
| 9 | Houston Texans | 9 | 71,193 |
| 10 | Kansas City Chiefs | 9 | 70,968 |
| 11 | Baltimore Ravens | 9 | 70,597 |
| 12 | New Orleans Saints | 8 | 70,020 |
| 13 | Philadelphia Eagles | 8 | 69,878 |
| 14 | Los Angeles Chargers | 9 | 69,736 |
| 15 | Buffalo Bills | 9 | 69,609 |
| 16 | Atlanta Falcons | 8 | 69,603 |
| 17 | Jacksonville Jaguars | 9 | 69,031 |
| 18 | Seattle Seahawks | 8 | 68,735 |
| 19 | Cleveland Browns | 9 | 67,810 |
| 20 | Pittsburgh Steelers | 9 | 66,977 |
| 21 | Minnesota Vikings | 8 | 66,913 |
| 22 | Cincinnati Bengals | 9 | 66,040 |
| 23 | Miami Dolphins | 9 | 65,922 |
| 24 | Indianapolis Colts | 8 | 65,230 |
| 25 | Detroit Lions | 8 | 64,850 |
| 26 | Tennessee Titans | 9 | 64,520 |
| 27 | Washington Commanders | 8 | 63,950 |
| 28 | Tampa Bay Buccaneers | 8 | 63,756 |
| 29 | New England Patriots | 9 | 63,018 |
| 30 | Arizona Cardinals | 8 | 62,864 |
| 31 | Las Vegas Raiders | 9 | 62,190 |
| 32 | Chicago Bears | 8 | 61,769 |
¹ 93,594 with people watching on screens at the party decks

#### Minor leagues

The United Football League is the predominant professional spring football league. It consists of two four-team conferences, the XFL and the USFL, that originally were founded and played as separate eight-team leagues in 2020 and 2022 respectively before agreeing to a merger with each other. Both conferences bear the names of leagues before them: the USFL was named after a 1980s major professional league known as the United States Football League and reached a settlement with the remaining rightsholders to that league; the XFL was a revival of a 2001 league of the same name from the same founder, Vince McMahon, who sold the league and brand after the 2020 season.
Other active minor league are the Gridiron Developmental Football League and the Rivals Professional Football League which are viewed as low-level or semi-pro leagues.

#### Indoor American football

There are several professional and semi-professional indoor American football leagues, played at hockey-sized arenas. The largest and oldest operating league is the Indoor Football League which has 13 teams spanning from Ohio to California. Historically the Arena Football League, which launched in 1987 was the most prominent league but as the league had operational issues following its 2008 bankruptcy, teams folded and left for other leagues before the Arena Football League folded in 2019. An attempt at reviving the Arena Football League collapsed a few weeks into its only season in 2024, with the remaining teams reorganizing to play out the season; this league abandoned the AFL brand to become Arena Football One.
Other pro leagues include the second-tier National Arena League and the third-tier regional, semi-professional American Indoor Football (Iowa and Michigan), American Arena League (East Coast), and The Arena League (Great Plains, a league originally playing six-man football).
Indoor football leagues play by significantly different rules that accommodate a smaller field of play.

#### Other professional football leagues

Some American players compete in the Canadian Football League in Canada, which operates professionally on a somewhat older rule system with a number of differences from the American game but still recognizable as "football" to the casual American football observer. The CFL allocates half of its teams' rosters for players born and raised in Canada but allows the rest of the players to be foreign born (in practice, these spots are almost always filled by Americans); the CFL also has television presence in the United States and as recently as 1995 played games in the U.S.

### College football

In the United States, college football is governed by the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA). Many colleges and universities have football teams, often with dedicated football stadiums. These teams mostly play other similarly sized schools, through the NCAA's divisional system, which divides collegiate sports teams into four divisions (I-FBS, I-FCS, II and III). The largest, most popular collegiate teams routinely fill stadiums larger than 75,000.
Among college football stadiums, eight, the University of Michigan's Michigan Stadium, Penn State's Beaver Stadium, Ohio State's Ohio Stadium, Texas A&M's Kyle Field, the University of Tennessee's Neyland Stadium, LSU's Tiger Stadium, Alabama's Bryant–Denny Stadium, and Darrell K Royal–Texas Memorial Stadium at the University of Texas at Austin, seat over 100,000 fans and typically sell out. The weekly autumn ritual of college football, which includes marching bands, cheerleaders, homecoming, parties, tailgate parties, form an important part of college football's culture. Football is a major source of revenue to the athletic programs of schools, public and private, in the United States. Top college football players enter the NFL Draft after their college careers are over, in hopes of signing with an NFL team.
"FBS" and "FCS" are abbreviations for the Football Bowl Subdivision and Football Championship Subdivision, two sections of Division I that exist only in football. These two subdivisions were formerly known as Divisions I-A and I-AA respectively. The Championship Subdivision, consisting mostly of smaller schools than the FBS but larger than D-II, has a multiple-round playoff system just like Divisions II and III, while the Bowl Subdivision has only a limited, and unofficial, twelve-team playoff and has historically only featured division championships and bowl games. FBS and FCS teams can, and often do, play against each other. Unofficially, the Bowl Subdivision is divided into two further subdivisions, "major conferences" (also known as "Power Five conferences," since reduced to four with the breakup of the Pac-12 Conference) and "mid-majors" (known in modern parlance as the "Group of Five"). In practice, only major conference teams are eligible to compete for the national championship and receive significant favor in the opinion polling over mid-majors, and it was not until the addition of the BCS National Championship Game that mid-majors had a realistic chance at appearing in one of the major bowls. Although the FCS has a playoff, three conferences do not participate (the Ivy League does not allow its teams to play in the postseason, and the historically black SWAC and MEAC instead play each other in a bowl of their own). Division III teams do not offer scholarships to their players; two Division I FCS leagues also do not offer scholarships—the Ivy League, which prohibits athletic scholarships in any sport, and the Pioneer Football League, which only competes in football and whose members all offer scholarships in non-football sports.
With the exception of the annual Army–Navy Game, only Power Five conference teams air on national broadcast television, although mid-majors, FCS teams, D-II and D-III games can see more limited coverage on cable and local television.
Though the NCAA is the most publicized college athletic organization, the NAIA (which houses mostly smaller private colleges in the midwest) also sanctions football games. At the community college level, the NJCAA oversees the sport in 47 of the 48 contiguous states, the lone exception being California, where the California Community College Athletic Association (CCCAA) operates outside the bounds of the NJCAA. There also exists a club football circuit for student-run teams and colleges that choose not to compete at the varsity level. In addition to this, 10 northeastern colleges field teams in the Collegiate Sprint Football League, a league in which all players must weigh no more than 178 pounds (81 kg) in order to be eligible to play; a second sprint league based in the midwest, the Midwest Sprint Football League, launched in 2021.
The Michigan Wolverines drew the highest average home attendance of all college football teams in 2023. These figures reflect the popularity of college football as a spectator sport:
| # | College football team | Average attendance |
| 1 | Michigan Wolverines | 109,971 |
| 2 | Penn State Nittany Lions | 108,409 |
| 3 | Ohio State Buckeyes | 103,792 |
| 4 | Tennessee Volunteers | 101,915 |
| 5 | Texas Longhorns | 101,625 |
| 6 | LSU Tigers | 100,742 |
| 7 | Alabama Crimson Tide | 100,077 |
| 8 | Texas A&M Aggies | 99,234 |
| 9 | Georgia Bulldogs | 92,746 |
| 10 | Florida Gators | 89,587 |
| 11 | Auburn Tigers | 88,043 |
| 12 | Nebraska Cornhuskers | 86,802 |
| 13 | Oklahoma Sooners | 83,741 |
| 14 | Clemson Tigers | 81,334 |
| 15 | Florida State Seminoles | 78,711 |
| 16 | South Carolina Gamecocks | 77,833 |
| 17 | Notre Dame Fighting Irish | 77,622 |
| 18 | Wisconsin Badgers | 75,391 |
| 19 | Michigan State Spartans | 70,211 |
| 20 | Iowa Hawkeyes | 69,250 |
| 21 | Washington Huskies | 68,814 |
| 22 | USC Trojans | 66,071 |
| 23 | Arkansas Razorbacks | 65,317 |
| 24 | Virginia Tech Hokies | 64,733 |
| 25 | Ole Miss Rebels | 63,721 |
| 26 | BYU Cougars | 61,944 |
| 27 | Kentucky Wildcats | 60,939 |
| 28 | Iowa State Cyclones | 60,384 |
| 29 | Missouri Tigers | 60,169 |
| 30 | Purdue Boilermakers | 58,248 |
| 31 | NC State Wolfpack | 56,919 |
| 32 | Oregon Ducks | 55,895 |
| 33 | Texas Tech Red Raiders | 54,491 |
| 34 | Mississippi State Bulldogs | 54,455 |
| 35 | Oklahoma State Cowboys | 53,891 |
| 36 | Colorado Buffaloes | 53,180 |
| 37 | Utah Utes | 52,499 |
| 38 | Kansas State Wildcats | 51,957 |
| 39 | Louisville Cardinals | 51,252 |
| 40 | West Virginia Mountaineers | 51,156 |
| 41 | North Carolina Tar Heels | 50,095 |
| 42 | Miami Hurricanes | 49,714 |
| 43 | Illinois Fighting Illini | 49,698 |
| 44 | Rutgers Scarlet Knights | 49,251 |
| 45 | Minnesota Golden Gophers | 48,453 |
| 46 | Arizona State Sun Devils | 48,301 |
| 47 | Pittsburgh Panthers | 48,122 |
| 48 | UCLA Bruins | 47,951 |
| 49 | TCU Horned Frogs | 47,331 |
| 50 | Arizona Wildcats | 47,320 |
| 51 | Kansas Jayhawks | 45,888 |
| 52 | Indiana Hoosiers | 46,906 |
| 53 | UCF Knights | 44,015 |
| 54 | Baylor Bears | 43,388 |
| 55 | Virginia Cavaliers | 43,293 |
| 56 | Maryland Terrapins | 40,314 |
| 57 | Fresno State Bulldogs | 39,969 |
| 58 | California Golden Bears | 38,684 |
| 59 | Cincinnati Bearcats | 38,193 |
| 60 | South Florida Bulls | 37,944 |
| 61 | Oregon State Beavers | 36,969 |
| 62 | Boston College Eagles | 36,376 |
| 63 | Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets | 36,290 |
| 64 | Houston Cougars | 36,020 |
| 65 | Boise State Broncos | 35,867 |
| 66 | East Carolina Pirates | 35,115 |
| 67 | Appalachian State Mountaineers | 34,734 |
| 68 | Syracuse Orange | 34,045 |
| 69 | Stanford Cardinal | 33,219 |
| 70 | Navy Midshipmen | 30,804 |
| 71 | Wake Forest Demon Deacons | 30,609 |
| 72 | Jackson State Tigers | 30,060 |
| 73 | Memphis Tigers | 29,782 |
| 74 | Air Force Falcons | 29,616 |
| 75 | Army Black Knights | 29,016 |
| 76 | UTSA Roadrunners | 28,876 |
| 77 | Washington State Cougars | 28,023 |
| 78 | Troy Trojans | 27,121 |
| 79 | Colorado State Rams | 26,509 |
| 80 | Montana Grizzlies | 26,269 |
| 81 | Vanderbilt Commodores | 25,509 |
| 82 | James Madison Dukes | 25,372 |
| 83 | Duke Blue Devils | 25,111 |
| 84 | Tulane Green Wave | 25,021 |
| 85 | San Diego State Aztecs | 24,832 |
| 86 | Connecticut Huskies | 24,659 |
| 87 | UNLV Rebels | 23,661 |
| 88 | Southern Miss Golden Eagles | 23,275 |
| 89 | Marshall Thundering Herd | 23,198 |
| 90 | Wyoming Cowboys | 23,163 |
| 91 | SMU Mustangs | 22,616 |
| 92 | Montana State Bobcats | 21,610 |
| 93 | UAB Blazers | 21,543 |
| 94 | Georgia Southern Eagles | 21,543 |
| 95 | Texas State Bobcats | 21,543 |
| 96 | Northwestern Wildcats | 20,800 |
| 97 | Rice Owls | 20,542 |
| 98 | Tulsa Golden Hurricane | 20,187 |
| 99 | Jacksonville State Gamecocks | 20,033 |
| 100 | Alabama State Hornets | 19,690 |
| 101 | Toledo Rockets | 19,675 |
| 102 | Utah State Aggies | 19,282 |
| 103 | Ohio Bobcats | 19,005 |
| 104 | Liberty Flames | 18,911 |
| 105 | Tarleton State Texans | 18,697 |
| 106 | Florida Atlantic Owls | 18,603 |
| 107 | South Dakota State Jackrabbits | 18,208 |
| 108 | UTEP Miners | 18,160 |
| 109 | Old Dominion Monarchs | 17,847 |
| 110 | North Texas Mean Green | 17,761 |
| 111 | Western Michigan Broncos | 17,619 |
| 112 | Florida A&M Rattlers | 17,616 |
| 113 | Southern Jaguars | 17,465 |
| 114 | South Alabama Jaguars | 17,190 |
| 115 | Coastal Carolina Chanticleers | 17,120 |
| 116 | Nevada Wolf Pack | 16,998 |
| 117 | Eastern Michigan Eagles | 16,882 |
| 118 | San Jose State Spartans | 16,804 |
| 119 | Arkansas State Red Wolves | 16,747 |
| 120 | Louisiana Ragin' Cajuns | 16,664 |
| 121 | Central Michigan Chippewas | 16,350 |
| 122 | New Mexico Lobos | 15,982 |
| 123 | Louisiana Tech Bulldogs | 15,796 |
| 124 | Western Kentucky Hilltoppers | 15,710 |
| 125 | Norfolk State Spartans | 15,656 |
| 126 | Georgia State Panthers | 15,594 |
| 127 | Delaware Fightin' Blue Hens | 15,564 |
| 128 | FIU Panthers | 15,290 |
| 129 | North Dakota State Bison | 15,121 |
| 130 | New Mexico State Aggies | 14,847 |
| 131 | Louisiana-Monroe Warhawks | 14,296 |
| 132 | Bowling Green Falcons | 13,462 |
| 133 | Temple Owls | 13,446 |
| 134 | Miami RedHawks | 13,395 |
| 135 | Sacramento State Hornets | 13,348 |
| 136 | Middle Tennessee Blue Raiders | 13,219 |
| 137 | Buffalo Bulls | 13,142 |
| 138 | Alabama A&M Bulldogs | 12,934 |
| 139 | Charlotte 49ers | 12,471 |
| 140 | Alcorn State Braves | 12,018 |
| 141 | Western Carolina Catamounts | 11,935 |
| 142 | Idaho Vandals | 11,737 |
| 143 | Eastern Kentucky Colonels | 11,655 |
| 144 | Yale Bulldogs | 11,581 |
| 145 | Harvard Crimson | 11,555 |
| 146 | Hawai'i Rainbow Warriors | 11,251 |
| 147 | The Citadel Bulldogs | 11,005 |
| 148 | Ball State Cardinals | 10,771 |
| 149 | South Carolina State Bulldogs | 10,661 |
| 150 | Massachusetts Minutemen | 10,598 |
| 151 | UC Davis Aggies | 10,562 |
| 152 | Furman Paladins | 10,467 |
| 153 | North Dakota Fighting Hawks | 10,288 |
| 154 | William & Mary Tribe | 10,268 |
| 155 | Youngstown State Penguins | 10,065 |

### High school

In the United States, most high schools have football teams. High school football is popular; top schools regularly fill stadiums holding over 10,000 fans, and can afford artificial playing surfaces.
High school teams generally play only against other teams from their state; notable exceptions include matchups between nearby schools located on opposite sides of a state line and occasional matchups between two nationally-ranked teams for television purposes. Some private Christian high schools play for national championships through organizations like the Federated Christian Athletic Association. Public high school football in most states, as is the case with other high school sports, is governed by the National Federation of State High School Associations (NFHS).
For rural schools that do not have the student body to support a full football team, NFHS sanctions nine-man football, which is popular in the upper Midwest. In other regions of the U.S., six-man football is popular in Texas, and eight-man football is the most common reduced-man format in most other states.

### Adult amateur football and semi-pro football

Adult amateur football, also known as semi-pro football, is a level of American football. It is commonly known as "working man's" football, meaning the players have regular jobs and play football on the weekends. Though the players do not get paid, the leagues and the games are run in a somewhat professional manner. For most leagues, it is against the rules to pay its players to play. The rules of the game are usually a hybrid of NFL and NCAA rules.
There are several leagues, regional in nature, which play in the United States:
| League | First season | Type | Geographical area |
| Amateur to Professional Developmental Football League | 2013 | Outdoor | Southeast |
| East Coast Football League | 2013 | Outdoor | New England |
| Eastern Football League | 1961 | Outdoor | Northeastern |
| Empire Football League | 1969 | Outdoor | New York State |
| Florida Football Alliance | 2008 | Outdoor | Florida |
| Mason-Dixon Football League | 1978 | Outdoor | Mid-Atlantic |
| MidStates Football League | 1999 | Outdoor | North Central |
| Minor Football League | 1993 | Outdoor | Eastern & Central United States |
| North Louisiana Football Alliance | 2020 | Nine-man football | South Central |
| New England Football League | 1994 | Outdoor | New England |
| Pacific Coast Football League | 2006 | Outdoor | California |
| Pacific Northwest Football League | 2016 | Outdoor | Pacific Northwest |
| Rocky Mountain Football League | 1997 | Outdoor | Rocky Mountains |
Several leagues supporting women's semi-professional football play have existed. The current major league is the Women's Football Alliance (WFA). The WFA started to play in 2009 stocked with teams from two dissolved leagues, the National Women's Football Association and Women's Professional Football League (NWFA and WPFL respectively).

### Other codes

American 7s Football League (A7FL) is a semi-professional league which plays a seven-man version of gridiron football, while the American Flag Football League plays a variant of American football where, instead of tackling players to the ground, the defensive team must remove a flag or flag belt from the ball carrier to end a down.

### US National American football team

USA Football assembles a national football team for competition in the IFAF World Championship every four years. Because of concerns over competitive balance, USA Football did not field teams for the first two events in 1999 and 2003. The 2007 team consisted solely of amateur players who had graduated from college that spring, from a diverse mix of smaller and larger colleges and universities. The 2011 squad's criteria were looser, allowing some professional players to play (mostly unemployed, lower-end and minor league players; no NFL or NCAA stars participated). Both the 2007 and 2011 incarnations of the team won their year's respective world championship.
The IFAF also fields an U-19 team composed of high school football players that has participated in the 2009, 2012, 2014 and 2016 junior world championships. The national U-19 team won the 2009 and 2014 contests but lost the 2012 contest to Canada.

### Women's football in the United States

Women's football teams in the United States have had many sports leagues. Among them are the Women's Professional Football League (1965–1973), the Women's Professional Football League, the Independent Women's Football League, the Women's Football Alliance, and the X League. In 1970, Patricia Palinkas became the holder of the Orlando Panthers and became the first woman to play in the Atlantic Coast Football League, and in 2010 Katie Hnida became the kicker for the Fort Wayne FireHawks in the Continental Indoor Football League.