When you think of America, the topic of football will always come up. American Football is the most well-known and well-loved sport here in America for many reasons. The sport gained popularity in the 1960ś and since then has only grown and has become more internationally loved. America’s culture revolves around football starting as early as summer during fantasy and draft season to February when the yearly Super Bowl concludes the final game. Every Sunday, families gather around the TV to watch their favorite team compete and to keep up with their Fantasy Football teams. But what else happens during the game? The NFL industry has a whole team running each game to make it successful. Starting from the security people to the media staff capturing every moment.
Starting with the media team, each team has their own social media staff along with freelance people to help the NFL have such a loud social media presence. By far the NFL dominates every platform, they have their sports live streaming on every application you could think of every week. (Sports Media). The media gets even more hype then when the 29.2 million people are playing fantasy football (Sports Media). Each NFL team has 9 people ready to capture every moment. The video team has 4 people on the field (bench sound, ball follow, ground mic, and top mic). For the photographers there is 1 on each end zone. For the bench sound, ball follow, and background mic they have the ability to move around the sidelines. While the game is going on there are go pros to capture the game plays. When there is 5 minutes left, one of the videographers will go set up for the press conference. (Los Angeles Chargers). The media team also has to come up with lots of content for all the games and needs to be on high alert and understand the game so they don’t get injured. For example, here at West Boca one of the ESPN news people was hit by a player on accident. The team does their best uploading and promoting their team in every way possible. After going to UF and seeing what their students are doing, it was very inspiring to understand that every aspect of the game needs a person.
The next group is the athletic trainers. This part of the NFL is to keep the players as healthy as possible and to strengthen them to be strong. They are very competitive with each other on who can keep the players from getting injured. You usually see the athletic trainers running on and off the field to try and find a solution to whatever is the issue. Byron Cunningham (director of rehabilitation for the Los Angeles Rams) describes this role as being, “The front line workers to our athletes, when it comes to injury prevention, treatment, and overall well-being” (“Behind the scenes with an NFL athletic training staff | Gaining Greatness”).
Sports Medicine and Performance has a lot of brackets such as:
-Sports medicine
– Sports science
– Rehabilitation
– Strength and conditioning
– Nutrition
– Player engagement
– Data analytics
Together, all of these sub divisions come together to create high performing players. (“Behind the scenes with an NFL athletic training staff | Gaining Greatness”). This video also mentions PFATS (Professional Football Athletic Trainers Society) & NFL Affiliate Committees:
- Head, neck, and spine committee
- General medical committee
- External education committee
- Medical model committee
These staff work together to do research to advance in sports medicine they also collaborate with the Task Force Initiatives:
- Combine Task Force
- Cardiovascular Task Force
- Soft Tissue Committee Task Force
- NFL Sport Science Task Force
- Lower Extremity Task Force.
From recommending what shoes these athletes should wear, to what foods to eat and on field the athletic trainers play a very vital role in the NFL. Without them football today would not be at the same advanced level that we all grew to know. These people have such an impactful role in today’s sports and they absolutely love what they do, “The most rewarding part of this job is working with a player coming back from an injury and after a game where they come up and thank you, and they say that this is because of you, that they’re back on the field because of you. (“Behind the scenes with an NFL athletic training staff | Gaining Greatness”)
The final group of what makes up the NFL is the players themselves! In the modern day NFL there are 32 teams and then split in half to form the American Football Conference and the National Football Conference. The winner of each conference plays each other every year at the annual Super Bowl. For all 32 teams to get players they have a yearly draft usually in the summer. The first draft was in 1936 with approximately 90 players and with no formal setting like we see today. The Eagles were the first team to initiate this draft and only 24 of the people ended up signing. (NFL) The rules for the modern day draft are quite different and more complex. The teams with the first picks are the ones that played the worst throughout the previous season.
– For the first 20 teams that didn’t qualify for playoffs and the rest that did qualify are slots 21-32.
-Teams that are knocked out in the WIld Card round receive picks 21-24, ordered from worst to best regular-season record.
– Teams eliminated in the Divisional round pick 25-28, also based on reverse regular-season standings.
– The two teams that fall in the Conference Championships get picks 29 and 30, with the lower regular-season record picking first.
The Super Bowl runner-up gets 31st pick.
– The Super Bowl champion has the 32nd and final spot in each round. (NFL)
The draft process takes three days Thursday through Saturday every spring. And once this is over teams are able to start trading players with approval from the board. “To get a chance for the draft, players must have been out of high school for at least three years and have used up their college eligibility before the start of the next college football season. Underclassmen and players who have graduated before using all their college eligibility may request the league’s approval to enter the draft early.” (NFL). An example is Jaxon Dart, one of the New York Giant Rookies. Jaxon spent his college years gaining popularity over social media from being a part of Ole Miss. This year he was accepted during the draft to be a quarterback. What makes him even more impressive is all the play time he has gotten this year for being a rookie. Dart was the Giants 25th pick in round one.
Overall, the present-day National Football League (NFL), has a whole team working together towards ensuring the sport is sustained in ways perceived and valued by society. From the journalistic and creative teams filming the sport from different angles to the trainers working on ensuring player fitness, and from athletes who compete with the highest form of expertise, every group plays a key role in ensuring the smooth organization of every single match. A NFL game is much more than an action-packed three-hour program seen on television each week; it is a project of a host of individuals working in the background to create the energy and excitement sport that brings within American society and culture.
