Basketball is ¨Better¨ than Football
Basketball is ¨Better¨ than Football
2022-12-01
5 Reasons Why Basketball Is Better Than Football
- Popularity
- Who can play
- When you can play
- Cost to play
- Safety
Popularity
There is no better indicator of what people like more than popularity. How many people in high school are playing either basketball or football? By looking at the numbers you may be shocked; however, you’re going to realize how much more “popular” basketball is than football.
In high schools across the United States there are 73,712 people who participate in High School football. That is a lot of people, right? You have 11 starters on every side of the ball (offense, defense, special teams), so on a typical football team you can have around 45 to 55 players. But a lot of smaller high schools have much less than that, it is not uncommon for a team to have 20 players for really small schools.
In high schools across the United States there are 540,769 people who participate in High School basketball. And I know this stat is skewed because there are both boys and girls basketball. Even if you half that number it is significantly higher than the amount of athletes that play football.
Take these numbers to the amount that play in college and you get a different result in comparison, but basketball is still more populated than football. There are 16,380 student athletes that play collegiate football and there are 18,816 students that play collegiate basketball.
So clearly, if more people play it then it is more populated. If it’s more populated, it’s more likely to be the better sport.
Who Can Play?
Growing off of what we talked about with popularity, we are going to be talking about “who can play”. So looking above you can see that obviously its advantage is that girls/women can play basketball, while girls don’t (with very few exceptions for some kickers across the country) play football.
But it doesn’t stop there.
How many little children do you see playing football? Some play pee wee, but many more people will play basketball. So there is a whole generation that plays more basketball than football.
How many people post college/post playing careers do you see playing football? Not many again. There are adult leagues everywhere that play basketball and almost none that play football. This age group may also just play pickup basketball with friends and people in their city, while people don’t just meet up to play football.
So football may be a spectator sport, but basketball is a playing sport!
When Can You Play
Football, although a great outdoor sport, is an outdoor sport. And what that means for this discussion is that your ability to play football is dictated by things that are out of your control. For instance, thunder storms and snowstorms and if you live in the southern states in the summer, heat waves.
Basketball will never be reliant on outside conditions because most of the time you’re playing indoors. Maybe in the summer you might be in some outside leagues or playing on outdoor courts, but if the weather is bad you just move inside and continue playing ball.
Football is not that way. Limitations hurt a footballer´s argument.
Cost of Play
Basketball is also a better sport than football because of the cost to play the actual sport. If you’re looking to sing your child up and you are financially aware, then you know this.
All you need in basketball is a pair of shoes (and honestly depending on the age you may not even need “basketball shoes”), and you need at least one person on the team to have a basketball.
In football you will have to have football cleats because you will need the cleat aspect, so you can’t just wear your school shoes. In both sports you’ll need to have at least one person to have a ball, so those cancel out. But now you get into what makes football a lot more expensive, you have all the equipment outside of footwear. You have leg pads, butt pads, shoulder pads, helmets, etc. Now if you’re playing pee wee and your team can supply that, then perfect, but it’s not always the case.
Safety
This one seems obvious.
The sport of football is DANGEROUS! If you play it then you know it, but even watching it you understand. That’s why so many parents won’t let their child play tackle football until high school.
But once you get high school and up, the amount of concussions (diagnosed and undiagnosed) is ridiculous. There is lasting brain damage that could be done.
Not saying that basketball is injury free because any time a sport is a contact sport there is a chance of injury, but the rate of injury and the severity of injury is far less than in football.
This alone should be the reason why you look at basketball as the “better sport”, unless you’re strictly a spectator and you don’t care about the health of the people playing.
Extra: Universal Sport
Lastly, basketball is better because it’s universal. People in countries all around the world play this game we love so much.
You can go to a completely different country that doesn’t speak the same language as you and play a game of basketball with them without speaking a single word. That’s special and amazing. And really the only other sport that has any similarity is soccer (futbol) but it’s not that big in the United States.
Basketball can bring whole communities and countries together, and that can’t be said about football.