Had this Mensa candidate done any shred of research, he might have discovered that "football" is not exclusively the domain of Americans. Three codes of football are played in Australia — the most popular, the fastest, and the highest-scoring of which is Australian rules football, which was first codified in 1858. That's 22 years before American football evolved out of association football ("soccer') and rugby.
My humble opinion is that Aussie rules is more exciting and more fun to watch than American football.
Here's the next facepalm-inducing pronouncement from the research-challenged Mr. Redford:
Good grief... if only Mr. Redford had even bothered to check Wikipedia, he might have learned that a very deep culture surrounds the Australian game. And thanks to organizations like the United States Australian Football League, AFL Canada, and AFANA, Australian rules football is quickly growing in popularity across the United States and Canada.
Since I hope that you, my audience, will find the Australian game interesting, please take a few minutes to introduce yourself to the game:
...and this very nice in-depth introduction will take you further inside the game:
As for Patrick Redford and Deadspin, well, some of their salty and snarky blog posts are occasionally interesting and snicker-inducing, so long as you remember that they are hardly an authoritative source of sportswriting.
While soccer (association football) remains the most widely-played sport worldwide, the fact is that more people around the world play Australian football than American football. This writer hopes that number grows and grows and grows.
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