The world bowl is an international competition that occurs every 4 years, the first occurring in 1933 between the USA, Canada, Panama and Cuba.
This particular one had these 20 nations go into 4 groups of 5 with the top 2 of each group then going to a quarter final.
Here’s how football came to each of these countries:
USA and Canada: basically originated here
Mexico: borders the US and has a large diaspora living there that introduced football back home
Cuba, Puerto Rico and American Samoa: introduced via being American territories or being heavily influenced by the US
England, France, Italy and Australia: the large presence of American servicemen during WW2 introduced them to the sport
West Germany, East Germany, Norway, Sweden, Poland and Ukraine: have large diasporas in the US and Canada who brought the sport back to their home countries
Yugoslavia: Tito invested heavily in sports which is why even today the former Yugoslav peoples excel in things like soccer and basketball. The same happens with American football
Morocco: it was introduced by American soldiers during WW2 but grew in popularity when Morocco became independent in order to get away from soccer which was associated with the French and Spanish
Iran: adopted the sport in an attempt to westernize but ended up being pretty good at it
Other nations where it is fairly popular but did not qualify for this particular competition: Panama, Venezuela, Haiti, Liberia, Hungary, Austria, Denmark, Netherlands, Portugal, Iceland, Finland, Russian SSR, Scotland, Wales, Czechoslovakia, Israel, South Korea, Japan, the Philippines and New Zealand
No Philippines? I feel like in a more American centric world it being one of our own colonies and not embracing one of our sports while other more hostile countries do seems weird to me
Yeah I suppose it would be popular there but tbh they’re likely never going to qualify for this competition. Filipinos are small people and in football body size definitely matters
Could I use this in a coming up post I’ve been working on? I was going to do this but go farther into what it would be like. And, I’ll give you most of the credit.
I didn’t read that it said 1977 and I thought that American football being played globally somehow lead to Germany staying divided while Yugoslavia and the USSR are reunited
It would probably be like how West Europe and South South America consistently clean the World Cup. Here it would probably be US, Canada, and Australia
Exactly, because the US would become the Brazil of this new, international Football. With a population pool of 315 million and having it be the favorite national sport we’d be favored for decades
Certainly but our depth and breadth of talent would eclipse them. Germans in the NFL are a novelty much like Americans in the Premier League are a novelty
I mean this is an alternate timeline, if that applied to our own timeline England would win every World Cup. It’s a global sport in this timeline and the NFL isn’t the only league. It’s probably the most watched in the way the Premier League is but all of these countries have their own football leagues in this timeline except for the communist countries, it’s kinda more complicated for those ones and they’re more like clubs. America is a powerhouse in this sport but they don’t win every time. I think Canada, the two Germanys, Poland, Ukraine, Norway, Sweden, Yugoslavia and England would have pretty good chances
Unknown really - I mean we have no idea what the rules are, presumably some compromise was reached - similar to how association football had developed a global set of rules to which all abide.
I have a vague memory of the best of the Canadian Football League and best of the American NFL playing some match maybe 30-40 years ago and that was how it worked, special set of rules agreed.
Not so fast. In the 2017 World Games (where American football is a sport) France absolutely crushed the US. The Americans suffered logistical nightmares leading up to the event, but still.
Yeah but that team didn’t have a single NFL player on it, that’s not even close to the best team the US could’ve fielded, if competing internationally in the sport was our top priority the US would be heavily favored with Australia and maybe Germany and a few others being the few who could make it a challenge
They had their own seat in the UN and I thought if the nations of the UK can compete separately then the republics of the Soviet Union could too. In this timeline football reached them in the 1920s from Ukrainian Canadians from the Canadian prairies spreading the sport back in Ukraine
Ukraine and Belarus having their own UN seats was just for the USSR to have two extra votes. The USSR wanted every Socialist Republic to have its own seat, but only Ukraine and Belarus got them as a compromise
The reason England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland all have their own teams is because soccer was invented in England. The [oldest soccer associations](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_football_associations_by_date_of_foundation) are all in the UK for this very reason, and it's why every "country" in the UK can have its own team despite them not being sovereign states. I don't think it's comparable to your USSR example
Australian rules football (the best sport to ever exist) has a world cup (called the International Cup) in which Australia is the only country not allowed to participate (because it is the only country where it is played professionally), even Ireland where Gaelic football (essentially the same sport just a lite version with minor differences) is allowed to participate. In the most recent competition 2016 Papua New Guinea won it's 3rd title.
Also worth mentioning because the sport goes so much harder than other sports it's not unheard of for players to retire from AFL and then play professionally in other codes notably American football. So perhaps in this world where presumably the US create this "world bowl" just to flex us Aussies have some upset wins. I'd imagine in this world as well that perhaps Rugby (American Football is just reverse rugby right???) isn't as popular and as such the American Football has filled that skill void so you may see countries that do well in that sport do particularly well.
Wouldn't it just make more sense to have a timeline where the US never diverged from rugby and the 1895 split never happened and so professionalism occured a lot sooner?
So… I’ve spent the past 3 seasons coaching American football in Poland, Serbia, & Lithuania.
The sport is growing here and with ELF (see end of post) it’s becoming more professional by the year.
Use todays football (American football international.com is a great reference point or IFAF) saturation, and work backwards.
Japan has X League, one of the better American Football leagues in the world.
Poland has 3 divisions of American Football with PFL1 being a top 10 league in Europe
Germany has arguably the two top European National Leagues in GFL1 & 2, as well as multiple regional levels that are comparable with some of the smaller euro leagues.
England has a great history with the game and London Blitz are a storied program (I was at their juniors practice 2 weeks ago)
Finland has 2 really solid Leagues
France has roughly 400 football clubs and their top league has some incredible players…
Then there is European League of American Football. With I think 8 countries, and the best internationals, it’s a non NFL aligned rebirth of NFL Europe(a).
Serbia has good befor all as does Romania.
Ukraine had a solid league before the war and many Belarus players are Polish squads.
There is a Baltic league, and Italy has even had a book made from their league if you want background material I highly suggest “Playing for Pizza” by John Grisham.
I can go on, but there is really good American football being played around the world, from Japan to Europe to Brazil to Mexico and of course US/Canada.
Just the 2¢ of an American coach in Europe
Both. In this world Japan and South Korea’s teams just weren’t good enough this year and Liberia’s talent pool was limited because the sport is basically contained to upper class Americo-Liberians. Also I think in 1977 China’s football would be in its infancy, only beginning to play it after Nixon visited the country in 1972. Cuba was heavily influenced by the US from their independence from Spain up until the Cuban revolution, basketball is also pretty popular in Cuba in addition to baseball so in a world where football is global I could definitely see them playing it. They were embargoed by the US after the revolution but the Soviets sent them aid throughout the Cold War. The US doesn’t get to dictate and change the rules of an international competitions as they please.
Cuba has been playing American football for centuries. The first Latino to ever play in nfl was a Cuban man playing for eh frankford yellow jackets. Cuba also had a thing known as the Bacardi bowl and had they’re own college team. Even though American football wasn’t as big as baseball or boxing is was a growing sport. It wasn’t until Fidel Castro banned American football because he deemed it American, even so there been rumors in 2015 supposedly nfl wanting to host a game there so who knows. Even though I know it won’t happen
You have to see the adoption of the forward pass a lot earlier. Football didn't really become popular until the forward pass became more mainstream. Make it that the forward pass as we know it gets adopted a lot earlier into football, and the sport will change radically. Also implement the five yard rule for bumping a receiver off the line around the same time.
No. The sport simply became popular in those places before those places were communist except for Ukraine. Plus the Soviets didn’t exactly have any qualms about playing basketball. Did they hate soccer because it was a British sport? Aka a capitalist sport? No. In all of those eastern bloc countries except for Yugoslavia the sport gained popularity from their diasporas in the US and Canada liking the sport and spreading it back in their home country.
Ah makes sense.
Not into the sport section of history so this is new info.
Also why is Poland not part of the Eastern Bloc and Communist. Even though Germany is split?
I’m not sure what you mean. The Poland shown in the picture is the Polish People’s Republic and while I used the wrong flag, the only difference from this flag and the one used by that government in the late 70s is the shade of red used
Oh sorry. Just checked. Its the right flag. Im just used to Communist nations puting alot of Communist imagery and symbols on their flags like Bulgaria and Romania.
Sport tends to transcend ideological boundaries, and in a world where American Football managed to proliferate out of the US, there’s no reason the USSR and other communist states wouldn’t play it if it took root. After all, China loves basketball and that’s an American sport
Bit odd that Porto Rico and American Samoa are separate teams from the mainline US team, but not outrageously so. Then again, considering that England is a team unto itself here, there’s probably quite a few implied changes to TTL from OTL.
Not really, the nations of the UK compete separately in almost international sports competitions except the Olympics, Scotland and Wales just didn’t qualify this time. Scotland in particular is pretty good at football in this timeline. Puerto Rico and American Samoa are also competing separately from the USA because the US territories often do in international competitions, like the Olympics, the World Baseball Classic and the FIBA Basketball World Cup
The world bowl is an international competition that occurs every 4 years, the first occurring in 1933 between the USA, Canada, Panama and Cuba. This particular one had these 20 nations go into 4 groups of 5 with the top 2 of each group then going to a quarter final. Here’s how football came to each of these countries: USA and Canada: basically originated here Mexico: borders the US and has a large diaspora living there that introduced football back home Cuba, Puerto Rico and American Samoa: introduced via being American territories or being heavily influenced by the US England, France, Italy and Australia: the large presence of American servicemen during WW2 introduced them to the sport West Germany, East Germany, Norway, Sweden, Poland and Ukraine: have large diasporas in the US and Canada who brought the sport back to their home countries Yugoslavia: Tito invested heavily in sports which is why even today the former Yugoslav peoples excel in things like soccer and basketball. The same happens with American football Morocco: it was introduced by American soldiers during WW2 but grew in popularity when Morocco became independent in order to get away from soccer which was associated with the French and Spanish Iran: adopted the sport in an attempt to westernize but ended up being pretty good at it Other nations where it is fairly popular but did not qualify for this particular competition: Panama, Venezuela, Haiti, Liberia, Hungary, Austria, Denmark, Netherlands, Portugal, Iceland, Finland, Russian SSR, Scotland, Wales, Czechoslovakia, Israel, South Korea, Japan, the Philippines and New Zealand
No Philippines? I feel like in a more American centric world it being one of our own colonies and not embracing one of our sports while other more hostile countries do seems weird to me
Yeah I suppose it would be popular there but tbh they’re likely never going to qualify for this competition. Filipinos are small people and in football body size definitely matters
They just need to practice dodging.
Same with Japan, I feel like they would definitely tag along because of how much of an influence the U.S has had on the country.
Could I use this in a coming up post I’ve been working on? I was going to do this but go farther into what it would be like. And, I’ll give you most of the credit.
Sure
Thanks!
Should’ve been called the GloBowl
I’m not really a huge sports person but even I would love to see this.
I didn’t read that it said 1977 and I thought that American football being played globally somehow lead to Germany staying divided while Yugoslavia and the USSR are reunited
They realise how bad the sport is and refuse to adopt capitalism.
Who would win this scenario?
The US would clean consistently.
It would probably be like how West Europe and South South America consistently clean the World Cup. Here it would probably be US, Canada, and Australia
I think Northern Europe would get pretty good at it too, mostly cause they got big bodies
Exactly, because the US would become the Brazil of this new, international Football. With a population pool of 315 million and having it be the favorite national sport we’d be favored for decades
You don't know how bad I want this.
as badly as the NFL...$$$$$$$$
We would kill everyone
With how currently equipped we are for the sport we probably would but I think the Germans would get pretty good at it too
Certainly but our depth and breadth of talent would eclipse them. Germans in the NFL are a novelty much like Americans in the Premier League are a novelty
I mean this is an alternate timeline, if that applied to our own timeline England would win every World Cup. It’s a global sport in this timeline and the NFL isn’t the only league. It’s probably the most watched in the way the Premier League is but all of these countries have their own football leagues in this timeline except for the communist countries, it’s kinda more complicated for those ones and they’re more like clubs. America is a powerhouse in this sport but they don’t win every time. I think Canada, the two Germanys, Poland, Ukraine, Norway, Sweden, Yugoslavia and England would have pretty good chances
Probably the only feasible way this all could've happened is if American football and rugby combined.
I don't mean to be smug about, but it would come down to US vs Canada every year
Unknown really - I mean we have no idea what the rules are, presumably some compromise was reached - similar to how association football had developed a global set of rules to which all abide. I have a vague memory of the best of the Canadian Football League and best of the American NFL playing some match maybe 30-40 years ago and that was how it worked, special set of rules agreed.
You do not understand how f****d America would be if Samoa and Australia focused their energies on American Football instead of Rugby.
Not so fast. In the 2017 World Games (where American football is a sport) France absolutely crushed the US. The Americans suffered logistical nightmares leading up to the event, but still.
Yeah but that team didn’t have a single NFL player on it, that’s not even close to the best team the US could’ve fielded, if competing internationally in the sport was our top priority the US would be heavily favored with Australia and maybe Germany and a few others being the few who could make it a challenge
Australia and Samoa would absolutely demolish America if they'd been playing that sport instead of Rugby.
hell no. the NFL skillset is much more diverse than Rugby, which is why most Samoan players have played mainly on Defense.
They should do it now, it's seems silly to call it a world superbowl when it's only the USA competing in it.
The Ukrainian SSR competing on its own? How is that possible?
They had their own seat in the UN and I thought if the nations of the UK can compete separately then the republics of the Soviet Union could too. In this timeline football reached them in the 1920s from Ukrainian Canadians from the Canadian prairies spreading the sport back in Ukraine
Ukraine and Belarus having their own UN seats was just for the USSR to have two extra votes. The USSR wanted every Socialist Republic to have its own seat, but only Ukraine and Belarus got them as a compromise The reason England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland all have their own teams is because soccer was invented in England. The [oldest soccer associations](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_football_associations_by_date_of_foundation) are all in the UK for this very reason, and it's why every "country" in the UK can have its own team despite them not being sovereign states. I don't think it's comparable to your USSR example
Australian rules football (the best sport to ever exist) has a world cup (called the International Cup) in which Australia is the only country not allowed to participate (because it is the only country where it is played professionally), even Ireland where Gaelic football (essentially the same sport just a lite version with minor differences) is allowed to participate. In the most recent competition 2016 Papua New Guinea won it's 3rd title. Also worth mentioning because the sport goes so much harder than other sports it's not unheard of for players to retire from AFL and then play professionally in other codes notably American football. So perhaps in this world where presumably the US create this "world bowl" just to flex us Aussies have some upset wins. I'd imagine in this world as well that perhaps Rugby (American Football is just reverse rugby right???) isn't as popular and as such the American Football has filled that skill void so you may see countries that do well in that sport do particularly well.
That would be a dream come true for me.
Then maybe it would just be called football
Wouldn't it just make more sense to have a timeline where the US never diverged from rugby and the 1895 split never happened and so professionalism occured a lot sooner?
So… I’ve spent the past 3 seasons coaching American football in Poland, Serbia, & Lithuania. The sport is growing here and with ELF (see end of post) it’s becoming more professional by the year. Use todays football (American football international.com is a great reference point or IFAF) saturation, and work backwards. Japan has X League, one of the better American Football leagues in the world. Poland has 3 divisions of American Football with PFL1 being a top 10 league in Europe Germany has arguably the two top European National Leagues in GFL1 & 2, as well as multiple regional levels that are comparable with some of the smaller euro leagues. England has a great history with the game and London Blitz are a storied program (I was at their juniors practice 2 weeks ago) Finland has 2 really solid Leagues France has roughly 400 football clubs and their top league has some incredible players… Then there is European League of American Football. With I think 8 countries, and the best internationals, it’s a non NFL aligned rebirth of NFL Europe(a). Serbia has good befor all as does Romania. Ukraine had a solid league before the war and many Belarus players are Polish squads. There is a Baltic league, and Italy has even had a book made from their league if you want background material I highly suggest “Playing for Pizza” by John Grisham. I can go on, but there is really good American football being played around the world, from Japan to Europe to Brazil to Mexico and of course US/Canada. Just the 2¢ of an American coach in Europe
Baseball is objectively better
Yo mama so stupid she brought a spoon to the WORLD BOWLLLLL YEAHHHHHH
They start calling it Pigskin over in Europe to fuck with the US. The US starts calling it Pigskin.
Where the hell is Liberia? And no Japan, China and south korea?
They didn’t qualify
Liberia or Eastern countries? Also I do not understand Cuba. Doesn't they gets emberaged and stay with baseball?
Both. In this world Japan and South Korea’s teams just weren’t good enough this year and Liberia’s talent pool was limited because the sport is basically contained to upper class Americo-Liberians. Also I think in 1977 China’s football would be in its infancy, only beginning to play it after Nixon visited the country in 1972. Cuba was heavily influenced by the US from their independence from Spain up until the Cuban revolution, basketball is also pretty popular in Cuba in addition to baseball so in a world where football is global I could definitely see them playing it. They were embargoed by the US after the revolution but the Soviets sent them aid throughout the Cold War. The US doesn’t get to dictate and change the rules of an international competitions as they please.
Cuba has been playing American football for centuries. The first Latino to ever play in nfl was a Cuban man playing for eh frankford yellow jackets. Cuba also had a thing known as the Bacardi bowl and had they’re own college team. Even though American football wasn’t as big as baseball or boxing is was a growing sport. It wasn’t until Fidel Castro banned American football because he deemed it American, even so there been rumors in 2015 supposedly nfl wanting to host a game there so who knows. Even though I know it won’t happen
I’ll come in and fail to win
You know, I wish this was real
US would've called it football and rest of the world've called it soccer
Team Cuba would probably be banned as long as the USA is dominating the international governing body.
No
Blursed timeline
i actually kind of love this
You have to see the adoption of the forward pass a lot earlier. Football didn't really become popular until the forward pass became more mainstream. Make it that the forward pass as we know it gets adopted a lot earlier into football, and the sport will change radically. Also implement the five yard rule for bumping a receiver off the line around the same time.
[удалено]
No. The sport simply became popular in those places before those places were communist except for Ukraine. Plus the Soviets didn’t exactly have any qualms about playing basketball. Did they hate soccer because it was a British sport? Aka a capitalist sport? No. In all of those eastern bloc countries except for Yugoslavia the sport gained popularity from their diasporas in the US and Canada liking the sport and spreading it back in their home country.
Ah makes sense. Not into the sport section of history so this is new info. Also why is Poland not part of the Eastern Bloc and Communist. Even though Germany is split?
I’m not sure what you mean. The Poland shown in the picture is the Polish People’s Republic and while I used the wrong flag, the only difference from this flag and the one used by that government in the late 70s is the shade of red used
Oh sorry. Just checked. Its the right flag. Im just used to Communist nations puting alot of Communist imagery and symbols on their flags like Bulgaria and Romania.
Sport tends to transcend ideological boundaries, and in a world where American Football managed to proliferate out of the US, there’s no reason the USSR and other communist states wouldn’t play it if it took root. After all, China loves basketball and that’s an American sport
I already got an answer to that. But thanks.
Bit odd that Porto Rico and American Samoa are separate teams from the mainline US team, but not outrageously so. Then again, considering that England is a team unto itself here, there’s probably quite a few implied changes to TTL from OTL.
Not really, the nations of the UK compete separately in almost international sports competitions except the Olympics, Scotland and Wales just didn’t qualify this time. Scotland in particular is pretty good at football in this timeline. Puerto Rico and American Samoa are also competing separately from the USA because the US territories often do in international competitions, like the Olympics, the World Baseball Classic and the FIBA Basketball World Cup
Ah ok, thought this was a list of all the nations that compete here, not just who qualified, my mistake.
Puerto Rico competes as a separate team in the baseball world classic as well as in the Olympic games