Pierre, your perception is correct. Football is hands-down America's game. The football season is relatively short--only about five months long--but football commands the vast majority of the attention in the U.S. sports media year-round. Between the Super Bowl and the start of the next season, we get seven months of endless speculation about which drafted players will excel and which will fail, which players will switch teams, and which team will absolutely, definitely win the next season's Super Bowl. Typically, you see the first predictions for the next season's Super Bowl the day after a given year's game, if not the same night.

It didn't used to be this way. Until the 1970s or 1980s, baseball was still the number one sport in America. But, the NFL was very smart about how it used television to grow its fanbase. It entered into league-wide TV deals and made Sunday football's day. It helped that football is very TV-friendly. Then, in the 1990s, baseball experience labor strife and a steroid scandal that tilted American fandom even more toward football. Now, football is a runaway train.

I'm a New York Giants fan. They're one of the storied teams in the NFL and were one of the most successful teams prior to the beginning of the Super Bowl era (1966-present). Since then, they've had long stretches of being terrible (a winning record in only 21 out of 57 seasons), interrupted by short bursts of glory, during which they've won four Super Bowls (1986, 1990, 2007, 2011).

For a while American football was ´quite big´in the UK. It was shown a lot on one of the TV Channels. Probably channel 4. Not sure why but I dedided to plump for the LA Raiders as my team, which in some respects was quite lucky as by the time I moved to san Fran they were then based over the river in Oakland, so did get to see one game live, before moving back to UK. I still own a very old and battered black T shirt with the pirate logo! I har they play in Las Vegas now!

Yes, Vick, it was Channel 4. They started showing part way through the season and it was the strike season leading up to Superbowl XVIII (this is from memory so I might have the wrong number - edit it was XVII in 82/83) when Washington Redskins and John Riggins flattened the Miami Dolphins. Back then I used to record the Superbowls on VCR, which was a brand new machine in our household for that first one. My future sister-in-law used to get an NFL magazine and I subscribed to it and learned lots of history (before the internet).

The following season I listened to armed forces radio from West Germany to two Sunday night games (the first when the sun had set so the radio waves could get through) and also the Monday night game (2 AM start). This was Dan Marino's rookie season and he was mentioned a lot, obviously, so I became a Dolphins fan. In 1984 I got a proper job so the Monday night games had to go but I think I carried on with the Sunday games. *

I also became a bit of a Patriots fan due to their twin leading quarterbacks Tony Eason and Steve Grogan. Disappointing Superbowl against the Bears and William Perry when they lost 46-10 (from memory - edit correct Supwrbowl XX).

But C4 lost the rights to Five who were rubbish and I met my future wife and stopped following it.

I only got back into it a few years ago by watching NFL Redzone but we don't have that on our cable any more. BBC highlights was good but ITV have took over that and although it's the same Jason Bell and Osi Umenyiora as pundits I don't like the presenter.

* There's two games in particular I have decent memories of - one was something like a 48-47 score (edit Green Bay beat Washington 48-47 and lost to.Atlanta 47-41 that season). The other I only know the score - it was a Monday night game and I had a job interview the next day but I wanted to listen. It was raining, grass pitch, very muddy. Team A kicked off, the ball was fumbled, Team A scores a touchdowm. Team A kicks off, the ball was fumbled, Team A scores another touchdown. 2 plays 14-0. I wisely decided to go to sleep. I found out on the C4 show that the final score was 14-3.

I'm from Australia so don't watch as much as I'd like but one big problem I have is that these days it's turned into a shoot out between most teams.  The rules make it that if the QB gets hit outside a certain zone it's a penalty. 

I'm a long suffering Buffalo Bills fan

Having grown up in NJ, I'm a life-long NY Giants fan (like Mr. Halpin The Younger). Now, living up outside of Boston, in the middle of the Patriots fanbase, I've been able to revel in Eli Manning and the Giants TWO Super Bowl victories over Tom Brady and the Patriots. 

The old VCR challenge of recording games in the middle of the UK night.  I only had access to my Grandparents machine and I think a 3 hour tape.  I had, for no particular reason, followed Washington for a few seasons and was looking forward to successfully watching the 1988 SuperBowl (XXII) the next day. It was pretty easy to avoid the score in those days without social media/internet and a lack of interest elsewhere in the UK media.  I gave carful consideration of kick-off time, how long half time would be and hoped for the best and set the timer.

First quarter was perfect, but had got too much of the build up.

2nd quarter  - managed to have mistimed it and missed it all. Did miss most of the halftime show, so relative success.

3rd and 4th qtr - had those.

...for those of you who don't remember Washington scored 5 toduchdowns in the 2nd qtr, overturning an early 10-0 deficit against Denver.

Have enjoyed it the last few years and got back into it thanks to the BBC highlights show.  I agree with Steve that it has lost something since moving to ITV, and much of that will be the easy ability of Mark Chapman to move things along whenever he presents.