Which is harder to explain to foreigners..Football or Baseball

As a foreigner, I think the basics of NFL football are very easy to understand, but the intricacies are very hard (especially the 973 players per team - or so it seems at first with their specialized jobs, all the timeouts, the amount of coach control etc).

Baseball is pretty simple - you hit the ball, you run.

 

Baseball is frickin impossible to explain to foreigners. Just explaining balls and strikes is impossible.

 

How the hell is that impossible?

Over the plate = strike

Outside the plate = ball

3 strikes = out

4 balls = walk

Its a pretty simple game, the only time you may have trouble is in the strategy. But then again EVERY game is impossible to explain if you are trying to explain strategy.

 

Baseball, hands down.

 

Way, way, way back in the days me and my friends would take our Norweigian friend Camille to our college's football games and for several years no matter how much we explained things to her she still didn't get the concept behind the game.

 

It depends on the foreigners. Here in Taiwan, baseball is easy to explain because the locals can do most of the explaining. Baseball is the most popular team sport here and there are two major baseball leagues here (Chinese Professional Baseball League, and Taiwan Major League).

Football on the other hand is only available on ESPN Asia and few people watch it. It is hard for them to understand. It took an entire season last year to explain it to my wife (who is from Taiwan) and I still don't think she entirely gets it.

 

My dad, who's Filipino, picked up baseball real easy. He already knew basketball, and as for hockey and football, he only knows what's going on by the grumbling going on in the room.

 

Fifteen years ago, my family had a foreign exchange student from Luxembourg live with us for a year. We took him to a baseball game and a football game during the time he was living with us. He understood the football OK, except for some of the penalties. But he could not grasp the basic concepts at the baseball game.

 

My parents moved to this country from Germany in the late 50s, settled in Chicago, and got into all the American sports. I think they preferred hockey (it being soccer on ice), but they picked them all up eventually.

My favorite line of my dad's regarding baseball:

"It's nine on one, and the nine have the ball... but the one has a big stick."

 

What the guy above me said.

That and the high and low strike zone, 3 outs in an inning, etc. Try it with someone who has no idea and come back to tell me how simple it really is. We've just been conditioned to get it.

 

Well, I'm a baseball fan and follow the sport. As for football, I know the basics and stuff. The main problem I have with football are the plays. Like I have no clue what a dime or nickel play is. It's impossible for me to play defense in Madden since I have no clue on the formations. I guess to explain the basic concepts of both sports is relatively easy. But going into detail, I'd say football. Although I would understand why baseball would be tough too.

 

I have several Danish friends and it seems more difficult to explain football. Things like offensive line not being able to move, one man in motion at a time, not being able to through the ball beyond line of scrimmage, clock stops on imcomplete passes, etc. The biggest question they have is how can an American football team consider itself the "world champion" of football.

 

I noticed the Patriots had "World Champions" on their banner. I thought the previous couple of winners had used the more appropriate "Super Bowl Champions."

 

Speaking of explaining sports to foreigners I've been watching rugby for over a year now and I still don't understand all the rules doubt if I ever will.

 

Europeans generally prefer simple sports with easy rules and as few breaks as possible. Most neither understand football nor baseball. That's also why whirlwind is right - hockey is a well liked 'American' sports as well as basketball.

Personally I understand most of football, i.e. the general game without knowing all the single rules and why the flags are thrown. I’m watching the Super Bowl annually and don’t feel that I should watch much more – maybe it would be different if I lived in the USA and had the possibility to watch it live in a stadium. Baseball is a mystery for me - and I don't see a reason or feel a desire to learn about it. There are way too many interruptions and the playing scenes are just a minimum of the whole time it takes for a game.

The preference of the different kinds of US sports is nicely seen in the coverage of German TV: Real insiders get some live games of all big four leagues in a sports package of a pay TV station. The general free TV viewer sees:
- NBA: two one hour game summaries a week (Tue, Thu afternoon) + one hour NBA summary of the whole week (Sat, afternoon)
- NHL: half an hour summary of the whole week (Sat, afternoon)
- NFL: half an hour summary of the whole week (Tue, night)
- MLB: was tried in a half an hour summary on Saturday noon, but I think it isn't covered anymore

 

i understand the basic idea of both pretty easily. its just that americans do like their stats so when all the numbers come up we kinda go huh? it doesn't help that i watch both these sports on a knackered TV channel so the picture and sound quality is BAD!

theres something i have been trying to figure out about baseball. with the scoreboard there are 3 columns. the first has the number of runs and is so the score, but what do the other two columns signify? i know im not expaining this well. sorry

 

Runs are followed by Hits and Errors.

 

Yeah, nobody in continental Europe considers cricket to be a sport

 

shouldn't that mean that the second column has more than the 1st? cos this isn't the case.

what is counted as errors? fumbling catches or what?

 

Because the world's best football players play in America.

 

americans should though if they count baseball as a sport. cricket can be slow and boring to watch and field but im addicted.