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In A.D. 248, Emperor Philip lured 45,000 howling Romans to the Colosseum with a show that featured 60 lions, 30 leopards, 10 tigers, a rhinoceros, and 2,000 gladiators resolved to battle to the death. Today in the U.S., the beasts are all in zoos and the only gladiators around are the extras in Spartacus. But every Sunday from September through December, before their TV sets and in stadiums from coast to coast, some 40 million Americans are enraptured by a modern-day spectacle that even the Romans would enjoy. The game is professional football, now established as the spectator sport of the '60s.
Football, as the pros go at it, is a game of special brilliance, played by brilliant specialists. A great golfer strives for versatility: to master the controlled hook, the chip-and-run, the wedge pitch, to learn a dozen uses for each of the 14 clubs in his bag—and gnaws his nails in frustration. But a good offensive tackle knows a dozen devastating ways to accomplish just one mission—block. He even went to college to learn that. In pro football, nothing is left to chance: a single play may have 100 variations, each fashioned as meticulously as a fine Swiss watch. Nothing is what it seems: the quarterback fades back, cocks his arm, looks downfield—but what's this?—the fullback is already in the secondary, with the ball tucked neatly under his arm. And when the quarterback does have the ball, there he stands, cool and detached, facing the onrushing horde until at the last instant—zingo! There it goes, delicately arcing 40 yds. for a touchdown.
"I Like It." So precise is the teamwork that a single mistake by one man can destroy the handiwork of ten. So many are the complexities that connoisseurs argue endlessly in a mysterious lingo over slotbacks, stunters and buttonhooks. Even the innocent are mesmerized. Action piles upon action, thrill upon guaranteed thrill, and all with such bewildering speed that at the end the fans are literally limp. At New York's Yankee Stadium, where 63,000 hardy souls braved sleet to watch the Giants edge Cleveland 17-13, a man turned fondly to his wildly cheering wife. "Honey," he said gently, "do you understand anything about this game?" "Not a thing," she smiled, "except that I like it."
No other sport offers so much to so many. Boxing's heroes are papier-mache champions. Hockey is gang warfare, basketball is for gamblers, and Australia is too far to travel to see a decent tennis match. Even baseball, the sportswriters' "national pastime," can be a slow-motion bore: finger resin bag, touch cap, look for sign, shake head, shake again, check first, big sigh, wind up, finally pitch. Crack! Foul ball—and the fans could be halfway to Chicago by jet. Even a good thing palls when the games go on day after day for six months. Football's pros are shrewder: they perform just once a week, 14 times a season, and it is often standing room only. Last year the National Football League filled 76% of the seats in its stadiums (v. big-league baseball's 34%), and this year the N.F.L. sold half its seats before the first whistle blew. The income: upward of $20 million.