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Hello everyone and welcome to E-com Monthly Intro to American Culture.
I'm Heather.
And I'm Marcellus.
It's February and that means it's Super Bowl time!
WOO-HOO! Super Bowl!
All right, I'm not sure if anyone out there knows what Super Bowl is, but it is the NFL, which is the National Football League...
That's right. Football meaning, of course, American football and not soccer.
Yes.
So, basically it's the American football championship.
So, I think there have been 44 Super Bowls so far.
That's right.
And which team has the most wins, Marcellus?
Well, you know, I didn't know the answer to that and I just looked it up on the Internet
and it turns out that the Pittsburgh Steelers have won the most Super Bowl games.
Right, so that's a team in Pennsylvania.
That's right.
All right, and I have to admit, personally I'm not a big fan of football, but I love the commercials during the Super Bowl.
That's right.
I think they have the biggest budget for commercials and they have amazing commercials that are just once a year.
Like, just really creative and hilarious commercials.
That's right and the reason why the budget for advertising is so big
is because the Super Bowl game is the most watched television show in America.
Really?
That's right. It has the highest viewers.
Wow.
Yeah, it's really amazing.
I don't really like watching the Super Bowl on TV,
but every year, I do hope that my hometown team, the Cleveland Browns, make it to the Super Bowl
and so far, they have not.
Really?
That's right.
My team's the Carolina Panthers, but, to be honest, I have no idea if they've ever been to the Super Bowl.
Oh no...
Yikes.
Anyway...
I think it's time to start.
Let's begin.
Welcome back!
We are in the month of February and this month's topic is sports.
Sports.
That's right.
Now, in the United States, there are three big sports
and it just so happens that we're gonna use those three sports as our three key words for the month.
The first key word is: football.
The next one is: basketball.
And then, finally, we have: baseball.
Now, football is a really interesting key word, because for many Europeans, in fact, most Europeans,
the word football to Americans means soccer.
So, for us, we use the word soccer to talk about what you in Europe call football.
Now, in America, football is a very different sport, and I think a lot of Europeans actually call that American football
and we have the ball that's shaped like this and the players tend to wear helmets and a lot of padding
and they knock each other around and it's a pretty physical sport, pretty close to rugby, I would imagine.
Yeah.
Yeah.
But, more protection than rugby.
More protection, that's right.
Football is one of the big three sports in America and at the intro, we talked about the Super Bowl,
which is the championship game, the game that determines who is the greatest football team of the season.
And also, speaking of seasons, football is generally played in the fall season.
And that brings us to our next key word, which happens in the wintertime, and that is:
Basketball.
All right, so we have the professional men's league is the NBA.
That's right.
And the women's league is the WNBA and the women's, I would have to say, is not quite as popular as the men's.
But, equally as popular as the NBA would be college basketball, I think.
Yeah.
It's very popular, both of those.
But basketball... What season? In the winter?
I think it's in the winter.
And, you know, we have the big, orange ball and the hoops and whatnot.
I don't know, it's pretty popular in America.
I know I played in junior high school.
Yeah, I played also in junior high school and a little bit in college,
not part of the college team, but with my friends in the yard.
We always played basketball.
As Heather said, basketball really is one of the top three most popular sports in America
and it's also a sport from which we get a lot of our heroes.
And thinking of the greatest heroes in basketball, the first person that comes to my mind is Michael Jordan.
Yep.
For our generation, he was a really larger than life figure, who I believe was also quite popular in Europe as well.
Yeah, he's pretty famous everywhere. He's got the shoes and...
That's right.
All of that, yeah.
And that takes us to our third most popular sport, speaking of Michael Jordan, is: baseball.
Oh, yes.
Now, while Michael Jordan was a superstar in basketball, he quit basketball at one point to play baseball.
And, unfortunately, he wasn't as good at baseball as he is at basketball.
But baseball is a summer sport in America and usually played outdoors.
In fact, always played outdoors unless it's in a dome.
Yeah, I guess a dome is possible, yeah.
And usually when we go to a baseball game, we like to eat hot dogs, like to drink beer,
and have a nice, kind of relaxing time outdoors watching baseball games.
But, not just outdoors, baseball is also, like all the other sports, really popular to watch on television.
Yeah.
That's right.
And the Super Bowl of baseball is.... The championship games, I think...
The World Series!
The World Series, that's it.
Yes.
How could I forget the World Series?
I don't know. I almost forgot it.
That's right.
Now, it's interesting to know that in America in baseball, while baseball is a very popular sport in America,
it's also a popular sport in another country in the world and that country is Japan.
And there are a lot of Japanese baseball players who come to America, who join American baseball teams
and become just as popular as some American baseball players.
A pretty interesting thing, I think.
But, not just Japan, we get them from Cuba... We really try to recruit the best baseball players from around the world.
That's right.
And they can make a lot of money and get really famous by playing, yeah.
Absolutely.
Speaking of the top three sports in America, all three sports pay a very huge salary to their top players.
As I'm sure football does, which is soccer in America, in your countries.
Anyway, that's it for now. See you later.
Thank you everyone for listening today.
We hope you enjoyed the videocast.
After you're done studying hard, why don't you go out and throw around a football?
Yeah.
Very good.
We'll see you next time.
Bye-bye!