If American basketball and football players played soccer...?

Bit of a theoretical question. If the big strong Russians played American football would they dominate the super bowl?

We can speak of should have, could have or would have until we are blue in the face, but it's all just speculation and means nothing.

This is a difficult question to answer because there are so many variables that go into bringing the sports landscape both in the U.S. and around the world to where it is today. For example, if baseball didn't exist, or was relegated to an amateur sport because everyone played soccer then one wonders if athletes get paid anything more than a few dollars a game. So one might assume then that just eliminating U.S. sports organizations like basketball (the NBA) and baseball (MLB) that all of those resources (money, training, athletes, fan bases, etc.) would go into soccer instead, but you're also assuming that Americans would throw all of that support into a sport that didn't belong to them (unlike American Football, soccer didn't originate in the U.S., even though American Football is based on Rugby). So the answer is that it is difficult to say: on the one hand, yes, it would be safe to assume that soccer would be a huge sport in the U.S. and it would be a country that would dominate the world. But to make that assumption, you have to also consider things like culture, how soccer evolved globally (remember, when soccer spread worldwide, it didn't do so because of things like television, a big thing most people forget; the U.S. shed its U.K. colony status long before soccer spread globally) and how sports evolve locally in the U.S. Throw in those factors and one can no longer "safely" assume that soccer would be a sport that the U.S. adopts as its own; remember, without baseball, sports are relegated to a pastime or something that people do when they have free time because salaries don't allow them to earn a living and play the sport at that high of a level full time.

Are you talking about that sport that's essentially a wimpy offspring of rugby? Plus, Wayne Rooney, dider drogba, emile heskey, and Titus bramble would murder half of your (gay) football players. I'd put my money that you're an ignorant h*mo from the south, that's never played the real football. Also, soccer players are fitter, so most of your overly obese tight-ends would collapse after a 30 second sprint. Why do you think a normal american football game takes like 4 hours. Keep stocking up on those Big Macs :) American Football is just liked because of the airhead cheerleaders you have. Also, you guys call yourselves world champs and incredibly tough at this sport because no one cares enough to play such a Neanderthal sport. "Why don't you learn a little about the game, then criticize it?" I hope you see the irony in that, dumb@ss. Edit: I really doubt you do, otherwise you wouldn't be posting such a down syndrome question.

i would say about 5 or 6. yes im an american, but considering the fact that the usa media has tried to get rid of soccer in the usa until 1994, its only been 15 years that the usa had a real chance of building a program. plus, a lot of pro athletes are multi talented. lebron played football, ochocinco is surprisingly amazing at soccer. plus, if the us did have a soccer program like the nfl, then marketing and talent would sky rocket past epl since america is a bigger country who can support more teams than epl and la liga.

Well, if we played on the moon, where we could jump 50 ft high...

Former NBA basketball star Akeem Olajuwan (?) was told by his Nigerian coaches to take up basketball when he grew to 6'10".

Soccer does not reward height and 300Lb football linemen can't keep up with the aerobics, our wide recievers and scat backs might make the tranittion.

Our previous soccer stars would look like our modern stars, 5'8"-5'10" @ 140- 170 #/

Pretty good, maybe in the top 10.