College football is the most popular college sport in the United States, Canada, and Mexico. It is the largest Division I sport and one of the most popular spectator sports. College football is also the highest paid sports program with an average of roughly $6 million per game and over six billion a year. College football is a multi-billion dollar industry with sponsors such as McDonald's, Nike, Pepsi, Budweiser, Coca-Cola, AT&T, Verizon, McDonald's, Verizon, Walmart, Nike, etc., and many national and regional television broadcasts.
Collage football was named for the first Division I college that was founded in 1890, Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo, Michigan. The University had been playing football since the 1890s, when the football team was known as the Lions.
College football started with six teams that were played annually and the season was a round-robin style. Teams would play each other twice in the year, once at home and once on the road. From there, Division I football expanded to include many more teams in each conference that played each other at least once during the regular season. There are two divisions of Division I and each division has its own conferences play all their games on separate weekends.
Most college football is played in high schools, community colleges, or junior colleges and in some cases high school coaches may be involved in the game as well. High school football programs will often have a youth coach who works with the team and the players on a daily basis. Coaches usually start the high school football season by using the spring game to introduce the freshmen players to the rest of the team and practice. Coaches usually have one of two methods of recruiting players: either signing the players on scholarship and sending out letters to all of the major college football recruiting agencies, or by holding tryouts at various high schools and encouraging the players to sign with them.
The first football game played in the United States was played between the University of Pennsylvania and Penn State University in 1883. Other early games include Harvard University and the University of Chicago.
College football teams are divided into conferences. There are four conferences in the FBS (Football Bowl Subdivision), the Sun Belt, Mountain West, Mid-American, Conference, Southern, Conference USA, and the Independent American Association. Conference championships are determined by overall record, head-to-head record, conference wins, or losses, etc. Conference tournaments are a necessity in Division I and sometimes, but not in Division II.
