I was pleasantly surprised to find out that the Superbowl XL was broadcasted live on a France 2 channel (one of several national channels). What people follow here is rugby (as one commenter called it “a close relative to American football”) and European football or as some would call it “soccer”.

I got interested in American football a few years ago, just prior to coming to France. I liked that the Americans were not shy using high technology to help them decide with the tricky moments. We are not as lucky here in Europe - most of the football (soccer) competitions are plagued with bad judgments that occasionally turn the whole games around in a second even though a simple recording review would show what happened.

It's not easy finding a channel that broadcasts NFL here but apparently American football is gaining traction with more than 200 teams in France competing for the championship and due to the rising popularity of this sport and a few other American sports a new channel called NASN (North American Sports Channel) will soon be available.

Finally a small note - I am not familiar enough with the quality of the teams, but I have incredible talent in picking a team to root for that will end up loosing the game (the same happened last night with Seattle). I guess you could always bet against my judgment and win :)