I’m learning Spanish, and I’m getting decent at reading it but I’m trying to immerse myself in it more since I still can’t understand it very well. so I was wondering if I could find something I really enjoy like football and watch it in Spanish. I know the NFL probably has a Spanish football channel but I like college football over the NFL and I would prefer to watch a local Spanish team play and possibly become a fan of that team and follow it.

So if American football is played in a Spanish speaking country can I watch it online somehow and also can I have some suggestions on what team would be fun to watch?

If not football I know they play basketball over there so I’ll take some suggestions for that as well if anyone is interested.

Thank you!

  • OhmsLawn@lemmy.world
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    11 months ago

    American football just isn’t a thing in any other country I’ve visited. If you want to follow and become a fan of a team, It’s going to be soccer, maybe baseball in the Caribbean.

    There are other sports that are televised in various countries, but for pure fan passion, it’s local futbol all the way.

    You know what it’s like at the “Irish Pub” during the world cup, when everyone packs in and you can’t help but yell your head off for a goal scored by someone you’ve never heard of? That’s what you get for a random Boca Juniors match in Buenos Aires. It’s absolutely infectious.

    • RightHandOfIkaros@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      If you want to follow and become a fan of a team, It’s going to be soccer, maybe baseball in the Caribbean.

      Funny enough, Japan is HUGE on baseball. I sometimes wonder if the MLB would allow Japan to play, I think.it would be fun to see.

      • HobbitFoot @thelemmy.club
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        11 months ago

        It would be crazy if MLB was able to incorporate foreign leagues into its structure, even if it was just to make the World Series an actual world series.

        • son_named_bort@lemmy.world
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          11 months ago

          That would be interesting, but the logistics involving traveling would be hell. There is the World Baseball Classic, but that’s more like the World Cup where national teams play each other every 4 years instead of a league like MLB with multiple teams per country competing for an annual title.

    • citrusface@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      What countries have you visited? American football is gaining popularity in a lot of other countries, especially the UK.

      Mexico, Brazil, Canada, Australia, Japan, India - all have American football leagues

      • AdaA
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        11 months ago

        We might have a league in Australia, but if we do, I’ve never heard of it. Popular might be too strong a word…

        • BestTestInTheWest@lemmy.world
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          11 months ago

          Every single state and the ACT have leagues. I would definitely describe it as popular. NFL games are played on free to air live every week.

          • DosDude👾@retrolemmy.com
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            11 months ago

            That’s not a metric. There’s a local league for damn near every sport in most developed countries. That doesn’t make the sports popular. It just makes it a sport in a competitive setting.

      • Dr. Bob@lemmy.ca
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        11 months ago

        Other countries view it with curiosity, but gaining popularity is a strong statement. It wasn’t even viewable most of the time when I was over there last.

        eta: Canada plays Canadian Football. It’s certainly as old as American football.

      • Ziggurat@sh.itjust.works
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        11 months ago

        I think that their point is that it’s not popular enough to be broadcasted on TV (with exception). In my European city, there is an American football club (just checked), so if I want to play, and I have no doubt that there is a competitive league (almost every sport has it). However, just like 95% of the sport it’s not broadcasted on TV (Well may-be in the middle of the night on Eurosport, that channel even broadcasts competitive fishing) so people don’t hear about it (But most sport aren’t really massively popular beside football/tennis/rugby/cycling/formula 1. The rest you hear at best during the olympics or specialized media)

        • OhmsLawn@lemmy.world
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          11 months ago

          You think right. That’s essentially what I was trying to say. To amplify, there’s also going to be almost no opportunity to use any vocabulary learned watching American football. You’d be like that weirdo who can’t shut up about rugby.

      • frazorth@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        I don’t know anyone here in the UK who watches any American Football except a couple of folks who watch the super bowl.

        It’s way too slow for one thing, everyone spends all their time standing around. Having something like football or rugby where it’s constant game for the entire match, excluding 1/2 time break, you can have international rivalry, make both are more interesting to watch as well.