re: Who else could care less about professional football?

I think there's a natural inclination for Americans to not like Pro sports.

There's this distrust. We joke about the WWE aspect of Pro sports but that was always a real concern back in the day.

People are getting paid to play this game? Owners want to make money? What's to stop shennanigans?

So CFB was king in America when it came to football until the 1960's. College basketball was bigger than the Pros until the Celtic dynasty in the 60's.

Only Baseball was king as a Pro Sport before the 60's.

Baseball was basically everything as the only legitimate Pro sport.

That's not to say CFB hasn't become Pro and shennanigans (we all know they have and always have been - Rockne was apparently paying players who went to school for 1 year at ND and then left after they were no longer needed for football) but that wasn't discussed back then. Just like Olympic cheating wasn't discussed.

But Americans inclination was to love the Olympics and love CFB - Americans love amatures - or the idea of playing something without getting paid because that wasn't work to most Americans.

Getting paid to play a game seemed contrary to the hustle and bustle of new America. And every American worker knew or knows...you half arse it half the time or don't care half the time...that translates to Pro players - it's just a workplace for them as well. So how do we know they are giving it their all?