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Did you know? American football was originally conceived as a hybrid sport based on the two sports of soccer and rugby.

In the earliest years of the game, it was more like soccer than rugby.

What is considered as the first game of (American) football took place on November 6th 1869 between two New Jersey college teams (Rutgers and Princeton).

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• The game was based on the 1863 London Football Association rules which allowed for 25 players per team but disallowed picking the ball up, carrying it or throwing it

(A round soccer style ball was used at the time).

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In the early 1870's the game went through several different rule changes. Sometimes, each college would have their own game rules, which was a problem when it came to playing a game.

• In 1873, the Intercollegiate Football Association (IFA) was formed which aimed to 'standardise' the rules of the game. One of the rule changes made by the IFA was to reduce the team size from 25 players down to 20.

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On November 13th, 1875, Yale and Harvard played each other for the first time. Yale preferred the soccer style rules, Harvard preferred the rugby style rules. They both agreed to a set of "Concessionary rules" for the game. This was the first game ever to use 15 players per team.

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• One of the spectators watching that particular game was a certain Walter Camp. Walter later enrolled at Yale in 1876 and wasted no time in getting to grips with the game of football. By the late 1880's, Walter is credited with introducing a whole multitude of changes to the game, including reducing team size to 11 players, pitch size to 120 x 53 1/3 yards, the scrimmage, the snap from center to quaterback and a lot of other changes. It is from Walter's vision of how the game should be, modern American Football was born. This is why Walter Camp is credited with the title of "The Father of American football".

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In the early 1900's. football was a brutal game.

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• In 1905, there were 19 fatalities and President T Roosevelt reportedly threatened to shut down the game if drastic changes were not made.

• In that same year the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) was formed, whichintroduced many more rule changes to increase safety in the game.

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During the rest of the early 1900's, football went through a few more rule changes, mainly driven through the NCAA.

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• On 1st January 1902, the first Rose Bowl game was played at Tournament Park, Pasadena CA. This game set the tradition of Bowl games being played on new years day.

• 20th August 1920 saw the formation of the American Professional Football Conference (APFC). On June 24th 1922, the APFC changed it's name to the National Football League (NFL).

• 1935 saw the addition of 3 more Bowl games, The Sugar Bowl, The Sun Bowl and The Orange Bowl. The Cotton Bowl was created in 1937. 3 more were added by 1950 and that was how it remained until 1970.

• In 1946 a new football league was created, the All America Football Conference. It later collapsed and ceased to exist in 1950.

• In 1959, another new pro league was founded, the American Football League. This new league was the first serious rival to the NFL.

• In 1966, the AFL partly merged with the NFL. Both leagues agreed to an end of season championship match which became known as the "AFL-NFL World Championship".

• In 1968, the AFL-NFL World Championship game was renamed to "The Superbowl".

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In 1970, the AFL fully merged with the NFL.

The rest, as they say, is history.

Every year, over 100 million Americans tune to watch the Superbowl game.