A professional soccer game lasts 90 minutes. The game is divided into two halves of 45 minutes each, with a half-time break of no more than 15 minutes. Referees may add extra minutes at their own discretion.
Teams may decide to reduce the official playing time for extenuating circumstances, such as impending darkness, as long as the decision is made before the game starts. Soccer referees have the sole discretion to add time for delays that occurred during a half. The additional time is intended to make up for playing time that is lost when a player is injured or another player comes in as a substitution.
A soccer game has two halves, not quarters. Each half in a regulation soccer game lasts 45 minutes. Some soccer organizations vary the time per half depending on the age and skill of the players.
Referees have the option of adding more time at the end of a half to make up for time used during player substitutions and other time-consuming activities between plays.
In between the two halves in a soccer game, there is an intermission. The length of the intermission is dictated by league rules. Some leagues have a time limit, such as 15 minutes, for the amount of time between halves.
A Major League Soccer game lasts 90 minutes, with two 45-minute halves. Halftime in a MLS game lasts 15 minutes. Stoppage time is often added to games, usually making them a few minutes longer than 90 minutes.
Referees keep track of the time that is added to stoppage time. Though the teams are informed of how much time is added to stoppage time at the end of each half, only the referees know how much time is left after stoppage time begins, as there is no visible game clock.
If a Major League Soccer game is tied after the first 90 minutes, two 15-minute overtime periods are played. The overtime periods do not have sudden-death rules, meaning that if one team scores, it does not automatically end the game. The full 30 minutes of overtime must be played before the match ends. If the game is still tied after 30 minutes of overtime, the game ends in a tie in the regular season.
When the playoffs, also known as the Open Cup, begin, games that are still tied after overtime are decided by penalty kicks. The team that scores the most goals out of five penalty-kick tries is the victor.
The first American football match was played on November 6, 1869, between two college teams, Rutgers and Princeton, using rules based on the rules of soccer at the time. A set of rule changes drawn up from 1880 onward by Walter Camp, the "Father of American Football", established the snap, the line of scrimmage, eleven-player teams, and the concept of downs. Later rule changes legalized the forward pass, created the neutral zone and specified the size and shape of the football. The sport is closely related to Canadian football, which evolved in parallel with and at the same time as the American game, although its rules were developed independently from those of Camp. Most of the features that distinguish American football from rugby and soccer are also present in Canadian football. The two sports are considered the primary variants of gridiron football.
American football is the most popular sport in the United States in terms of broadcast viewership audience. The most popular forms of the game are professional and college football, with the other major levels being high-school and youth football. As of 2012, nearly 1.1 million high-school athletes and 70,000 college athletes play the sport in the United States annually. The National Football League, the most popular American professional football league, has the highest average attendance of any professional sports league in the world. Its championship game, the Super Bowl, ranks among the most-watched club sporting events in the world. The league has an annual revenue of around US$15 billion, making it the most valuable sports league in the world. Other professional leagues exist worldwide, but the sport does not have the international popularity of other American sports like baseball or basketball.
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