American Football International’s Top 10 Stories of 2018
This past year was another record breaker for American Football International and now with 5 million readers worldwide since our inception, we are proud to have grown into the premiere site for international American football.
Our list of the Top Stories for 2018 is based on readership and significance and has some surprising entries.
The year started off strong and as we moved into April, May and June our readership really increased.
There is no doubt that American football is rapidly gaining popularity throughout the world and our numbers reflect that. We are grateful to all of you who have helped us become the top news outlet for American football throughout the world. According to a number of estimates, AFI is among the top 300,00-400,00 websites in terms of traffic in the world!
The most popular story of the year relates to strength and conditioning written by Steven Morris, a personal trainer and strength coach and owner of Explosive Football Training.
Titled the Top 10 Exercises for Football Strength and Speed, the article describes 10 exercises, some well known and some slightly less common, that will help football players develop both strength, power and speed.
Next up, while not as widely read, was an article on the re-unification of the International Federation of American Football and it may have been the most significant article of the year. It marked the end of the turmoil that has plagued the international American football community for the past three years. The Court of Arbitration, CAS, announced that Richard MacLean was the president of IFAF.
Another story that has endured since first published in 2014 describes the 9 differences between rugby and American football, the two top collision sports in the world.
Former Baylor football star Silas Nacita has carved out a career in football in Europe that has attracted tons of attention for all the right reasons. Basically ostracized from football in the United States, Nacita has had a positive impact on the field and off in Europe.
His re-signing with Germany’s Marburg Mercenaries earlier this season was definitely a popular read.
The business side of playing football abroad was also a popular topic and John O. Anderson’s article entitled Why signing a contract to play American Football abroad is a business decision was among our most read articles of the year.
Our coverage of the Canadian Football League was extensive again in 2018. AFI showed every game culminating in the 106th Grey Cup game between the Calgary Stampeders and Ottawa REDBLACKS.
The Stampeders downed Ottawa 27-16 to claim their 8th Grey Cup title.
Another enduring story has been the World Rankings list that AFI originally published in 2015.
The list was revamped slightly later that year but remains a popular read.
Although it was published in 2015, a graphic showing the countries with the most NFL interest continues to be popular and comes in at our #8 spot.
The fact that the Canadian Football League is composed of more import players than Canadians has obviously been of fascination to our readers. The article, You would be surprised where the players in the Canadian Football League come from, continues to be among our most widely read after three years.
Rounding out our Top 10 stories of 2018 is German Bowl XL between the Schwäbisch Hall Unicorns and arch rivals, the Frankfurt Universe.
The Unicorns won their second straight German title, beating Frankfurt 21-19.
We know we have left many other popular stories off the list. Let us know which ones you think should have been on this list.
