What seems distinctive about American interests in sport is that it is not confined to social classes. People in all walks of life are represented among ardent sports fans. The collective audience for sports events is enormous.

Sports are associated with educational institutions in a way that is unique. Junior and senior high schools have coaches as faculty members, and school athletic teams compete with each other in an array of sports. Each team's entourage included a marching band (especially associated with football, as Americans and Canadians call the game played with oblong-shaped ball) and a group of cheerleaders. In some smaller American communities, high school athletics are a focal point of the townspeople's activities and conversations.

Nowhere else in the world are sports associated with colleges and universities in the way they are in the States. College sports, especially football, are conducted in an atmosphere of intense excitement and pageantry. Games between teams classified as "major football powers" attract nationwide television audiences that number in the millions. There is a whole industry built on the manufacture and sale of badges, pennants, T-shirts, blankets, hats, and countless other items bearing the totem and colors of various university athletic teams. Football and basketball coaches at major universities are paid higher salaries than the presidents of their institutions. Athletic department budgets in the millions of dollars.

Said a recently-arrived foreign student in Iowa City, "It looks like the most important part of the University (of Iowa) is the most important thing in the whole town."

Sports are a very frequent topic of conversation, especially among males. "Small talk" about sports is self-interesting, but not too personal. Participants can display their knowledge of athletes and statistics without revealing anything considered private.

In some social circles, associating with athletes is a way to achieve social recognition. A person who knows a local sports hero personally, or who attends events where famous athletes are present, is considered by some people to have accomplished something worthwhile.

Expressions from sports are extraordinarily common in everyday American speech. Baseball is probably the source of more idiomatic expressions than any other sport. That fact disadvantages foreign visitors in communicating with Americans because most of them come from countries where baseball is not played.