College football is huge in the U.S.  Any American who saw any of the big games today knows that.

American college basketball isn’t far behind football, especially when we consider March Madness, when John Q. Public becomes a fan of whichever Cinderella is dancing.

Could make a case that college baseball and softball have their moments, too, when it comes to the playoffs.

And the rest of the world — aside, perhaps, by Canada — does not understand this, the avid American interest in college sports.

Why would that be?

For two reasons.

1. Because college sports are largely unknown in the rest of the world.

In France, in England, in the UAE, in India, you go to college to study.

You might have some extracurricular activities, but they do not involve going to an enormous stadium where your college-sponsored team is playing its arch-rival from another institute for higher learning. (See: Ohio State versus Michigan.)

In the rest of the world, elite athletes ages 19, 20, 21, 22 are not in college at all. They are already playing for a club team — whether it is soccer, basketball, volleyball, water polo, team handball …

2. Non-Americans have deep trouble understanding all the attention given to college sports … because they see college sports as a secondary level of competition, compared to the professional leagues.

Europeans, Asians, etc., know that in their favorite sports they have a top division, then they have a second division.

If you try to tell them that college sports exist independent of the pros, and that they represent the school you currently attend or once did, or wish you had … they would say, “so, it’s an age-group team? That’s never as good as the senior team.”

For these two reasons, most non-Americans never get past the explanation of what college sports are because all they hear is “lower level of competition”.

Their take is that this unmistakably lesser level of competition does not warrant their attention.