American football in Japan

American football was introduced in the early 1930s, when Paul Rusch, a teacher and missionary from Kentucky, who came to Japan in 1925 to help rebuild following the 1923 earthquake, George Marshall, an athletic teacher at Tokyo based Rikkyo University, and two military attaches at the US embassy, Alexander George and Merritt Booth, helped to form the first football teams at three universities in Tokyo (Waseda, Meiji, Rikkyo).

In 1937, a game between college all-star teams from eastern and western Japan drew a crowd of about 25,000 spectators.

[2] Brigham Young University played two exhibition contests in 1977, also against Japanese All-Star teams, with the American side again winning handily both times.

[3] From 1977 to 1993, a regular season game between American college teams was played in Japan, initially sponsored by Mitsubishi and known as the Mirage Bowl.

The annual game was moved to the Tokyo Dome in 1988, with Heisman Trophy winner Barry Sanders rushing for 332 yards and 4 touchdowns for Oklahoma State University that year against Texas Tech University, thus finishing the season with NCAA single-season records of 2,628 rushing yards and 39 touchdowns.

[5] In recent years, professionals from overseas have played in the X-League, including former NFL quarterback Devin Gardner.

[6] College football in Japan, often played at the club level, is made up of eight leagues, spanning all four islands.