Team sports can offer a variety of valuable benefits to children. They can offer life lessons that will help them to succeed in other parts of their lives including school, social issues and work ethic. Here are some of the top benefits that children receive when they are involved in team sports:

Teamwork: When children learn to work as a team at an early age, they will be able to interact with others well in the future. Children are able to learn that their actions and responsibilities affect others on their team.

Sportsmanship: Sportsmanship can teach children to be humble. Even the best players and best teams lose games. The way that a team manages to rebuild and react to a loss can provide a child with positive life lessons.

Fitness: Team sports offer children the opportunity to turn off the television and video games to interact with others and to work on their fitness. So many Americans are overweight at an early age. Team sports and a requirement to be physically fit will help to reduce the chance for child obesity and later health risks.

Team sports can be fun for parents too. They can help parents to build better relationships with their children. Participating in team sports can also help parents to meet others in the community with similar interests.

The salaries of most rugby players are not anywhere comparable to the high salaries that American football players make. They do vary greatly by team, league and player status. They can vary from salaries as low as $6,000 US Dollars per year to more notable salaries ranging over $500,000 US Dollars per year.

Reports have been released stating that Sebastien Chabal of the French team Racing Metro 92, Paris is currently the highest paid professional rugby athlete. English and French leagues are some of the most prominent leagues and have many fans. These leagues have the ability to pay their players a higher salary.

Just as American football players, rugby players with celebrity status are often able to supplement their incomes with spokesperson and appearance fees. For example, Johnny Wilkinson, has endorsement deals with companies Adidas, Boots and Hackett that bring in more revenue than his rugby contract.

The rugby world is not unlike American football and basketball leagues that are no strangers to contract debates and union strikes. The leagues often battle with players over similar issues that athletes and management struggle with in any professional sports sector.

Is rugby or football more dangerous? This is a highly debatable question. These two sports are often compared, but they differ greatly. They are both contact sports that require players to make fearless decisions. Let’s look at both sports and the highest dangers involved in each.

American football is what most would call a high collision sport. Because of this players are required to wear a lot of protective gear including helmets. This does not stop players from receiving injuries like ACL tears, shoulder injuries, acute ankle injuries and mild to severe concussions.

In rugby, players are not required to wear the large amount of protective gear that is required in American football. But, while rugby is a high contact sport, it is not a collision sport. The ball carrier in rugby is usually the only person on the field in danger of getting tackled. If they experienced the same type of tackles common in football, the tackler would most likely be reprimanded with a yellow card.

The most common rugby injuries, according to the Journal of Athletic Training, include facial lacerations, shoulder and ankle sprains and knee injuries. Concussions were not as common as football injuries, but helmets may help decrease the high amount of facial injuries to rugby players.

It is a tough call to decide what sport is actually more dangerous. It may be based on a specific individual’s body type and athletic ability. We definitely see a difference in the average player’s physique when comparing rugby players to football players. Have you played both rugby and football and have an opinion? Let us know!