I think all the football communities should come together and create an instance. LemmyFC.fans or LemmyFC.sport (since .football is already registered) or something like that. Then football fans will find it easier to find their teams and related communities.
During the developer AMA the other day, they said it only costs $10 a month to host Lemmy.ml. If the admins from the club communities came together and put $1-2 a month it could easily work. As it got more and more popular, I’m sure donations would come in.
But I think, especially on .world, it’s hard find all the football communities. You only need to look at fanaticus.social to see how successful it can and should be and football is way bigger than NFL.