US Seagull
Well-known member
I'm pretty sure the whole concept of fantasy sports is an American invention, starting with baseball. So yeah, American sports certainly had the concept of "an assist" (but not, obviously in baseball) for many, many years.I'm not sure when it came into common parlance in football but as a kid in the 90s we'd always talking of "setting up" goals, not assisting. I reckon fantasy football (the show and the games") brought it into the lexicon.
Fairly, sure it's been used for decades in basketball though. John Stockton was King of the Assist long before Mesut Ozil.