Also, the argument of "but what about the exploited workers in the fields ?" is one of the weakest that's always thrown around. Do they realy think that everyone working for the meat industry are all treated fairly ? All those fields of corn/soy that are used to feed the livestock, guess what, they also need workers.
Also, this is indeed not even an unpopular opinion. Vegans/vegetarians are all around some of the most hated groups of individuals. Source : https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1368430215618253
And to had to that, soccer comes from the term Association Football (hence A.F.C. -> Association Football Club) but since it was too long, the British shortened it to Soccer and it was the prefered term going back as far as the late 19th century. Refering to it as football regained popularity in the UK during the 1960s. As for Gridiron Football, the first part of the name was dropped long ago as at the time all football sports were simply called "football" in North America (this includes Rugby).
And yes this joke is sooo tired, my first reaction was "oh we're going back to making those lame repeated memes that made me quit 9gag 10 years ago"