If there were any lingering doubts that the NFL is this country's most popular sports entity, and also its most influential, they were summarily debunked Thursday afternoon.

Just hours after the NFL announced that it would not play its schedule for this weekend, three major college conferences canceled their slates, NASCAR postponed its races and Major League Baseball opted to wait until Monday to resume play.

	Paul Tagliabue's decision to not have the NFL play caught other leagues off guard.

That those decisions came on the heels of the NFL's final resolution to a gut-wrenching week, observers agreed, was more than mere coincidence. It was as if most other sports were acknowleding, if even grudgingly, football's status in the athletic world's pecking order.

Commissioner Paul Tagliabue would not say Thursday if he felt a sense of leadership or responsibility with his decision to cancel the games. Instead, he noted, the priority was to be "sensible, sensitive and right, but not (necessarily) quick." The swift reaction of other sports, though, only reinforced the NFL's lofty perch.

Baseball might still be the country's national pastime, but football has become its No. 1 passion and occupies a unique power base.

In its preeminent role, the NFL was sought out as the voice of reason, and clearly others followed the lead of Tagliabue in deciding to put the grieving process ahead of games. Representatives from the Southeastern Conference did not return several messages, but some of the powerful league's coaches acknowledged that the NFL's stance likely played a role in the SEC's reversal about this weekend's schedule.

Until Thursday afternoon, SEC commissioner Roy Kramer had been resolute in wanting to play games, claiming they would be a part of the country's healing process. The NFL decision apparently caught some conferences, and perhaps even baseball, by surprise. But those sports entities wasted little time in getting in lockstep.

"I'm not sure that our people wouldn't have made the decision they did anyway," said Vanderbilt coach Woody Widenhofer, whose game with Mississippi was canceled. "But from having worked in the NFL for a lot of years, I know the kind of (clout) they have. When they decide they're not playing, your reaction is definitely to pay attention."

Said South Carolina coach Lou Holtz: "For the NFL not to play, that's pretty big."

	“	I'm not sure that our people wouldn't have made the decision they did anyway. But from having worked in the NFL for a lot of years, I know the kind of (clout) they have. When they decide they're not playing, your reaction is definitely to pay attention. ”
		— Woody Widenhofer, Vanderbilt coach

The Big Ten and Pac-10 followed suit in canceling games and, by early Thursday evening, only seven college games remained on the schedule. None involved major conferences. There remained some question as to whether the games will be rescheduled.

Bob Bahre, owner of the Loudon, N.H. track where the New Hampshire 300 was scheduled for this weekend, allowed that the NFL decision played a major role in the NASCAR cancellation. Bahre noted the race probably would have been run, "if football and a few other things had gone along."

During nearly three days of deliberation, either Tagliabue or his lieutenants spoke with representatives of several conferences. League spokeman Greg Aiello confirmed that the commissioner "indeed spoke to (leaders from) other sports" as part of his deliberation.

As late as Wednesday night, Tagliabue counseled with baseball commissioner Bud Selig. The two men exchanged their respective viewpoints, but Tagliabue said that he did not indicate to Selig that he was "leaning" toward moving forward with the NFL schedule for the weekend.

"There was an exchange of ideas," Tagliabue said, "but we each had our own particular set of unique circumstances."

There were rumblings throughout the day Thursday that baseball officials assumed that the NFL would play, because the White House was urging sports to continue as a sign to the country that the nation was returning to normal. But the NFL commissioner never spoke directly to President George W. Bush nor to any of his top advisors. If baseball was caught short by Tagliabue's decision, NFL sources said, it was not an intentional ruse.

Members of Tagliabue's staff spoke with White House liaisons, but insisted there was no pressure exerted on the league to play its games this weekend. In fact, just the opposite was true, according to NFL Players Association executive director Gene Upshaw, whose offices are located in Washington, D.C., and who is familiar with White House staffers.

"Their message all along was that the NFL should do what was most appropriate for the NFL, and that the decision was for the league to make," said Upshaw, who spoke to the White House as recently as Thursday morning.

Two baseball owners, one from each league, said Thursday evening that Selig probably would have made the decision to wait until Monday before resuming play no matter how Tagliabue had acted. "We're big boys here and we don't need anyone else to show us the way," bristled one owner.

The second owner allowed, though, that the NFL's decision forced baseball to revisit its stance and to deliberate "at least a little longer" before announcing the Monday restart.

Len Pasquarelli is a senior NFL writer for ESPN.com.