Professional football
Encyclopedia
In the United States and Canada, the term professional football includes the professional forms of American
and Canadian
gridiron football
. In common usage, it refers to former and existing major football leagues in either country. Currently (2009), there are multiple professional football leagues in North America: the three best known are the National Football League
(NFL) and the Arena Football League
(AFL) in the U.S. and the Canadian Football League
(CFL) in Canada. The NFL has existed continuously since being so named in 1922.
, football has comparatively few levels of play and does not have a well-developed minor league
system, either official or otherwise.
In North America, the top level of professional football is the National Football League
, with the United Football League and Canadian Football League
roughly on par with each other and second to the NFL in prominence and pay grade. Despite the lower level of play, the CFL has more popularity in Canada because of its long history in the country.
Arena football
has also grown in the United States, with the Arena Football League
, which formed in 1987. The AFL is the second longest running professional football league in the United States after the NFL.
Up until the 1970s, semiprofessional and minor football leagues would often develop lower end players into professional prospects. Though there are still numerous teams at the semi-pro level, they have mostly dropped to regional amateur status, and they no longer develop professional prospects. There is a thriving semi-pro indoor football circuit, but its skill sets are significantly different from those of the outdoor game (most notably the near total lack of an offensive line), making its use as a developmental game less than ideal.
Though Japan (X-League
) and Europe have professional football leagues composed primarily of national citizens, they are generally of a lower level of play than the Western Hemisphere counterparts, and they do not generally contribute players to North American leagues either.
. College football, in turn, recruits players from high school football
, with most potential stars receiving scholarships to play. The source for the vast majority of professional football players is the Division I Bowl Subdivision, with most coming from the six Bowl Championship Series
conferences. Under current regulations, players must be at least three years removed from high school graduation to qualify to play in the NFL. Because of these barriers, players who do not play college football have very few options for breaking into the league.
The Canadian Football League has a special requirement that a minimum of half of each team's roster (currently 21 out of 42 players) be composed of Canadian citizens. As such, Canadian Interuniversity Sport
feeds players to the CFL to meet these quotas, much as the NCAA does in the United States. The remaining half of the roster may be filled by either Canadians or by imports (American players who play in the CFL).
The NFL has, over the course of its history, recruited rugby union
, association football and Australian rules football
players from other countries (particularly those who are retired from competition in their home countries) to play in the league, almost always as kickers and punters.
are more likely to vary from league to league than the high school and college levels. Since interleague play is extremely rare, there is no need for a nationwide standard for all leagues, and each league will adopt and discard rules as they see fit. The Arena Football League
had a patent on several of its rules that expired in 2007. Several professional leagues have experimented with rules in an effort to improve the quality of the game or to create a novelty. Nevertheless, the rules of professional football at the outdoor level are nearly identical to those at the high school and college levels, with some minor exceptions (such as the locations of hash marks
, procedures for overtime
, and the number of feet required to be in-bounds to catch a forward pass
). Indoor football's rules are closely based on outdoor football but are heavily altered to compensate for the smaller field.
; some of the better teams would play against college teams. Eventually, some ostensibly amateur teams would secretly begin paying players a small sum to cover their expenses on an under-the-table basis, or arrange for amateur athletes to receive jobs in a company connected to the team (the Olympic Club
of San Francisco, California is believed to have done the latter, thus creating the designation of "semi-pro
" football in 1890, before football had gone professional); in most cases, the practice was within the rules of amateurism at the time.
The first record of an American football player receiving "pay for play" came in 1892 with William "Pudge" Heffelfinger's
$500 contract to play in a game for the Allegheny Athletic Association
against the Pittsburgh Athletic Club; the sum was very large by the standards of the day, and like most payment arrangements, Heffelfinger denied any payment ever took place for much of his life. For several years afterwards, individual players and sometimes entire teams received compensation to play in "barnstorming" type games without rigid schedules and against a variety of opponents. John Brallier
became the first open professional after accepting $10 to play for the Latrobe Athletic Association
; Latrobe became the first all-professional club soon after.
that year, as was custom. Instead, teams from each championship city (Pittsburgh and Philadelphia), three in all, received support from baseball teams in their cities and formed the National Football League (1902)
, the first all-professional league. The league hoped to draw fans by featuring stars such as Rube Waddell
and Christy Mathewson
touring Pennsylvania and New York. It was during this time that Blondy Wallace
emerged as the biggest, and most controversial, name in professional football. The league didn't draw as many fans as hoped, but promoter Tom O'Rourke considered the league to be the best teams in America. O'Rourke brought a coalition of the two Philadelphia teams to his World Series of Football (1902-1903) and immediately labeled them the favorite for the tournament. The "New York" team
was upset by the Syracuse Athletic Club in the first round.
An agreement between the baseball leagues to form modern Major League Baseball
led directly to the end of the first NFL. From there, professional football's focus moved west, as teams such as the Massillon Tigers
and the short-lived Franklin Athletic Club
went on buying sprees in an effort to defeat local teams. Massillon's buying spree led to the rise of the Ohio League
, drawing much of the top professional football talent in America from Pennsylvania to Ohio, including Wallace, who signed with the Canton Bulldogs
. Ohio pioneered the concept of playing games on Sundays to avoid competition with college football games; this was illegal in Pennsylvania (as well as New York City) due to still-existing blue law
s, but eventually became the professional standard. A fabricated betting scandal
, coupled with a lack of competitive games and increasing price tags, effectively ruined the Ohio League by 1907. Professional football took a step back as the Ohio League relied more on local, cut-rate talent, such as player-promoter George Parratt
.
By 1915, however, when Canton signed superstar athlete Jim Thorpe
to combat Parratt's successful squads, the bidding war was sparked again. However, the New York Pro Football League
and other associations in the midwest (particularly Chicago) began competing at a level comparable to the Ohio League by 1919. New York, with future NFL teams such as Buffalo Prospects
, Tonawanda Kardex
, and Rochester Jeffersons
, introduced the playoff tournament to professional football, resulting in Buffalo winning. Barnstorming
tours between the circuits, along with the continuing bidding wars, led to the regional circuits forming connections and laying the groundwork for the first truly national professional league.
in New York City
(Buffalo won) in December 1920. The league did not have a championship game or playoff, setting its championship with a vote of the league owners. The Akron Pros
had the best record in 1920, and the Chicago Staleys were the 1921 "champions," albeit not without controversy.
. From 1922 through 1932, it still declared as champions the team with the best record. There were no set schedules, and each team did not play the same number of games: some teams played against college or other amateur teams. The confusion reached a peak in 1925, when the Pottsville Maroons
(formerly of another regional league, the Anthracite League
) were hailed as the NFL champions by several newspapers after Pottsville defeated the Chicago Cardinals on December 6, even though there were still two weeks left in the season. This led to other teams scrambling to add extra games, including the Chicago Cardinals, who won two 'extra' games and claimed the championship. In the melee, the league cancelled games and suspended Pottsville's franchise. Through the 1920s, the smaller cities gave up on top-level pro football, while larger cities such as Boston, New York and Philadelphia saw teams take root there. This portion of the NFL's existence saw the admission of the Boston Braves
, owned by George Preston Marshall
who was to exert major positive and negative influences on the league.
to the Los Angeles Wildcats
(actually based in Chicago) formed the first American Football League
in competition with the NFL. Because of the 1925 shenanigans, the NFL's Rock Island Independents
left the seven-year-old league to join the AFL. The major attraction of the new league was Red Grange
of the Yankees, but the league folded after just one year, with the Yankees being absorbed into the NFL.
' was held. The University of Chicago
's Heisman Trophy
-winning running back Jay Berwanger
was selected first overall by the Philadelphia Eagles
. However, Berwanger chose not to play Professional Football. The league was dominated by the Chicago Bears
, Green Bay Packers
, and New York Giants
, with stars like quarterback Sid Luckman
(Bears); and fullbacks Tuffy Leemans (Giants) and Clarke Hinkle
(Packers). Even with the stellar fullback Cliff Battles, Marshall's team, now called the Redskins, was driven out of Boston in 1936 by a competing league, and he moved his franchise to Washington, DC as the Washington Redskins
. Marshall introduced the marching band and a team song to Professional Football, along with other promotional efforts. However, he also refused to have black players on his team, and his influence resulted in the entire NFL excluding blacks after 1934. In 1939, NBC
broadcast the first-ever televised Professional Football game from Ebbets Field
, an October 22 contest between the Brooklyn Dodgers
and the Philadelphia Eagles
. There were two fixed monochrome iconoscope cameras and a single play-by-play commentator, Skip Walz.
of six teams was formed to challenge the NFL. It included another New York Yankees team, as well as the Cleveland Rams, the predecessor to today's St. Louis Rams
. Future American Football League
(1960–1969) coach and Hall of Famer Sid Gillman
played his only year of Professional Football with the Rams. Before this AFL's second year, the Rams jumped to the NFL and were replaced by the first Professional Football team to actually play its home games on the West Coast, the Los Angeles Bulldogs
, who had several stars including quarterback Harry Newman
and end Bill Moore. The Boston Shamrocks
, with all-star end Bill Fleming, outdrew the NFL's Redskins in 1936, causing George Preston Marshall to move the team to Washington. However the league as a whole could not compete, and folded after the 1937 season.
Also in 1936, the American Association
was founded as a minor league. It played for five seasons, suspending operations for World War II, and returned under the "American Football League" name in 1946 before sputtering to a collapse in 1950.
was made in 1940, with five franchises, including a third New York Yankees
team. The league was the first major Professional Football league to complete a double round robin schedule, in which each team played each other twice. The onset of World War II
and the resultant draft dried up the source of players for professional football and the new league did not have enough resources to continue.
, another new Professional Football league was formed - the All-America Football Conference
(AAFC). It attracted some of the nation's best football players and posed a serious challenge to the NFL. Like the pre-war AFL, it used a double round robin schedule. The league was dominated by a franchise owned and coached by Paul Brown
: the Cleveland Browns
, a team that would win the league's championship every year of its existence. The Browns featured players such as fullback Marion Motley
, quarterback Otto Graham
and kicker Lou Groza
, while the San Francisco 49ers
had running back Elroy 'Crazylegs' Hirsch
and the Baltimore Colts (not related to today's Indianapolis Colts
, which began play in Baltimore in 1953) fielded quarterback Y.A. Tittle.
Paul Brown made many innovations to the game on and off the field, including year-round coaching staffs, precision pass patterns, face masks, and the use of “messenger guards”. He was the first coach to film the opposition and break down those game films in a classroom setting, also attributed to him. While the NFL was still segregated, the AAFC's Browns became the first modern Professional Football team to sign black players.
Although many of its teams outdrew NFL teams, by 1949 the AAFC's costs had risen so steeply that the league agreed to a 'merger' with the NFL. It was more of a 'swallowing' of the AAFC, with only the Browns, 49ers, and Colts being admitted to the established league, even though the Buffalo Bills
drew good crowds and raised funds from citizens to back the franchise. Players from the Bills and the other AAFC teams not 'merged' were distributed among the NFL teams. Motley, Graham, Groza, Hirsch and Tittle all starred in the NFL after the 'merger'.
Of the three AAFC teams that joined the NFL:
(of Four Horsemen fame), league officials appointed Philadelpha Eagles owner-founder Bert Bell
as commissioner in 1946.
After twelve years without black players in the NFL, the Los Angeles Rams added them in 1946, as they were required by their stadium lease to integrate the team. The league had two five-team divisions, each team playing an unwieldy 11-game schedule, with some teams playing more home games than others. They increased to twelve games the following year, partly because of the success of the rival AAFC's 14-game format. After the AAFC folded, the NFL added three of its teams, for a total of thirteen, but maintained the 14-game format. The first year after admitting the Cleveland Browns
, the NFL was humbled by having the Browns, a team from what it had ridiculed as an inferior league, win its championship. The Browns went on to be NFL champions in three of their first six years in the league. In 1958, the Baltimore Colts
defeated the New York Giants
10-3 in professional football's first sudden-death championship game, and repeated the victory against the same team in the 1959 NFL title game, this time by a score of 31-16. The Colts had folded after the 1950 season and from 1951 through 1959 the NFL had twelve teams, six each in the East and West conferences. The league during this period featured not only star players absorbed from the AAFC 'merger' but others such as halfback Frank Gifford
(New York Giants
); the Philadelphia Eagles
' quarterback Norm Van Brocklin
and receiver Tommy McDonald; and the Colts' quarterback Johnny Unitas
and running back Lenny Moore
. Television coverage of the league was spotty, with some teams starting in 1950 to have individual arrangements with the Dumont Network
and NBC. CBS began to televise selected NFL regular season games in 1956, but there was no league-wide, national television (the Browns, for instance, held out and syndicated games themselves until the early 1960s when a league-wide contract was imposed).
and Bud Adams
tried to purchase existing NFL franchises to move to Texas, or to establish new NFL franchises there, they were told that the conservative NFL was not interested. The result was that Hunt and Adams joined with six other businessmen to form the fourth American Football League
(1960–1969). The league started out by signing half of the NFL's 1960 first-round draft choices including the Houston Oilers' Billy Cannon
, and never slowed down. With future Hall of Fame Coaches Hank Stram
(Dallas Texans/Kansas City Chiefs
) and Sid Gillman
(LA/San Diego Chargers
) as well as others like the Buffalo Bills
' Lou Saban
, the league offered a more risk-oriented on-field approach that appealed to fans. The AFL also actively recruited from predominantly black colleges
and other small colleges, a source the NFL virtually ignored. This led to a higher percentage of minority players, as well as several firsts, such as the first black number one draft choice (Buck Buchanan
, Chiefs); the first black middle linebacker, Willie Lanier
, Chiefs; and the first modern black starting quarterback (Marlin Briscoe
, Broncos).
The AFL was similar to the AAFC in that it offered innovations, like a return to the double round robin schedule introduced by the earlier league and had eight teams in two divisions like the AAFC. The AFL also introduced official scoreboard clocks, player names on jerseys, the two-point PAT conversion and important off-the field elements such as gate and TV revenue-sharing and national TV contracts. The AFL developed the first ever cooperative television plan for professional football, in which the proceeds of the contract were divided equally among member clubs. ABC and the AFL also introduced moving, on-field cameras (as opposed to the fixed midfield cameras of CBS and the NFL), and were the first to have players "miked" during broadcast games.
But the American Football League was different from the AAFC in its overall competitive balance. While the Browns-dominated AAFC had had the same champion every year, six out of the Original Eight
AFL teams won at least one AFL championship, and all but one played in at least one post-season game. In addition to traditional eastern cities, it placed teams in Texas, in the West with the Denver Broncos
, Oakland Raiders
and the Chargers, and eventually in the Midwest Kansas City
and the deep South Miami. The league forced a merger with its rival, and made possible the Super Bowl. Although it lost the first two, by its demise it had beaten two NFL teams proclaimed as "the best in history" to win the final two World Championship games between two Professional Football league champions. The decade ended with the AFL retaining its original franchises, plus two expansion teams, and those ten teams represented the first time a major sports league had merged with another without losing a franchise.
in 1959, Pete Rozelle
was named his replacement.
The 1960 NFL had ten teams, only two south of Washington, DC and/or west of Chicago (the Los Angeles Rams and San Francisco 49ers), and none in the Southern United States
, where college football still dominated. Though it had rebuffed efforts to move or expand, it immediately was put on the defensive by the new AFL, first causing the owners of the proposed Minnesota franchise in that league to renege for an NFL franchise to start in 1961, and immediately establishing the Cowboys in previously rejected Dallas, as competition to Hunt's Dallas Texans
. The NFL also expanded its footprint by moving the Chicago Cardinals
to St. Louis, Missouri in 1960. Later, it impeded the AFL's planned expansion to Atlanta by offering that city's investor the Falcons
' NFL franchise. Ironically, the Falcons' replacement in the AFL were the Miami Dolphins
who have appeared in five Super Bowls, winning two, while the Falcons were losers in their one appearance. Star NFL players during this period included the Browns' fullback Jim Brown
; the Green Bay Packers
' quarterback Bart Starr
, fullback Jim Taylor and halfback Paul Hornung
; halfback Gale Sayers
of the Chicago Bears
; Cowboys receiver Bob Hayes
; the Philadelphia Eagles
' and the Redskins' Charley Taylor
. The AFL's influence on the NFL was evident in several ways: in 1962, the NFL emulated the junior league by arranging its own league-wide national television contract, with CBS; and late in the 'sixties, the NFL began recognizing the wide talent pool the AFL had tapped in small and predominantly black colleges, and it, too, started scouting and signing from those schools.
Tired of raids on players and escalating salaries, in the mid-1960s, certain NFL owners secretly approached AFL principals, seeking a merger of the two leagues. The merger was agreed to in 1966, with a championship game to be played between the league titlists, and a merged schedule beginning with the 1970 season, when existing TV contracts could be re-worked.
The decade was dominated in the NFL by the Packers, who won four NFL titles, and by the mid-to late 1960s their head coach Vince Lombardi
had fashioned a team that, with its ball-control style, would overpower the NFL and carry on to defeat AFL opponents in the first two AFL-NFL Championship Games after the 1966 and 1967 Professional Football seasons. The NFL champions in 1968, the Colts, and in 1969 the Minnesota Vikings
, were each in turn considered to be "the best team in the history of the NFL." By 1969, the NFL had grown to 16 teams, with four teams directly attributable to the existence of the AFL: the Vikings, Cowboys, and Falcons, added to compete with the AFL, and the New Orleans Saints
, who were added as a reward to Louisiana federal legislators for their support of PL 89-800, which permitted the merger. Likewise, the AFL-NFL wars brought two teams to Missouri (one in each league), marking the first time NFL teams had played in the state since the 1930s.
, which was run by the same people (the Rosentover family) as the previous American Association of the 1930s. When the UFL folded, and the Newark Bears of the ACFL unsuccessfully applied to join the AFL, two new leagues formed: the Professional Football League of America (PFLA), which ran from 1965 to 1967, and the more prominent Continental Football League
(ContFL), which ran from 1965 to 1969. The ACFL lost three of its best teams to the ContFL, but survived. The ContFL and ACFL had different strategies: the ContFL had major-league aspirations, while the ACFL was happy as a developmental league and (like previous leagues run by the Rosentovers) allowed its teams to become farm teams to the AFL and NFL teams (for instance, the Hartford Knights were a farm team to the AFL's Buffalo Bills
). The ContFL arguably had better talent that went on to NFL and CFL stardom (Ken Stabler
, Don Jonas
, and Sam Wyche
), but folded after 1969, and plans to take on the CFL head-to-head were abandoned. The ACFL also produced some significant talent (e.g. Marvin Hubbard) and lasted longer, through 1971, with a return season in 1973. The attempted major World Football League
sapped the ACFL of most of its talent, and forced it to fold prior to the 1974 season.
and the remaining NFL teams forming the National Football Conference
. The AFL's official scoreboard clock and jersey-back player names were adopted by the merged league, but the two-point PAT conversion was not adopted until 1994
.
The AFL-NFL merger also led to the creation of a weekly showcase game: Monday Night Football
. Originally broadcast on ABC
beginning with the 1970 season, it moved to ESPN
in 2006.
All American Football League records and statistics were accepted by the merged league as equivalent to pre-merger NFL records and statistics. Thus, a yard gained in the AFL in 1960 is as valid as a yard gained in the NFL in 1960. AFL All-Star Game
selections and appearances are equivalent to NFL 'Pro Bowl' choices. They are equivalent, but, however, not identical, and this has caused errors in reporting by some sources. For example, John Hadl
is listed in most on-line records as having been selected for the 1970 Pro Bowl, played after the 1969 Professional Football season. However, in 1970, there were both an NFL Pro Bowl and an AFL All-Star Game. Hadl, of the San Diego Chargers
was MVP of the January 1970 AFL All-Star Game. The January 1970 NFL Pro Bowl was a different game, featuring only NFL players. Similar errors are made when players like the Oakland Raiders
' Jim Otto
are cited as having "fifteen years of NFL experience." In fact, Otto had ten years of AFL experience and five years of NFL experience, or fifteen years of Professional Football experience.
In 1974, the rival World Football League
successfully lured several NFL stars to its upstart league, but collapsed midway through the 1975 season due to financial problems. The Memphis Southmen
made an unsuccessful bid to join the NFL, even going as far as to file a lawsuit to attempt to force it, and the Birmingham Vulcans
also raised ticket funds to attempt to do the same, but never got as far as Memphis. Neither city has an NFL franchise.
Also in 1974, the NFL, after over four decades of having its goal posts on the goal line (as Canadian football does), finally moved its goalposts back to the end line, as is the norm in high school and college football in the United States.
and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers
to the NFL.
The NFL began experiencing problems in the 1980s. Labor stoppages in 1982 (which led to the NFL season being cut and half) and 1987 (resulting in the league using replacement players for three games), combined with Al Davis
winning a lawsuit to allow his team, the Raiders, to move from Oakland to Los Angeles against league wishes, forced NFL Commissioner Pete Rozelle
into retirement. Paul Tagliabue
was named his replacement.
The NFL backed the minor-league World League of American Football
, a league based in the U.S., Canada, and Europe, which ran for two seasons. After its suspension, two American teams jumped to the Canadian Football League, though only one (the Sacramento franchise
) would play in that league.
was the most significant challenger to the NFL since the American Football League, and the last of any significance to date. The USFL's gimmick was to avoid direct head-to-head competition with the NFL and college ball, and play in the spring. Originally intended as a minor league, this ended when several deep pocketed owners began luring top talent such as Herschel Walker
to the USFL with high salaries.
The groundwork for what eventually led to the demise of the USFL was set mainly by Donald Trump
, owner of the New Jersey Generals
and a vocal opponent of the league's spring football concept, who led a coalition that sought to take the NFL on head-to-head with a fall schedule and later force a merger. This was a major problem for several teams, who were ill-prepared to face the NFL juggernaut, and fans quickly walked away from these lame-duck franchises when it became clear the USFL was done with spring football. The USFL pinned its hopes on an anti-trust lawsuit against the NFL; though the USFL won the case, it was a Pyrrhic victory
, as the jury only awarded damages of US$3.
The USFL's biggest legacy was the fact that it helped develop some of the best quarterbacks in professional football during the 1990s. Many members of the prolific draft classes of 1983 through 1985 played in the USFL and went on to have strong careers in the NFL and CFL, including Steve Young, Jim Kelly
, Doug Williams (who was actually drafted several years earlier, in 1978), Bobby Hebert
and Doug Flutie
.
began work on a brand new variant of football. Known as "arena football
," the sport was played on a much shorter 50-yard field and was built heavily on a high-scoring offensive game. After two test games, he launched a professional league, the Arena Football League
, in 1987. The AFL began its 24th season in 2011, and is currently the United States second longest running professional football league ever, after the NFL. The AFL also had a minor league, AF2
, which ran for 10 seasons, from 2000 to 2009. The Arena Football League season runs from March to August, culminating with the ArenaBowl
championship. In 2011, the AFL began an 18-game season with 18 teams.
The success of arena football led to a revival of interest in indoor football, particularly beginning in the late 1990s. As of 2011, two other national leagues (the Southern Indoor Football League
and Indoor Football League
) and five regional leagues play professional indoor football. One unusual variant of indoor football is the Lingerie Football League
, in which scantily clad women play the game by a modified variant of indoor rules.
in 1988.
In 1993, the NFL began exploring expansion, eying one former NFL market (St. Louis), three USFL markets (Memphis, Baltimore, Jacksonville) and one former World Football League market (Carolina). The "Carolina Cougars" (later renamed Carolina Panthers
) and Jacksonville Jaguars
received franchises to begin play in 1995. At the same time, Al Davis, frustrated with Los Angeles, moved back to Oakland (another former USFL market), and Georgia Frontiere
concurrently moved her Rams franchise to St. Louis, leaving Los Angeles with no NFL franchises
for the 1995 season. Memphis did not receive a permanent franchise, and their proposal moved to the CFL, where it played for one year. Tennessee, however, did not end up empty-handed; the Houston Oilers moved to Nashville beginning in 1997, becoming the Tennessee Titans
.
It was not until after the 1995 season, after Baltimore's CFL team won the Grey Cup, that Baltimore got a second look, this time from Art Modell, who took the core of his Cleveland Browns team to Baltimore to found the expansion Baltimore Ravens
. The effort effectively killed the CFL's American expansion. The Browns returned, restocked with new players and with new ownership, in 1999.
Also borrowed from the USFL was the two-point conversion
, which the NFL adopted in 1994, and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers' color scheme, which was loosely based on that of the Tampa Bay Bandits
.
The NFL revived the WLAF in 1995, this time headquartered solely in Europe, eventually changing the name of the league to the NFL Europe League (known as either NFL Europe
or, in its last season, as NFL Europa, to avoid RAS syndrome
). Originally having its teams spread across several countries including Spain, England, Scotland, the Netherlands and Germany, by the end of the league's run in 2007, only the Netherlands and Germany (the latter of which had five of the league's six teams) were still in the league.
Strained relations between the NFL and its players' union quieted down significantly in the 1990s, and the development of free agency as well as a salary cap
led to peaceful relations between the two entities for over a decade. This was helped by new television contracts
: in 1994, Fox Broadcasting Company
set the tone for broadcast rights to the NFL when it outbid CBS for the right to air NFC games with an unheard-of bid of US$395,000,000. This brought total broadcast rights fees for the league to over US$1,000,000,000. In 1998, when CBS outbid NBC for the rights to the AFC, the total rights fees doubled to over US$2,000,000,000. This is in addition to the rights fee for NFL Sunday Ticket
, a package offered exclusively to the DirecTV
satellite television service, that began in the mid-1990s.
Several short-lived professional leagues arose in the wake of the dot-com boom in the late 1990s. The Regional Football League
played one season in 1999, and the Spring Football League
played only two weeks in 2000. The short-lived, highly-publicized and widely derided XFL
played one season in the winter of 2001.
were added to the league in 2002 to replace the Oilers, bringing the league to an even 32 teams. Roger Goodell
took over as commissioner from the retiring Paul Tagliabue in 2006.
Also during this era, the league began expanding its influence overseas. Fútbol Americano
, a one-off game in Mexico City, was the first regular-season game held outside the United States in 2005; it was followed by the NFL International Series
, an annual game held in London on the last week of October since 2007. In an unrelated move, the Buffalo Bills
began their Bills Toronto Series
, playing an annual December game in Canada, in 2008. The Toronto series will run through 2012.
In 2003, the NFL launched its own in-house network, NFL Network
. Beginning in 2006, at the end of the previous broadcast contract, the NFL launched an eight-game late-season package specifically for the network. The 2006 television contract expanded total broadcast rights to over US$3,000,000,000.
The labor peace in the NFL came to a halt in 2010, when a group of NFL owners invoked an out clause in the league's collective bargaining agreement with the players' union, subsequently imposing a lockout in 2011. The players' association responded by disbanding and having its players sue the league for antitrust violations. The two sides came to an agreement in late July 2011, after only one preseason game, that year's Pro Football Hall of Fame Game
, was lost due to the lockout.
to play in the United States since the World Football League
in the mid 1970's. All UFL games aired on Versus
and HDnet
; every game was also webcast
. The league returned in 2010 with a new expansion team in Omaha, Nebraska and an eight-game, ten-week schedule. However, the 2011 season has seen progress stall as its expansion plans were canceled and the league contracted its Florida and Hartford franchises amid major league-wide financial losses; the UFL also lost its television contract.
The Stars Football League
began play as a four-team league on June 30, 2011, with an eight-week schedule. Numerous other professional leagues attempted to launch in the late 2000s and early 2010s, but never materialized, including the All American Football League
and the United National Gridiron League
.
were adopted in 1905, and the forward pass
(in place on the American side of the border since 1906) was adopted in 1929 after significant pressure from American coaches. The touchdown remained worth five points until 1956 (mainly due to Canadian pro football holding an American TV contract), whereas it had increased to six points in 1912 in the United States. Several relics of the old rules of the game, including goal posts on the goal line, a 110-yard field, more liberal rules for use of the drop kick
, and only three downs, remain in the Canadian game.
Canadian football was, prior to the 1950s, dominated by three amateur organizations: the Ontario Rugby Football Union
(ORFU), the Interprovincial Rugby Football Union (IRFU, or "Big Four"), and the Western Interprovincial Football Union (WIFU). By 1954, the IRFU and WIFU had gone professional (in part thanks to an American television contract from NBC that paid the Big Four more than the one DuMont was offering the NFL), and in that year the ORFU dropped out of competition for the decades-old Grey Cup
, the championship of Canadian football. This is generally recognized as the moment that began the modern era of Canadian professional football. The WIFU and IRFU formalized an agreement creating the Canadian Football League
in 1958, though inter-divisional play did not happen until 1961.
The CFL has been, at various times in its history, competitive with the NFL in terms of being able to acquire talent, though the league's self-imposed rule changes have hampered that in recent years (for instance, the marquee player exemption to the salary cap that once allowed CFL teams to sign one top-level player is no longer there, and the league has banned signing suspended NFL players). It has not been competitive on a team level with the NFL, as evidenced by the fact that in a series of interleague matchups between the IRFU and the NFL in the 1950s and 1960s, the NFL won all six matches. (The Hamilton Tiger-Cats, the best team in the IRFU at the time, did win one game against an American pro team in 1961, but it was an American Football League team, not an NFL team.)
The league attempted an American expansion
in 1993, using a mix of a former World League
team (Sacramento/San Antonio), a rejected proposed NFL franchise (Memphis), a spin-off of a Canadian team (Shreveport), and new expansion teams (Baltimore, Birmingham, Las Vegas), mostly based in the southern and western United States. Of the teams, only the Baltimore Stallions
were both financially and competitively successful, and they were retconned into the Montreal Alouettes
in 1996, while all the other American teams folded.
The two teams based in Ottawa
and Montréal
have been in flux for the past three decades. The original Alouettes folded in 1982; a Montreal Concordes team was founded the same year to replace them, but the Concordes (which renamed themselves the Alouettes in 1986) folded prior to 1987. The current Alouettes arrived in Montréal in 1996, absorbing the two previous Montréal teams' histories but disowning that of the team that formed its basis, the Baltimore Stallions
. The Alouettes' situation has stabilized since that time. However, the Ottawa Rough Riders
folded in 1996 after the team was torn in two by Bernard Glieberman
as part of the American expansion experiment; the Ottawa Renegades
were named as Ottawa's next CFL team from 2002 to 2005, but that team also folded, once again with Glieberman being involved. Jeff Hunt
currently holds expansion rights to a third Ottawa CFL team as well as the rights to the Rough Riders, but that team was supposed to begin play in 2010 and has since been pushed back to 2013, due to stadium problems.
Outside of the problems in Ottawa and Montréal, and the ill-fated American expansion, the CFL has shown significantly more stability than the American leagues. The league has resisted expanding beyond its current nine teams and has, to date, never moved a Canadian team from one city to another. One particular market that has been a persistent topic of discussion has been the maritime provinces. The CFL approved an Atlantic franchise for Halifax known as the Atlantic Schooners
in 1984 provided a stadium with sufficient capacity was built by then; however, no such stadium was ever built (the current largest stadium in Halifax, Huskies Stadium
, only seats less than half of what CFL rules mandate). The Touchdown Atlantic
series is a series of one-off games that are played in Atlantic region stadiums; the first, a preseason game, was held at Huskies Stadium in 2003. A follow-up game was scheduled for the same venue for 2006, but was canceled due to the Ottawa Renegades (who were to play in the game) folding. The series was revived as a regular season game in 2010, but instead at New Moncton Stadium
in Moncton, which is much closer to the CFL's capacity guidelines.
American football
American football is a sport played between two teams of eleven with the objective of scoring points by advancing the ball into the opposing team's end zone. Known in the United States simply as football, it may also be referred to informally as gridiron football. The ball can be advanced by...
and Canadian
Canadian football
Canadian football is a form of gridiron football played exclusively in Canada in which two teams of 12 players each compete for territorial control of a field of play long and wide attempting to advance a pointed prolate spheroid ball into the opposing team's scoring area...
gridiron football
Gridiron football
Gridiron football , sometimes known as North American football, is an umbrella term for related codes of football primarily played in the United States and Canada. The predominant forms of gridiron football are American football and Canadian football...
. In common usage, it refers to former and existing major football leagues in either country. Currently (2009), there are multiple professional football leagues in North America: the three best known are the National Football League
National Football League
The National Football League is the highest level of professional American football in the United States, and is considered the top professional American football league in the world. It was formed by eleven teams in 1920 as the American Professional Football Association, with the league changing...
(NFL) and the Arena Football League
Arena Football League
The Arena Football League is the highest level of professional indoor American football in the United States. It is currently the second longest running professional football league in the United States, after the National Football League. It was founded in 1987 by Jim Foster...
(AFL) in the U.S. and the Canadian Football League
Canadian Football League
The Canadian Football League or CFL is a professional sports league located in Canada. The CFL is the highest level of competition in Canadian football, a form of gridiron football closely related to American football....
(CFL) in Canada. The NFL has existed continuously since being so named in 1922.
Organization
Compared to the other major professional sports leagues of the United States and CanadaMajor professional sports leagues of the United States and Canada
The major professional sports leagues, or simply major leagues, in the United States and Canada are the highest professional competitions in team sports...
, football has comparatively few levels of play and does not have a well-developed minor league
Minor league
Minor leagues are professional sports leagues which are not regarded as the premier leagues in those sports. Minor league teams tend to play in smaller, less elaborate venues, often competing in smaller cities. This term is used in North America with regard to several organizations competing in...
system, either official or otherwise.
In North America, the top level of professional football is the National Football League
National Football League
The National Football League is the highest level of professional American football in the United States, and is considered the top professional American football league in the world. It was formed by eleven teams in 1920 as the American Professional Football Association, with the league changing...
, with the United Football League and Canadian Football League
Canadian Football League
The Canadian Football League or CFL is a professional sports league located in Canada. The CFL is the highest level of competition in Canadian football, a form of gridiron football closely related to American football....
roughly on par with each other and second to the NFL in prominence and pay grade. Despite the lower level of play, the CFL has more popularity in Canada because of its long history in the country.
Arena football
Arena football
Arena football is a variety of gridiron football played by the Arena Football League . It is a proprietary game, the rights to which are owned by Gridiron Enterprises, and is played indoors on a smaller field than American or Canadian outdoor football, resulting in a faster and higher-scoring game....
has also grown in the United States, with the Arena Football League
Arena Football League
The Arena Football League is the highest level of professional indoor American football in the United States. It is currently the second longest running professional football league in the United States, after the National Football League. It was founded in 1987 by Jim Foster...
, which formed in 1987. The AFL is the second longest running professional football league in the United States after the NFL.
Up until the 1970s, semiprofessional and minor football leagues would often develop lower end players into professional prospects. Though there are still numerous teams at the semi-pro level, they have mostly dropped to regional amateur status, and they no longer develop professional prospects. There is a thriving semi-pro indoor football circuit, but its skill sets are significantly different from those of the outdoor game (most notably the near total lack of an offensive line), making its use as a developmental game less than ideal.
Though Japan (X-League
X-League
The X-League is a professional American football league in Japan. It was founded in 1971 as the Japan American Football League. It changed its name to the X-league in 1997. There are four divisions between which there is promotion and relegation. Teams in the four-tier league are split into...
) and Europe have professional football leagues composed primarily of national citizens, they are generally of a lower level of play than the Western Hemisphere counterparts, and they do not generally contribute players to North American leagues either.
Player development
Professional football is considered the highest level of competition in gridiron football. Whereas most of the other major sports leagues draw their players from the minor leagues, the NFL currently draws almost all of its players directly from college footballCollege football
College football refers to American football played by teams of student athletes fielded by American universities, colleges, and military academies, or Canadian football played by teams of student athletes fielded by Canadian universities...
. College football, in turn, recruits players from high school football
High school football
High school football, in North America, refers to the game of football as it is played in the United States and Canada. It ranks among the most popular interscholastic sports in both of these nations....
, with most potential stars receiving scholarships to play. The source for the vast majority of professional football players is the Division I Bowl Subdivision, with most coming from the six Bowl Championship Series
Bowl Championship Series
The Bowl Championship Series is a selection system that creates five bowl match-ups involving ten of the top ranked teams in the NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision , including an opportunity for the top two to compete in the BCS National Championship Game.The BCS relies on a combination of...
conferences. Under current regulations, players must be at least three years removed from high school graduation to qualify to play in the NFL. Because of these barriers, players who do not play college football have very few options for breaking into the league.
The Canadian Football League has a special requirement that a minimum of half of each team's roster (currently 21 out of 42 players) be composed of Canadian citizens. As such, Canadian Interuniversity Sport
Canadian Interuniversity Sport
Canadian Interuniversity Sport is the national governing body of university sport in Canada, comprising the majority of degree granting universities in the country. Its equivalent body for organized sports at colleges in Canada is The Canadian Colleges Athletic Association...
feeds players to the CFL to meet these quotas, much as the NCAA does in the United States. The remaining half of the roster may be filled by either Canadians or by imports (American players who play in the CFL).
The NFL has, over the course of its history, recruited rugby union
Rugby union
Rugby union, often simply referred to as rugby, is a full contact team sport which originated in England in the early 19th century. One of the two codes of rugby football, it is based on running with the ball in hand...
, association football and Australian rules football
Australian rules football
Australian rules football, officially known as Australian football, also called football, Aussie rules or footy is a sport played between two teams of 22 players on either...
players from other countries (particularly those who are retired from competition in their home countries) to play in the league, almost always as kickers and punters.
Rules
The rules of professional footballAmerican football rules
Game play in American football consists of a series of downs, individual plays of short duration, outside of which the ball is dead or not in play. These can be plays from scrimmage—passes, runs, punts, or field goal attempts—or free kicks such as kickoffs...
are more likely to vary from league to league than the high school and college levels. Since interleague play is extremely rare, there is no need for a nationwide standard for all leagues, and each league will adopt and discard rules as they see fit. The Arena Football League
Arena Football League
The Arena Football League is the highest level of professional indoor American football in the United States. It is currently the second longest running professional football league in the United States, after the National Football League. It was founded in 1987 by Jim Foster...
had a patent on several of its rules that expired in 2007. Several professional leagues have experimented with rules in an effort to improve the quality of the game or to create a novelty. Nevertheless, the rules of professional football at the outdoor level are nearly identical to those at the high school and college levels, with some minor exceptions (such as the locations of hash marks
Hash marks
Hash marks are short lines, running perpendicular to sidelines or sideboards, used to mark locations, primarily in sports.-Usage in ice hockey:...
, procedures for overtime
Overtime (sports)
Overtime or extra time is an additional period of play specified under the rules of a sport to bring a game to a decision and avoid declaring the match a tie or draw. In most sports, this extra period is only played if the game is required to have a clear winner, as in single-elimination...
, and the number of feet required to be in-bounds to catch a forward pass
Forward pass
In several forms of football a forward pass is when the ball is thrown in the direction that the offensive team is trying to move, towards the defensive team's goal line...
). Indoor football's rules are closely based on outdoor football but are heavily altered to compensate for the smaller field.
The first professional football player
Professional football evolved from amateur "club" football, played by general interest athletic clubs or athletic associations. These clubs began playing football in the 1880s, approximately ten years after the game took form in American colleges. Amateur club football established itself as a somewhat lower quality alternative to the more popular college footballCollege football
College football refers to American football played by teams of student athletes fielded by American universities, colleges, and military academies, or Canadian football played by teams of student athletes fielded by Canadian universities...
; some of the better teams would play against college teams. Eventually, some ostensibly amateur teams would secretly begin paying players a small sum to cover their expenses on an under-the-table basis, or arrange for amateur athletes to receive jobs in a company connected to the team (the Olympic Club
Olympic Club
The Olympic Club is a San Francisco, California, athletic club and private social club with three golf courses located at San Francisco's border with Daly City, California. The club's main "City Clubhouse" is located in downtown San Francisco. The club's "Lakeside Clubhouse" is located just north...
of San Francisco, California is believed to have done the latter, thus creating the designation of "semi-pro
Semi-professional
A semi-professional athlete is one who is paid to play and thus is not an amateur, but for whom sport is not a full-time occupation, generally because the level of pay is too low to make a reasonable living based solely upon that source, thus making the athlete not a full professional...
" football in 1890, before football had gone professional); in most cases, the practice was within the rules of amateurism at the time.
The first record of an American football player receiving "pay for play" came in 1892 with William "Pudge" Heffelfinger's
William Heffelfinger
-External links:...
$500 contract to play in a game for the Allegheny Athletic Association
Allegheny Athletic Association
The Allegheny Athletic Association was an athletic club that fielded the first ever professional American football player and later the first fully professional football team. The organization was founded in 1890 as a regional athletic club in Allegheny, Pennsylvania, which is today the North...
against the Pittsburgh Athletic Club; the sum was very large by the standards of the day, and like most payment arrangements, Heffelfinger denied any payment ever took place for much of his life. For several years afterwards, individual players and sometimes entire teams received compensation to play in "barnstorming" type games without rigid schedules and against a variety of opponents. John Brallier
John Brallier
John Kinport "Sal" Brallier was one of the first professional American football players. He was nationally acknowledged as the first openly paid professional football player when he was given $10 to play for the Latrobe Athletic Association for a game against the Jeanette Athletic Association in...
became the first open professional after accepting $10 to play for the Latrobe Athletic Association
Latrobe Athletic Association
The Latrobe Athletic Association was a professional football team located in Latrobe, Pennsylvania, from 1895 until 1909. The team is best known for being the first football club to play a full season while composed entirely of professional players...
; Latrobe became the first all-professional club soon after.
Early leagues ~ 1902-1919
The next step in pro football stemmed from an unusual source: baseball. For reasons unknown, the champions of the two major leagues at the time declined to play in a World SeriesWorld Series
The World Series is the annual championship series of Major League Baseball, played between the American League and National League champions since 1903. The winner of the World Series championship is determined through a best-of-seven playoff and awarded the Commissioner's Trophy...
that year, as was custom. Instead, teams from each championship city (Pittsburgh and Philadelphia), three in all, received support from baseball teams in their cities and formed the National Football League (1902)
National Football League (1902)
The National Football League was the first attempt at forming a national professional football league in 1902. The league has no ties with the modern National Football League. In fact the league was only composed of teams from Pennsylvania, which was hardly "national". Two of the teams were based...
, the first all-professional league. The league hoped to draw fans by featuring stars such as Rube Waddell
Rube Waddell
George Edward Waddell was an American southpaw pitcher in Major League Baseball. In his thirteen-year career he played for the Louisville Colonels , Pittsburgh Pirates and Chicago Orphans in the National League, and the Philadelphia Athletics and St. Louis Browns in the American League...
and Christy Mathewson
Christy Mathewson
Christopher "Christy" Mathewson , nicknamed "Big Six", "The Christian Gentleman", or "Matty", was an American Major League Baseball right-handed pitcher. He played his entire career in what is known as the dead-ball era...
touring Pennsylvania and New York. It was during this time that Blondy Wallace
Blondy Wallace
Charles Edgar "Blondy" Wallace was an early professional football player. He was a 240-pound, former Walter Camp second-team All-American tackle from the University of Pennsylvania. He also played two years at Peddie Institute, in New Jersey, winning state championships in 1896 and 1897...
emerged as the biggest, and most controversial, name in professional football. The league didn't draw as many fans as hoped, but promoter Tom O'Rourke considered the league to be the best teams in America. O'Rourke brought a coalition of the two Philadelphia teams to his World Series of Football (1902-1903) and immediately labeled them the favorite for the tournament. The "New York" team
New York (World Series of Football)
"New York" was a term given to a professional football team formed by promoter Tom O'Rouke for the World Series of Football in 1902. The event was held in New York City at Madison Square Garden...
was upset by the Syracuse Athletic Club in the first round.
An agreement between the baseball leagues to form modern Major League Baseball
Major League Baseball
Major League Baseball is the highest level of professional baseball in the United States and Canada, consisting of teams that play in the National League and the American League...
led directly to the end of the first NFL. From there, professional football's focus moved west, as teams such as the Massillon Tigers
Massillon Tigers
The Massillon Tigers were an early professional football team from Massillon, Ohio. Playing in the "Ohio League", the team was a rival to the pre-National Football League version of the Canton Bulldogs. The Tigers won Ohio League championships in 1903, 1904, 1905, and 1906, then merged to become...
and the short-lived Franklin Athletic Club
Franklin Athletic Club
The Franklin Athletic Club was an early professional football team based in Franklin, Pennsylvania. It was considered the top team in professional football in 1903, by becoming the becoming the US Football Champions and winning the 1903 World Series of Football, held after the 1903 season, at New...
went on buying sprees in an effort to defeat local teams. Massillon's buying spree led to the rise of the Ohio League
Ohio League
The Ohio League was an informal and loose association of American football clubs active between 1903 and 1919 that competed for the Ohio Independent Championship . As the name implied, its teams were based in Ohio...
, drawing much of the top professional football talent in America from Pennsylvania to Ohio, including Wallace, who signed with the Canton Bulldogs
Canton Bulldogs
The Canton Bulldogs were a professional American football team, based in Canton, Ohio. They played in the Ohio League from 1903 to 1906 and 1911 to 1919, and its successor, the National Football League, from 1920 to 1923 and again from 1925 to 1926. The Bulldogs would go on to win the 1917, 1918...
. Ohio pioneered the concept of playing games on Sundays to avoid competition with college football games; this was illegal in Pennsylvania (as well as New York City) due to still-existing blue law
Blue law
A blue law is a type of law, typically found in the United States and, formerly, in Canada, designed to enforce religious standards, particularly the observance of Sunday as a day of worship or rest, and a restriction on Sunday shopping...
s, but eventually became the professional standard. A fabricated betting scandal
Canton Bulldogs-Massillon Tigers Betting Scandal
The Canton Bulldogs–Massillon Tigers betting scandal was the first major scandal in professional football in the United States. It refers to a series of allegations made by a Massillon newspaper charging the Canton Bulldogs coach, Blondy Wallace, and Massillon Tigers end, Walter East, of conspiring...
, coupled with a lack of competitive games and increasing price tags, effectively ruined the Ohio League by 1907. Professional football took a step back as the Ohio League relied more on local, cut-rate talent, such as player-promoter George Parratt
Peggy Parratt
George Watson "Peggy" Parratt was a professional football player who played in the "Ohio League" prior to it becoming a part of the National Football League...
.
By 1915, however, when Canton signed superstar athlete Jim Thorpe
Jim Thorpe
Jacobus Franciscus "Jim" Thorpe * Gerasimo and Whiteley. pg. 28 * americaslibrary.gov, accessed April 23, 2007. was an American athlete of mixed ancestry...
to combat Parratt's successful squads, the bidding war was sparked again. However, the New York Pro Football League
New York Pro Football League
The New York Pro Football League was a professional American football league active in the 1910s and based in upstate New York, primarily Western New York. Between 1920 and 1921, the league's best teams were absorbed into the National Football League, though none survive in that league today...
and other associations in the midwest (particularly Chicago) began competing at a level comparable to the Ohio League by 1919. New York, with future NFL teams such as Buffalo Prospects
Buffalo (NFL)
Buffalo, New York had a turbulent, early-era National Football League team that operated under three different names and several different owners between the 1910s and 1920s...
, Tonawanda Kardex
Tonawanda Kardex
The Tonawanda Kardex was an American football team active between 1916 and 1921. It played its games in City of Tonawanda, New York, a suburb of Buffalo with close ties to North Tonawanda, New York where American Kardex was founded...
, and Rochester Jeffersons
Rochester Jeffersons
The Rochester Jeffersons from Rochester, New York played in the National Football League from 1920 to 1925.Formed as an amateur outfit by a rag-tag group of Rochester-area teenagers after the turn of the century , the team became known as the Jeffersons in reference to the locale of their playing...
, introduced the playoff tournament to professional football, resulting in Buffalo winning. Barnstorming
Barnstorm (sports)
Barnstorming in athletics refers to sports teams or individuals that travel to various locations, usually small towns, to stage exhibition matches....
tours between the circuits, along with the continuing bidding wars, led to the regional circuits forming connections and laying the groundwork for the first truly national professional league.
American Professional Football League/Association ~ 1920-1921
A year after the Buffalo Prospects won the first Professional Football championship game, the Ohio League became the American Professional Football League in 1920. One month later, the league added the Buffalo Prospects and the Rochester Jeffersons, and changed its name to the American Professional Football Association (APFA). In an effort to expand beyond the midwest, the league staged a showcase game between Canton and Buffalo at the Polo GroundsPolo Grounds
The Polo Grounds was the name given to four different stadiums in Upper Manhattan, New York City, used by many professional teams in both baseball and American football from 1880 until 1963...
in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
(Buffalo won) in December 1920. The league did not have a championship game or playoff, setting its championship with a vote of the league owners. The Akron Pros
Akron Pros
The Akron Pros were a professional football team located played in Akron, Ohio from 1908–1926. The team originated in 1908 as a semi-pro team named the Akron Indians, however name was changed to the Pros in 1920 as the team set out to become a charter member of the American Professional...
had the best record in 1920, and the Chicago Staleys were the 1921 "champions," albeit not without controversy.
National Football League ~ 1922-1932
In 1922, the APFA changed its name to the National Football LeagueNational Football League
The National Football League is the highest level of professional American football in the United States, and is considered the top professional American football league in the world. It was formed by eleven teams in 1920 as the American Professional Football Association, with the league changing...
. From 1922 through 1932, it still declared as champions the team with the best record. There were no set schedules, and each team did not play the same number of games: some teams played against college or other amateur teams. The confusion reached a peak in 1925, when the Pottsville Maroons
Pottsville Maroons
The Pottsville Maroons were an American football team based in Pottsville, Pennsylvania. Founded in 1920, they went on to play in the National Football League for four seasons, from 1925–1928...
(formerly of another regional league, the Anthracite League
Anthracite League
The Anthracite League, also referred to as the Anthracite Association, was a 1924 football league comprising teams based in eastern Pennsylvania. These teams were based in coal mining towns, hence the league name's reference to anthracite coal. The league lasted for just one season, before folding...
) were hailed as the NFL champions by several newspapers after Pottsville defeated the Chicago Cardinals on December 6, even though there were still two weeks left in the season. This led to other teams scrambling to add extra games, including the Chicago Cardinals, who won two 'extra' games and claimed the championship. In the melee, the league cancelled games and suspended Pottsville's franchise. Through the 1920s, the smaller cities gave up on top-level pro football, while larger cities such as Boston, New York and Philadelphia saw teams take root there. This portion of the NFL's existence saw the admission of the Boston Braves
Washington Redskins
The Washington Redskins are a professional American football team and members of the East Division of the National Football Conference in the National Football League . The team plays at FedExField in Landover, Maryland, while its headquarters and training facility are at Redskin Park in Ashburn,...
, owned by George Preston Marshall
George Preston Marshall
George Preston Marshall was the owner and president of the Washington Redskins of the National Football League from 1932 until his death in 1969.-Contributions:...
who was to exert major positive and negative influences on the league.
First American Football League ~ 1926
In 1926, teams from nine cities ranging from the New York Yankees to the Chicago BullsChicago Bulls
The Chicago Bulls are an American professional basketball team based in Chicago, Illinois, playing in the Central Division of the Eastern Conference in the National Basketball Association . The team was founded in 1966. They play their home games at the United Center...
to the Los Angeles Wildcats
Los Angeles Wildcats
The Los Angeles Wildcats was a traveling team of the first American Football League that was not based in its nominal home city but in Chicago, Illinois...
(actually based in Chicago) formed the first American Football League
American Football League (1926)
The first American Football League , sometimes called AFL I, AFLG, or the Grange League, was a professional American football league that operated in 1926. It was the first major competitor to the National Football League. Founded by C. C...
in competition with the NFL. Because of the 1925 shenanigans, the NFL's Rock Island Independents
Rock Island Independents
The Rock Island Independents were a professional American football team based in Rock Island, Illinois. One of the first professional football teams, they were founded in 1907 as an independent club. They later played in what is now the National Football League from 1920 to 1925. They joined the...
left the seven-year-old league to join the AFL. The major attraction of the new league was Red Grange
Red Grange
Harold Edward "Red" Grange, nicknamed "The Galloping Ghost", was a college and professional American football halfback for the University of Illinois, the Chicago Bears, and for the short-lived New York Yankees. His signing with the Bears helped legitimize the National Football League...
of the Yankees, but the league folded after just one year, with the Yankees being absorbed into the NFL.
National Football League ~ 1933-1945
In 1933, the league divided into the Eastern and Western divisions, and finally instituted a championship game between the division winners. Each team played from 10 to 13 games per season during this period, and by 1945, the league had two five-team divisions, with each team playing a 10-game regular season schedule. In 1936, to select and assign graduating college players to particular Pro teams, the first Professional Football 'entry draftNFL Draft
The National Football League Draft is an annual event in which the National Football League teams select eligible college football players and it is their most common source of player recruitment. The basic design of the draft is each team is given a position in the drafting order in reverse order...
' was held. The University of Chicago
University of Chicago
The University of Chicago is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois, USA. It was founded by the American Baptist Education Society with a donation from oil magnate and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller and incorporated in 1890...
's Heisman Trophy
Heisman Trophy
The Heisman Memorial Trophy Award , is awarded annually to the player deemed the most outstanding player in collegiate football. It was created in 1935 as the Downtown Athletic Club trophy and renamed in 1936 following the death of the Club's athletic director, John Heisman The Heisman Memorial...
-winning running back Jay Berwanger
Jay Berwanger
John Jacob "Jay" Berwanger was an American football halfback born in Dubuque, Iowa. He was the first winner of the Downtown Athletic Club Trophy in 1935 ; the trophy is awarded annually to the nation's most outstanding college football player...
was selected first overall by the Philadelphia Eagles
Philadelphia Eagles
The Philadelphia Eagles are a professional American football team based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. They are members of the East Division of the National Football Conference in the National Football League...
. However, Berwanger chose not to play Professional Football. The league was dominated by the Chicago Bears
Chicago Bears
The Chicago Bears are a professional American football team based in Chicago, Illinois. They are members of the North Division of the National Football Conference in the National Football League...
, Green Bay Packers
Green Bay Packers
The Green Bay Packers are an American football team based in Green Bay, Wisconsin. They are members of the North Division of the National Football Conference in the National Football League . The Packers are the current NFL champions...
, and New York Giants
New York Giants
The New York Giants are a professional American football team based in East Rutherford, New Jersey, representing the New York City metropolitan area. The Giants are currently members of the Eastern Division of the National Football Conference in the National Football League...
, with stars like quarterback Sid Luckman
Sid Luckman
Sidney Luckman, known as Sid Luckman, was an American football quarterback for the Chicago Bears of the National Football League from 1939 to 1950...
(Bears); and fullbacks Tuffy Leemans (Giants) and Clarke Hinkle
Clarke Hinkle
William Clarke Hinkle was a professional American football player for the Green Bay Packers. Wearing # 30, he played Tailback and Linebacker from 1932 to 1941....
(Packers). Even with the stellar fullback Cliff Battles, Marshall's team, now called the Redskins, was driven out of Boston in 1936 by a competing league, and he moved his franchise to Washington, DC as the Washington Redskins
Washington Redskins
The Washington Redskins are a professional American football team and members of the East Division of the National Football Conference in the National Football League . The team plays at FedExField in Landover, Maryland, while its headquarters and training facility are at Redskin Park in Ashburn,...
. Marshall introduced the marching band and a team song to Professional Football, along with other promotional efforts. However, he also refused to have black players on his team, and his influence resulted in the entire NFL excluding blacks after 1934. In 1939, NBC
NBC
The National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...
broadcast the first-ever televised Professional Football game from Ebbets Field
Ebbets Field
Ebbets Field was a Major League Baseball park located in the Flatbush section of Brooklyn, New York, USA, on a city block which is now considered to be part of the Crown Heights neighborhood. It was the home of the Brooklyn Dodgers of the National League. It was also a venue for professional football...
, an October 22 contest between the Brooklyn Dodgers
Brooklyn Dodgers (NFL)
The Brooklyn Dodgers were an American football team that played in the National Football League from 1930 to 1943, and in 1944 as the Brooklyn Tigers. The team played its home games at Ebbets Field. In 1945, because of financial difficulties, the team was merged with the Boston Yanks...
and the Philadelphia Eagles
Philadelphia Eagles
The Philadelphia Eagles are a professional American football team based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. They are members of the East Division of the National Football Conference in the National Football League...
. There were two fixed monochrome iconoscope cameras and a single play-by-play commentator, Skip Walz.
Second American Football League ~ 1936-1937
In 1936, a second American Football LeagueAmerican Football League (1936)
Sometimes called AFL II, the second American Football League was a professional American football league that operated in 1936 and 1937. The AFL operated in direct competition with the more established National Football League throughout its existence...
of six teams was formed to challenge the NFL. It included another New York Yankees team, as well as the Cleveland Rams, the predecessor to today's St. Louis Rams
St. Louis Rams
The St. Louis Rams are a professional American football team based in St. Louis, Missouri. They are currently members of the West Division of the National Football Conference in the National Football League . The Rams have won three NFL Championships .The Rams began playing in 1936 in Cleveland,...
. Future American Football League
American Football League
The American Football League was a major American Professional Football league that operated from 1960 until 1969, when the established National Football League merged with it. The upstart AFL operated in direct competition with the more established NFL throughout its existence...
(1960–1969) coach and Hall of Famer Sid Gillman
Sid Gillman
Sidney "Sid" Gillman was an American football player, coach, executive, and innovator. Gillman's insistence on stretching the football field by throwing deep downfield passes, instead of short passes to running backs or wide receivers at the sides of the line of scrimmage, was instrumental in...
played his only year of Professional Football with the Rams. Before this AFL's second year, the Rams jumped to the NFL and were replaced by the first Professional Football team to actually play its home games on the West Coast, the Los Angeles Bulldogs
Los Angeles Bulldogs
The Los Angeles Bulldogs were a professional American football team that competed from 1936 to 1948...
, who had several stars including quarterback Harry Newman
Harry Newman
Harry Lawrence Newman was an American football quarterback who played for the University of Michigan Wolverines , the New York Giants , and the Brooklyn/Rochester Tigers .-College career:...
and end Bill Moore. The Boston Shamrocks
Boston Shamrocks
The Boston Shamrocks can be:* , a Ladies Gaelic Football Team*Boston Shamrocks , an American football team*Boston Shamrocks , a basketball exhibition team...
, with all-star end Bill Fleming, outdrew the NFL's Redskins in 1936, causing George Preston Marshall to move the team to Washington. However the league as a whole could not compete, and folded after the 1937 season.
Also in 1936, the American Association
American Association (football)
The American Association was a professional American football league based in New York City. Founded in 1936 as a minor league with teams in New York and New Jersey, the AA extended its reach to Providence, Rhode Island prior to the onset of World War II...
was founded as a minor league. It played for five seasons, suspending operations for World War II, and returned under the "American Football League" name in 1946 before sputtering to a collapse in 1950.
Third American Football League ~ 1940-1941
Still another try at an American Football LeagueAmerican Football League (1940)
American Football League, also known as the AFL III to distinguish it from earlier organizations of that name, was a major professional American football league that operated from 1940-1941...
was made in 1940, with five franchises, including a third New York Yankees
New York Yankees (1940 AFL)
The New York Yankees of the third American Football League was the third professional American football team competing under that name. It is unrelated to the Yankees of the first AFL , the Yankees of the second AFL, and the Yankees of the All America Football Conference...
team. The league was the first major Professional Football league to complete a double round robin schedule, in which each team played each other twice. The onset of World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
and the resultant draft dried up the source of players for professional football and the new league did not have enough resources to continue.
All-America Football Conference ~ 1946-1949
A year after World War IIWorld War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, another new Professional Football league was formed - the All-America Football Conference
All-America Football Conference
The All-America Football Conference was a professional American football league that challenged the established National Football League from 1946 to 1949. One of the NFL's most formidable challengers, the AAFC attracted many of the nation's best players, and introduced many lasting innovations...
(AAFC). It attracted some of the nation's best football players and posed a serious challenge to the NFL. Like the pre-war AFL, it used a double round robin schedule. The league was dominated by a franchise owned and coached by Paul Brown
Paul Brown
Paul Eugene Brown was a coach in American football and a major figure in the development of the National Football League...
: the Cleveland Browns
Cleveland Browns
The Cleveland Browns are a professional football team based in Cleveland, Ohio. They are currently members of the North Division of the American Football Conference in the National Football League...
, a team that would win the league's championship every year of its existence. The Browns featured players such as fullback Marion Motley
Marion Motley
Marion Motley was a professional football player, a fullback for the Cleveland Browns, and briefly for the Pittsburgh Steelers.-Early years:...
, quarterback Otto Graham
Otto Graham
Otto Everett Graham, Jr. was a professional American football and basketball player who played for the Cleveland Browns in both the All-America Football Conference and National Football League, as well as the Rochester Royals in the National Basketball League.-Early life:Born in Waukegan,...
and kicker Lou Groza
Lou Groza
Louis Roy Groza was an American football placekicker and offensive tackle who played his entire career for the Cleveland Browns....
, while the San Francisco 49ers
San Francisco 49ers
The San Francisco 49ers are a professional American football team based in San Francisco, California, playing in the West Division of the National Football Conference in the National Football League . The team was founded in 1946 as a charter member of the All-America Football Conference and...
had running back Elroy 'Crazylegs' Hirsch
Elroy Hirsch
Elroy "Crazylegs" Hirsch was an American football running back and receiver for the Los Angeles Rams and Chicago Rockets, nicknamed for his unusual running style.-Early life:...
and the Baltimore Colts (not related to today's Indianapolis Colts
Indianapolis Colts
The Indianapolis Colts are a professional American football team based in Indianapolis. They are currently members of the South Division of the American Football Conference in the National Football League ....
, which began play in Baltimore in 1953) fielded quarterback Y.A. Tittle.
Paul Brown made many innovations to the game on and off the field, including year-round coaching staffs, precision pass patterns, face masks, and the use of “messenger guards”. He was the first coach to film the opposition and break down those game films in a classroom setting, also attributed to him. While the NFL was still segregated, the AAFC's Browns became the first modern Professional Football team to sign black players.
Although many of its teams outdrew NFL teams, by 1949 the AAFC's costs had risen so steeply that the league agreed to a 'merger' with the NFL. It was more of a 'swallowing' of the AAFC, with only the Browns, 49ers, and Colts being admitted to the established league, even though the Buffalo Bills
Buffalo Bills (AAFC)
The Buffalo Bills was an American Football team, based in Buffalo, NY, that played in the All-America Football Conference from 1946 to 1949. During its first season in 1946, the team was known as the Buffalo Bisons...
drew good crowds and raised funds from citizens to back the franchise. Players from the Bills and the other AAFC teams not 'merged' were distributed among the NFL teams. Motley, Graham, Groza, Hirsch and Tittle all starred in the NFL after the 'merger'.
Of the three AAFC teams that joined the NFL:
- The Colts lasted only one year in the NFL; the second Baltimore ColtsHistory of the Indianapolis ColtsThe Indianapolis Colts are a professional football team based in Indianapolis, Indiana. They play in the AFC South division of the National Football League. They have won 3 NFL championships and 2 Super Bowls....
were officially a new franchise launched in 1953, though tracing their history through a series of teams dating back to 1919, before the formation of the NFL. - The Browns remained in Cleveland until their controversial moveCleveland Browns relocation controversyThe Cleveland Browns relocation controversy was the decision by then Browns owner Art Modell to move the National Football League team from its longtime home of Cleveland, Ohio to Baltimore, Maryland for the 1996 NFL season...
to Baltimore, becoming the Baltimore RavensBaltimore RavensThe Baltimore Ravens are a professional football franchise based in Baltimore, Maryland.The Baltimore Ravens are officially a quasi-expansion franchise, having originated in 1995 with the Cleveland Browns relocation controversy after Art Modell, then owner of the Cleveland Browns, announced his...
, for the 1996 season1996 NFL seasonThe 1996 NFL season was the 77th regular season of the National Football League and the season was marked by notable controversies from beginning to end...
. The controversy was ultimately settled by granting Cleveland a new franchise, which began play in 19991999 NFL seasonThe 1999 NFL season was the 80th regular season of the National Football League. The Cleveland Browns returned to the field for the first time since the 1995 season...
, that took the Browns name and official lineage. - The 49ers have remained in the NFL and San Francisco since their admission to the league.
National Football League ~ 1946-1959
Following five years of what the league perceived to be weak leadership on behalf of commissioner Elmer LaydenElmer Layden
Elmer Francis Layden was an American football player, coach, college athletics administrator, and professional sports executive. He played college football at the University of Notre Dame where he starred at fullback as a member of the legendary "Four Horsemen" backfield...
(of Four Horsemen fame), league officials appointed Philadelpha Eagles owner-founder Bert Bell
Bert Bell
De Benneville "Bert" Bell was the National Football League commissioner from 1946 until his death in 1959. As commissioner, he helped chart a path for the NFL to facilitate its rise in becoming the most popular sports attraction in the United States...
as commissioner in 1946.
After twelve years without black players in the NFL, the Los Angeles Rams added them in 1946, as they were required by their stadium lease to integrate the team. The league had two five-team divisions, each team playing an unwieldy 11-game schedule, with some teams playing more home games than others. They increased to twelve games the following year, partly because of the success of the rival AAFC's 14-game format. After the AAFC folded, the NFL added three of its teams, for a total of thirteen, but maintained the 14-game format. The first year after admitting the Cleveland Browns
Cleveland Browns
The Cleveland Browns are a professional football team based in Cleveland, Ohio. They are currently members of the North Division of the American Football Conference in the National Football League...
, the NFL was humbled by having the Browns, a team from what it had ridiculed as an inferior league, win its championship. The Browns went on to be NFL champions in three of their first six years in the league. In 1958, the Baltimore Colts
History of the Indianapolis Colts
The Indianapolis Colts are a professional football team based in Indianapolis, Indiana. They play in the AFC South division of the National Football League. They have won 3 NFL championships and 2 Super Bowls....
defeated the New York Giants
New York Giants
The New York Giants are a professional American football team based in East Rutherford, New Jersey, representing the New York City metropolitan area. The Giants are currently members of the Eastern Division of the National Football Conference in the National Football League...
10-3 in professional football's first sudden-death championship game, and repeated the victory against the same team in the 1959 NFL title game, this time by a score of 31-16. The Colts had folded after the 1950 season and from 1951 through 1959 the NFL had twelve teams, six each in the East and West conferences. The league during this period featured not only star players absorbed from the AAFC 'merger' but others such as halfback Frank Gifford
Frank Gifford
Francis Newton "Frank" Gifford is a Hall of Fame former American football player and American sportscaster.-Early life:Gifford was born in Santa Monica, California, the son of Lola Mae and Weldon Gifford, an oil driller....
(New York Giants
New York Giants
The New York Giants are a professional American football team based in East Rutherford, New Jersey, representing the New York City metropolitan area. The Giants are currently members of the Eastern Division of the National Football Conference in the National Football League...
); the Philadelphia Eagles
Philadelphia Eagles
The Philadelphia Eagles are a professional American football team based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. They are members of the East Division of the National Football Conference in the National Football League...
' quarterback Norm Van Brocklin
Norm Van Brocklin
Norman Mack "Norm" Van Brocklin , nicknamed "The Dutchman", was an American football player and coach. He was also a first rate punter in college and in the NFL...
and receiver Tommy McDonald; and the Colts' quarterback Johnny Unitas
Johnny Unitas
John Constantine Unitas , known as Johnny Unitas or "Johnny U", and nicknamed "The Golden Arm", was a professional American football player in the 1950s through the 1970s, spending the majority of his career with the Baltimore Colts. He was a record-setting quarterback, and the National Football...
and running back Lenny Moore
Lenny Moore
Leonard Edward Moore is a former American football halfback who played for Penn State in college and the Baltimore Colts. He came to the Colts in 1956, and had a productive first pro season and was named the NFL Rookie of The Year...
. Television coverage of the league was spotty, with some teams starting in 1950 to have individual arrangements with the Dumont Network
NFL on DuMont
The NFL on DuMont was an American television program that broadcast National Football League games on the now defunct DuMont Television Network. The program ran from 1951 to 1955.-1951-1952:...
and NBC. CBS began to televise selected NFL regular season games in 1956, but there was no league-wide, national television (the Browns, for instance, held out and syndicated games themselves until the early 1960s when a league-wide contract was imposed).
Fourth American Football League ~ 1960-1969
By the start of the 1960s, the NFL was complacent in its dominance of the market for Professional Football fans, and had little incentive to expand that market. The AAFC was history, and the NFL had chosen not to capitalize on the boost it had received from the 1958 Colts-Giants sudden-death game. It was content with a 12-team league playing a 12-game schedule and featured "ball-control" football. When Texas oilmen Lamar HuntLamar Hunt
Lamar Hunt was an American sportsman and promoter of American football, soccer, basketball, and ice hockey in the United States and an inductee into three sports' halls of fame. He was one of the founders of the American Football League and Major League Soccer , as well as MLS predecessor the...
and Bud Adams
Bud Adams
Kenneth Stanley "Bud" Adams, Jr. is the owner of the Tennessee Titans' National Football League franchise. He was instrumental in the founding and establishment of the former American Football League. Adams became a charter AFL owner with the establishment of the Titans franchise, which was...
tried to purchase existing NFL franchises to move to Texas, or to establish new NFL franchises there, they were told that the conservative NFL was not interested. The result was that Hunt and Adams joined with six other businessmen to form the fourth American Football League
American Football League
The American Football League was a major American Professional Football league that operated from 1960 until 1969, when the established National Football League merged with it. The upstart AFL operated in direct competition with the more established NFL throughout its existence...
(1960–1969). The league started out by signing half of the NFL's 1960 first-round draft choices including the Houston Oilers' Billy Cannon
Billy Cannon
William Abb "Billy" Cannon is an All-American, 1959 Heisman Trophy winner and 2008 inductee into the College Football Hall of Fame from Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, and one of the American Football League's most celebrated players.He was born in Philadelphia, Mississippi, and moved...
, and never slowed down. With future Hall of Fame Coaches Hank Stram
Hank Stram
Henry Louis "Hank" Stram was an American football coach. He is best known for his 15-year tenure with the American Football League's Dallas Texans/Kansas City Chiefs and the Chiefs of the NFL. Stram won three AFL Championships and Super Bowl IV with the Chiefs...
(Dallas Texans/Kansas City Chiefs
Kansas City Chiefs
The Kansas City Chiefs are a professional American football team based in Kansas City, Missouri. They are a member of the Western Division of the American Football Conference in the National Football League . Originally named the Dallas Texans, the club was founded by Lamar Hunt in 1960 as a...
) and Sid Gillman
Sid Gillman
Sidney "Sid" Gillman was an American football player, coach, executive, and innovator. Gillman's insistence on stretching the football field by throwing deep downfield passes, instead of short passes to running backs or wide receivers at the sides of the line of scrimmage, was instrumental in...
(LA/San Diego Chargers
San Diego Chargers
The San Diego Chargers are a professional American football team based in San Diego, California. they were members of the Western Division of the American Football Conference in the National Football League...
) as well as others like the Buffalo Bills
Buffalo Bills
The Buffalo Bills are a professional football team based in Buffalo, New York. They are currently members of the East Division of the American Football Conference in the National Football League...
' Lou Saban
Lou Saban
Louis Henry Saban was an American football player and coach. Saban played for Indiana University in college and as a pro for the Cleveland Browns of the All-America Football Conference...
, the league offered a more risk-oriented on-field approach that appealed to fans. The AFL also actively recruited from predominantly black colleges
Historically Black Colleges and Universities
Historically black colleges and universities are institutions of higher education in the United States that were established before 1964 with the intention of serving the black community....
and other small colleges, a source the NFL virtually ignored. This led to a higher percentage of minority players, as well as several firsts, such as the first black number one draft choice (Buck Buchanan
Buck Buchanan
Junious "Buck" Buchanan was an American collegiate and professional Football defensive tackle. He played for the Kansas City Chiefs in the American Football League and in the National Football League ....
, Chiefs); the first black middle linebacker, Willie Lanier
Willie Lanier
Willie Edward Lanier is a former American football middle-linebacker who played for the Kansas City Chiefs from 1967 through 1977. He won postseason honors for eight consecutive years, making the American Football League All-Star team in 1968 and 1969 before being selected to the Pro Bowl from...
, Chiefs; and the first modern black starting quarterback (Marlin Briscoe
Marlin Briscoe
Marlin Oliver Briscoe is a former American collegiate and Professional Football wide receiver/quarterback who played professionally for nine years...
, Broncos).
The AFL was similar to the AAFC in that it offered innovations, like a return to the double round robin schedule introduced by the earlier league and had eight teams in two divisions like the AAFC. The AFL also introduced official scoreboard clocks, player names on jerseys, the two-point PAT conversion and important off-the field elements such as gate and TV revenue-sharing and national TV contracts. The AFL developed the first ever cooperative television plan for professional football, in which the proceeds of the contract were divided equally among member clubs. ABC and the AFL also introduced moving, on-field cameras (as opposed to the fixed midfield cameras of CBS and the NFL), and were the first to have players "miked" during broadcast games.
But the American Football League was different from the AAFC in its overall competitive balance. While the Browns-dominated AAFC had had the same champion every year, six out of the Original Eight
Foolish Club
The Foolish Club was the self-imposed name taken by the owners of the eight original franchises of the American Football League . When Texas millionaires Lamar Hunt and Bud Adams, Jr. were refused entry to the established NFL in 1959, they contacted other businessmen to form an eight-team...
AFL teams won at least one AFL championship, and all but one played in at least one post-season game. In addition to traditional eastern cities, it placed teams in Texas, in the West with the Denver Broncos
Denver Broncos
The Denver Broncos are a professional American football team based in Denver, Colorado. They are currently members of the West Division of the American Football Conference in the National Football League...
, Oakland Raiders
Oakland Raiders
The Oakland Raiders are a professional American football team based in Oakland, California. They currently play in the Western Division of the American Football Conference in the National Football League...
and the Chargers, and eventually in the Midwest Kansas City
Kansas City, Missouri
Kansas City, Missouri is the largest city in the U.S. state of Missouri and is the anchor city of the Kansas City Metropolitan Area, the second largest metropolitan area in Missouri. It encompasses in parts of Jackson, Clay, Cass, and Platte counties...
and the deep South Miami. The league forced a merger with its rival, and made possible the Super Bowl. Although it lost the first two, by its demise it had beaten two NFL teams proclaimed as "the best in history" to win the final two World Championship games between two Professional Football league champions. The decade ended with the AFL retaining its original franchises, plus two expansion teams, and those ten teams represented the first time a major sports league had merged with another without losing a franchise.
National Football League ~ 1960-1969
After the sudden death of commissioner Bert BellBert Bell
De Benneville "Bert" Bell was the National Football League commissioner from 1946 until his death in 1959. As commissioner, he helped chart a path for the NFL to facilitate its rise in becoming the most popular sports attraction in the United States...
in 1959, Pete Rozelle
Pete Rozelle
Alvin Ray "Pete" Rozelle was the commissioner of the National Football League from January 1960 to November 1989, when he retired from office. Rozelle is credited with making the NFL into one of the most successful sports leagues in the world....
was named his replacement.
The 1960 NFL had ten teams, only two south of Washington, DC and/or west of Chicago (the Los Angeles Rams and San Francisco 49ers), and none in the Southern United States
Southern United States
The Southern United States—commonly referred to as the American South, Dixie, or simply the South—constitutes a large distinctive area in the southeastern and south-central United States...
, where college football still dominated. Though it had rebuffed efforts to move or expand, it immediately was put on the defensive by the new AFL, first causing the owners of the proposed Minnesota franchise in that league to renege for an NFL franchise to start in 1961, and immediately establishing the Cowboys in previously rejected Dallas, as competition to Hunt's Dallas Texans
Kansas City Chiefs
The Kansas City Chiefs are a professional American football team based in Kansas City, Missouri. They are a member of the Western Division of the American Football Conference in the National Football League . Originally named the Dallas Texans, the club was founded by Lamar Hunt in 1960 as a...
. The NFL also expanded its footprint by moving the Chicago Cardinals
Arizona Cardinals
The Arizona Cardinals are a professional American football team based in Glendale, Arizona, a suburb of Phoenix. They are currently members of the Western Division of the National Football Conference in the National Football League...
to St. Louis, Missouri in 1960. Later, it impeded the AFL's planned expansion to Atlanta by offering that city's investor the Falcons
Atlanta Falcons
The Atlanta Falcons are a professional American football team based in Atlanta, Georgia. They are a member of the South Division of the National Football Conference in the National Football League...
' NFL franchise. Ironically, the Falcons' replacement in the AFL were the Miami Dolphins
Miami Dolphins
The Miami Dolphins are a Professional football team based in the Miami metropolitan area in Florida. The team is part of the Eastern Division of the American Football Conference in the National Football League...
who have appeared in five Super Bowls, winning two, while the Falcons were losers in their one appearance. Star NFL players during this period included the Browns' fullback Jim Brown
Jim Brown
James Nathaniel "Jim" Brown is an American former professional football player who has also made his mark as an actor. He is best known for his exceptional and record-setting nine-year career as a running back for the NFL Cleveland Browns from 1957 to 1965. In 2002, he was named by Sporting News...
; the Green Bay Packers
Green Bay Packers
The Green Bay Packers are an American football team based in Green Bay, Wisconsin. They are members of the North Division of the National Football Conference in the National Football League . The Packers are the current NFL champions...
' quarterback Bart Starr
Bart Starr
Bryan Bartlett "Bart" Starr is a former professional American football player and coach. Wearing #15, he was the quarterback for the Green Bay Packers from 1956 to 1971 and head coach from 1975 to 1983, compiling a record of 52–76–3 ....
, fullback Jim Taylor and halfback Paul Hornung
Paul Hornung
Paul Vernon Hornung is a retired Hall of Fame professional football player who played for the Green Bay Packers from 1957-66...
; halfback Gale Sayers
Gale Sayers
Gale Eugene Sayers also known as "The Kansas Comet", is a former professional football player in the National Football League who spent his entire career with the Chicago Bears....
of the Chicago Bears
Chicago Bears
The Chicago Bears are a professional American football team based in Chicago, Illinois. They are members of the North Division of the National Football Conference in the National Football League...
; Cowboys receiver Bob Hayes
Bob Hayes
Robert Lee "Bullet Bob" Hayes was an Olympic sprinter turned American football wide receiver in the National Football League for the Dallas Cowboys. An American track and field athlete, he was a two-sport stand-out in college in both track and football at Florida A&M University...
; the Philadelphia Eagles
Philadelphia Eagles
The Philadelphia Eagles are a professional American football team based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. They are members of the East Division of the National Football Conference in the National Football League...
' and the Redskins' Charley Taylor
Charley Taylor
Charles Robert Taylor is a former American football wide receiver in the National Football League for the Washington Redskins. Taylor was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1984....
. The AFL's influence on the NFL was evident in several ways: in 1962, the NFL emulated the junior league by arranging its own league-wide national television contract, with CBS; and late in the 'sixties, the NFL began recognizing the wide talent pool the AFL had tapped in small and predominantly black colleges, and it, too, started scouting and signing from those schools.
Tired of raids on players and escalating salaries, in the mid-1960s, certain NFL owners secretly approached AFL principals, seeking a merger of the two leagues. The merger was agreed to in 1966, with a championship game to be played between the league titlists, and a merged schedule beginning with the 1970 season, when existing TV contracts could be re-worked.
The decade was dominated in the NFL by the Packers, who won four NFL titles, and by the mid-to late 1960s their head coach Vince Lombardi
Vince Lombardi
Vincent Thomas "Vince" Lombardi was an American football coach. He is best known as the head coach of the Green Bay Packers during the 1960s, where he led the team to three straight league championships and five in seven years, including winning the first two Super Bowls following the 1966 and...
had fashioned a team that, with its ball-control style, would overpower the NFL and carry on to defeat AFL opponents in the first two AFL-NFL Championship Games after the 1966 and 1967 Professional Football seasons. The NFL champions in 1968, the Colts, and in 1969 the Minnesota Vikings
Minnesota Vikings
The Minnesota Vikings are a professional American football team based in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The Vikings joined the National Football League as an expansion team in 1960...
, were each in turn considered to be "the best team in the history of the NFL." By 1969, the NFL had grown to 16 teams, with four teams directly attributable to the existence of the AFL: the Vikings, Cowboys, and Falcons, added to compete with the AFL, and the New Orleans Saints
New Orleans Saints
The New Orleans Saints are a professional American football team based in New Orleans, Louisiana. They are members of the South Division of the National Football Conference of the National Football League ....
, who were added as a reward to Louisiana federal legislators for their support of PL 89-800, which permitted the merger. Likewise, the AFL-NFL wars brought two teams to Missouri (one in each league), marking the first time NFL teams had played in the state since the 1930s.
Minor Leagues ~ 1961 to 1973
Concurrently with the AFL and NFL rivalry, several minor leagues thrived in this era as well. The United Football League lasted from 1961 to 1964 and was concentrated in the midwest. However, in 1962 it was quickly eclipsed by the Atlantic Coast Football LeagueAtlantic Coast Football League
The Atlantic Coast Football League was a minor football league that operated from 1962 to 1973. Until 1969, many of its franchises had working agreements with NFL and AFL teams to serve as farm clubs. The league paid a base salary of $100 per game and had 36 players on each active roster.For the...
, which was run by the same people (the Rosentover family) as the previous American Association of the 1930s. When the UFL folded, and the Newark Bears of the ACFL unsuccessfully applied to join the AFL, two new leagues formed: the Professional Football League of America (PFLA), which ran from 1965 to 1967, and the more prominent Continental Football League
Continental Football League
The Continental Football League was a professional minor American football league that operated in North America from 1965 through 1969. It was established following the collapse of the original United Football League, and hoped to become the major force in professional football outside of the...
(ContFL), which ran from 1965 to 1969. The ACFL lost three of its best teams to the ContFL, but survived. The ContFL and ACFL had different strategies: the ContFL had major-league aspirations, while the ACFL was happy as a developmental league and (like previous leagues run by the Rosentovers) allowed its teams to become farm teams to the AFL and NFL teams (for instance, the Hartford Knights were a farm team to the AFL's Buffalo Bills
Buffalo Bills
The Buffalo Bills are a professional football team based in Buffalo, New York. They are currently members of the East Division of the American Football Conference in the National Football League...
). The ContFL arguably had better talent that went on to NFL and CFL stardom (Ken Stabler
Ken Stabler
Kenneth "Kenny" Michael Stabler , is a former American football quarterback in the NFL for the Oakland Raiders , the Houston Oilers , and the New Orleans Saints...
, Don Jonas
Don Jonas
-Sources:* Bob Gill, “The Best Little Quarterback You Never Heard Of” on the Professional Football Researchers Association website.-References:...
, and Sam Wyche
Sam Wyche
Samuel David "Sam" Wyche is a former American football player and head coach, who is best known as the head coach of the Cincinnati Bengals of the NFL...
), but folded after 1969, and plans to take on the CFL head-to-head were abandoned. The ACFL also produced some significant talent (e.g. Marvin Hubbard) and lasted longer, through 1971, with a return season in 1973. The attempted major World Football League
World Football League
The World Football League was a short-lived gridiron football league that played in 1974 and part of 1975. Although the league's proclaimed ambition was to bring American football onto a worldwide stage, the farthest the WFL reached was placing a team – the Hawaiians – in Honolulu, Hawaii. The...
sapped the ACFL of most of its talent, and forced it to fold prior to the 1974 season.
National Football League ~ 1970-1975
In 1970, the NFL realigned into two conferences, with the Browns, Steelers and Colts joining the ten former American Football League teams in the American Football ConferenceAmerican Football Conference
The American Football Conference is one of the two conferences of the National Football League . This conference and its counterpart, the National Football Conference , currently contain 16 teams each, making up the 32 teams of the NFL....
and the remaining NFL teams forming the National Football Conference
National Football Conference
The National Football Conference is one of the two conferences of the National Football League . This conference and its counterpart, the American Football Conference , currently contain 16 teams each, making up the 32 teams of the NFL.-Current teams:Since 2002, the NFC has comprised 16 teams,...
. The AFL's official scoreboard clock and jersey-back player names were adopted by the merged league, but the two-point PAT conversion was not adopted until 1994
1994 NFL season
The 1994 NFL season was the 75th regular season of the National Football League. To honor the NFL's 75th season, a special anniversary logo was designed and each player wore a patch on their jerseys with this logo throughout the season...
.
The AFL-NFL merger also led to the creation of a weekly showcase game: Monday Night Football
Monday Night Football
Monday Night Football is a live broadcast of the National Football League on ESPN. From to it aired on ABC. Monday Night Football was, along with Hallmark Hall of Fame, and the Walt Disney anthology television series, one of the longest running prime time commercial network television series...
. Originally broadcast on ABC
American Broadcasting Company
The American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948...
beginning with the 1970 season, it moved to ESPN
ESPN
Entertainment and Sports Programming Network, commonly known as ESPN, is an American global cable television network focusing on sports-related programming including live and pre-taped event telecasts, sports talk shows, and other original programming....
in 2006.
All American Football League records and statistics were accepted by the merged league as equivalent to pre-merger NFL records and statistics. Thus, a yard gained in the AFL in 1960 is as valid as a yard gained in the NFL in 1960. AFL All-Star Game
American Football League All-Star games
-All-League Teams:The Sporting News published American Football League All-League Teams for each season played by the American Football League, 1960 through 1969...
selections and appearances are equivalent to NFL 'Pro Bowl' choices. They are equivalent, but, however, not identical, and this has caused errors in reporting by some sources. For example, John Hadl
John Hadl
John Willard Hadl is a former collegiate and professional football player.Hadl was born in Lawrence, Kansas. After playing halfback on both offense and defense at the University of Kansas as a sophomore, Hadl played quarterback for his last two years at Kansas, and was selected as the school's...
is listed in most on-line records as having been selected for the 1970 Pro Bowl, played after the 1969 Professional Football season. However, in 1970, there were both an NFL Pro Bowl and an AFL All-Star Game. Hadl, of the San Diego Chargers
San Diego Chargers
The San Diego Chargers are a professional American football team based in San Diego, California. they were members of the Western Division of the American Football Conference in the National Football League...
was MVP of the January 1970 AFL All-Star Game. The January 1970 NFL Pro Bowl was a different game, featuring only NFL players. Similar errors are made when players like the Oakland Raiders
Oakland Raiders
The Oakland Raiders are a professional American football team based in Oakland, California. They currently play in the Western Division of the American Football Conference in the National Football League...
' Jim Otto
Jim Otto
James Edwin Otto is a former Professional Football center for the Oakland Raiders of the American Football League.-Wausau High School and University of Miami:...
are cited as having "fifteen years of NFL experience." In fact, Otto had ten years of AFL experience and five years of NFL experience, or fifteen years of Professional Football experience.
In 1974, the rival World Football League
World Football League
The World Football League was a short-lived gridiron football league that played in 1974 and part of 1975. Although the league's proclaimed ambition was to bring American football onto a worldwide stage, the farthest the WFL reached was placing a team – the Hawaiians – in Honolulu, Hawaii. The...
successfully lured several NFL stars to its upstart league, but collapsed midway through the 1975 season due to financial problems. The Memphis Southmen
Memphis Southmen
The Memphis Southmen were a franchise in the World Football League which operated in 1974 and 1975. They played their home games at Liberty Bowl Memorial Stadium in Memphis, Tennessee, United States.-From North to South:...
made an unsuccessful bid to join the NFL, even going as far as to file a lawsuit to attempt to force it, and the Birmingham Vulcans
Birmingham Vulcans
The Birmingham Vulcans were a professional American football team located in Birmingham, Alabama. They were members of the five-team Eastern Division of the World Football League . The Vulcans, founded in March 1975, played in the upstart league's second and final season in 1975...
also raised ticket funds to attempt to do the same, but never got as far as Memphis. Neither city has an NFL franchise.
Also in 1974, the NFL, after over four decades of having its goal posts on the goal line (as Canadian football does), finally moved its goalposts back to the end line, as is the norm in high school and college football in the United States.
National Football League ~ 1976-1994
In 1976, the NFL added the Seattle SeahawksSeattle Seahawks
The Seattle Seahawks are a professional American football team based in Seattle, Washington. They are currently members of the Western Division of the National Football Conference in the National Football League . The team joined the NFL in 1976 as an expansion team...
and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers
Tampa Bay Buccaneers
The Tampa Bay Buccaneers are a professional American football franchise based in Tampa, Florida, U.S. They are currently members of the Southern Division of the National Football Conference in the National Football League – they are the only team in the division not to come from the old NFC West...
to the NFL.
The NFL began experiencing problems in the 1980s. Labor stoppages in 1982 (which led to the NFL season being cut and half) and 1987 (resulting in the league using replacement players for three games), combined with Al Davis
Al Davis
Allen "Al" Davis was an American football executive. He was the principal owner of the Oakland Raiders of the National Football League from 1970 to 2011...
winning a lawsuit to allow his team, the Raiders, to move from Oakland to Los Angeles against league wishes, forced NFL Commissioner Pete Rozelle
Pete Rozelle
Alvin Ray "Pete" Rozelle was the commissioner of the National Football League from January 1960 to November 1989, when he retired from office. Rozelle is credited with making the NFL into one of the most successful sports leagues in the world....
into retirement. Paul Tagliabue
Paul Tagliabue
Paul John Tagliabue is a former Commissioner of the National Football League. He took the position in 1989 and was succeeded by Roger Goodell, who was elected to the position on August 8, 2006. Tagliabue's retirement took effect on September 1, 2006. He had previously served as a lawyer for the NFL...
was named his replacement.
The NFL backed the minor-league World League of American Football
World League of American Football
The World League of American Football was founded in 1990 with support from the National Football League to play professional American football in North America, Europe and later possibly Asia...
, a league based in the U.S., Canada, and Europe, which ran for two seasons. After its suspension, two American teams jumped to the Canadian Football League, though only one (the Sacramento franchise
Sacramento Gold Miners
The Sacramento Gold Miners were a Canadian football team based in Sacramento, California. The franchise was the first American team in the Canadian Football League. The Gold Miners were originally the "descendants" of the Sacramento Surge from the defunct World League of American Football...
) would play in that league.
United States Football League ~ 1983-1985
The United States Football LeagueUnited States Football League
The United States Football League was an American football league which was in active operation from 1983 to 1987. It played a spring/summer schedule in its first three seasons and a traditional autumn/winter schedule was set to commence before league operations ceased.The USFL was conceived in...
was the most significant challenger to the NFL since the American Football League, and the last of any significance to date. The USFL's gimmick was to avoid direct head-to-head competition with the NFL and college ball, and play in the spring. Originally intended as a minor league, this ended when several deep pocketed owners began luring top talent such as Herschel Walker
Herschel Walker
Herschel Junior Walker is an American mixed martial artist and a former American football player. He played college football for the University of Georgia Bulldogs and earned the 1982 Heisman Trophy. He began his professional career with the New Jersey Generals of the United States Football League...
to the USFL with high salaries.
The groundwork for what eventually led to the demise of the USFL was set mainly by Donald Trump
Donald Trump
Donald John Trump, Sr. is an American business magnate, television personality and author. He is the chairman and president of The Trump Organization and the founder of Trump Entertainment Resorts. Trump's extravagant lifestyle, outspoken manner and role on the NBC reality show The Apprentice have...
, owner of the New Jersey Generals
New Jersey Generals
The New Jersey Generals were a franchise of the United States Football League established in 1982 to begin play in the spring and summer of 1983. The team played three seasons from 1983-85, winning 31 regular-season games and losing 25 while going 0-2 in postseason competition...
and a vocal opponent of the league's spring football concept, who led a coalition that sought to take the NFL on head-to-head with a fall schedule and later force a merger. This was a major problem for several teams, who were ill-prepared to face the NFL juggernaut, and fans quickly walked away from these lame-duck franchises when it became clear the USFL was done with spring football. The USFL pinned its hopes on an anti-trust lawsuit against the NFL; though the USFL won the case, it was a Pyrrhic victory
Pyrrhic victory
A Pyrrhic victory is a victory with such a devastating cost to the victor that it carries the implication that another such victory will ultimately cause defeat.-Origin:...
, as the jury only awarded damages of US$3.
The USFL's biggest legacy was the fact that it helped develop some of the best quarterbacks in professional football during the 1990s. Many members of the prolific draft classes of 1983 through 1985 played in the USFL and went on to have strong careers in the NFL and CFL, including Steve Young, Jim Kelly
Jim Kelly
James Edward Kelly is a former American football quarterback in the NFL for the Buffalo Bills and the USFL's Houston Gamblers....
, Doug Williams (who was actually drafted several years earlier, in 1978), Bobby Hebert
Bobby Hebert
Bobby Joseph Hebert Jr., is an American sportscaster who is best known as a retired Pro bowl American football quarterback of the New Orleans Saints. He played professionally in the USFL and NFL from 1983 to 1996 for the Michigan Panthers, Oakland Invaders, New Orleans Saints, and Atlanta Falcons...
and Doug Flutie
Doug Flutie
Douglas Richard "Doug" Flutie is a former American and Canadian football quarterback. Flutie played college football at Boston College, and played professionally in the National Football League, Canadian Football League, and United States Football League...
.
Arena Football ~ 1987- present
Immediately after the USFL suspended operations in 1986, USFL executive James F. "Jim" FosterJim Foster
James F. Foster is the founder and first commissioner of the Arena Football League. He, along with two other partners, owns Gridiron Enterprises, which acts as the sanctioning body of the sport of arena football...
began work on a brand new variant of football. Known as "arena football
Arena football
Arena football is a variety of gridiron football played by the Arena Football League . It is a proprietary game, the rights to which are owned by Gridiron Enterprises, and is played indoors on a smaller field than American or Canadian outdoor football, resulting in a faster and higher-scoring game....
," the sport was played on a much shorter 50-yard field and was built heavily on a high-scoring offensive game. After two test games, he launched a professional league, the Arena Football League
Arena Football League
The Arena Football League is the highest level of professional indoor American football in the United States. It is currently the second longest running professional football league in the United States, after the National Football League. It was founded in 1987 by Jim Foster...
, in 1987. The AFL began its 24th season in 2011, and is currently the United States second longest running professional football league ever, after the NFL. The AFL also had a minor league, AF2
AF2
AF2 was the name of the Arena Football League's developmental league; it was founded in 1999 and played its first season in 2000. Like parent AFL, the AF2 played using the same arena football rules and style of play. League seasons ran from April through July with the postseason and ArenaCup...
, which ran for 10 seasons, from 2000 to 2009. The Arena Football League season runs from March to August, culminating with the ArenaBowl
ArenaBowl
The ArenaBowl is the Arena Football League's championship game. From 1987 to 2004, the ArenaBowl was hosted by either the team with the better regular-season record or the higher seeding in the playoffs. From ArenaBowl XIX in 2005 until ArenaBowl XXII in 2008, the game was played at a neutral site...
championship. In 2011, the AFL began an 18-game season with 18 teams.
The success of arena football led to a revival of interest in indoor football, particularly beginning in the late 1990s. As of 2011, two other national leagues (the Southern Indoor Football League
Southern Indoor Football League
The Southern Indoor Football League was an indoor football league based in the Southern and Eastern United States. The most recent incarnation of the league was a consolidation of an earlier league of the same name that was formed by Thom Hager along with Dan Blum, Robert Winfrey and Dan Ryan in...
and Indoor Football League
Indoor Football League
The Indoor Football League began in 1999 as an offshoot of the troubled Professional Indoor Football League. Keary Ecklund, the owner of the Green Bay Bombers and Madison Mad Dogs, left the PIFL after its first, financially-troubled, season to start his own league. Unlike the PIFL, the IFL was an...
) and five regional leagues play professional indoor football. One unusual variant of indoor football is the Lingerie Football League
Lingerie Football League
The Lingerie Football League is a women's 7-on-7 tackle American football league, created in 2009, with games played in the fall and winter at NBA, NFL, NHL and MLS arenas and stadiums. The league was founded by Mitch Mortaza...
, in which scantily clad women play the game by a modified variant of indoor rules.
National Football League ~ 1995–2001
The USFL's impact was not limited to players, however. The USFL apparently established Oakland, Baltimore, Jacksonville and Arizona as viable markets for professional football. As such, the St. Louis Cardinals moved to Phoenix, Arizona to become the Arizona CardinalsArizona Cardinals
The Arizona Cardinals are a professional American football team based in Glendale, Arizona, a suburb of Phoenix. They are currently members of the Western Division of the National Football Conference in the National Football League...
in 1988.
In 1993, the NFL began exploring expansion, eying one former NFL market (St. Louis), three USFL markets (Memphis, Baltimore, Jacksonville) and one former World Football League market (Carolina). The "Carolina Cougars" (later renamed Carolina Panthers
Carolina Panthers
The Carolina Panthers are a professional American football team based in Charlotte, North Carolina. They are currently members of the South Division of the National Football Conference in the National Football League . The Panthers, along with the Jacksonville Jaguars, joined the NFL as expansion...
) and Jacksonville Jaguars
Jacksonville Jaguars
The Jacksonville Jaguars are a professional American football team based in Jacksonville, Florida, U.S. They are currently members of the South Division of the American Football Conference in the National Football League...
received franchises to begin play in 1995. At the same time, Al Davis, frustrated with Los Angeles, moved back to Oakland (another former USFL market), and Georgia Frontiere
Georgia Frontiere
Georgia Frontiere was the majority owner and chairman of the St. Louis Rams football team and the most prominent female owner in a league historically dominated by males....
concurrently moved her Rams franchise to St. Louis, leaving Los Angeles with no NFL franchises
History of the National Football League in Los Angeles
Professional American football, especially its established top level, the National Football League, has had a long history in Los Angeles, the center of the second-largest media market in the United States. Since 1995, Los Angeles has been by far the largest U.S. market without an NFL team...
for the 1995 season. Memphis did not receive a permanent franchise, and their proposal moved to the CFL, where it played for one year. Tennessee, however, did not end up empty-handed; the Houston Oilers moved to Nashville beginning in 1997, becoming the Tennessee Titans
Tennessee Titans
The Tennessee Titans are a professional American football team based in Nashville, Tennessee, United States. They are members of the South Division of the American Football Conference in the National Football League . Previously known as the Houston Oilers, the team began play in 1960 as a charter...
.
It was not until after the 1995 season, after Baltimore's CFL team won the Grey Cup, that Baltimore got a second look, this time from Art Modell, who took the core of his Cleveland Browns team to Baltimore to found the expansion Baltimore Ravens
Baltimore Ravens
The Baltimore Ravens are a professional football franchise based in Baltimore, Maryland.The Baltimore Ravens are officially a quasi-expansion franchise, having originated in 1995 with the Cleveland Browns relocation controversy after Art Modell, then owner of the Cleveland Browns, announced his...
. The effort effectively killed the CFL's American expansion. The Browns returned, restocked with new players and with new ownership, in 1999.
Also borrowed from the USFL was the two-point conversion
Two-point conversion
In American and Canadian football, a two-point conversion is a play a team attempts instead of kicking a one-point convert immediately after it scores a touchdown...
, which the NFL adopted in 1994, and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers' color scheme, which was loosely based on that of the Tampa Bay Bandits
Tampa Bay Bandits
The Tampa Bay Bandits were a professional American football team based in Tampa, Florida. They were members of the United States Football League . They were a charter member of the USFL and folded along with the league after the 1985 season....
.
The NFL revived the WLAF in 1995, this time headquartered solely in Europe, eventually changing the name of the league to the NFL Europe League (known as either NFL Europe
NFL Europe
NFL Europe was an American football league which operated in Europe from 1991 until 2007. Backed by the National Football League , the largest professional American football league in the United States, it was founded as the World League of American Football to serve as a type of spring league...
or, in its last season, as NFL Europa, to avoid RAS syndrome
RAS syndrome
RAS syndrome , also known as PNS syndrome or RAP phrases , refers to the use of one or more of the words that make up an acronym or initialism in conjunction with the abbreviated form, thus in effect repeating one or more words...
). Originally having its teams spread across several countries including Spain, England, Scotland, the Netherlands and Germany, by the end of the league's run in 2007, only the Netherlands and Germany (the latter of which had five of the league's six teams) were still in the league.
Strained relations between the NFL and its players' union quieted down significantly in the 1990s, and the development of free agency as well as a salary cap
Salary cap
In professional sports, a salary cap is a cartel agreement between teams that places a limit on the amount of money that can be spent on player salaries. The limit exists as a per-player limit or a total limit for the team's roster, or both...
led to peaceful relations between the two entities for over a decade. This was helped by new television contracts
NFL on television
The television rights to broadcast National Football League games are the most lucrative and expensive rights of any American sport. It was television that brought professional football into prominence in the modern era after World War II...
: in 1994, Fox Broadcasting Company
Fox Broadcasting Company
Fox Broadcasting Company, commonly referred to as Fox Network or simply Fox , is an American commercial broadcasting television network owned by Fox Entertainment Group, part of Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation. Launched on October 9, 1986, Fox was the highest-rated broadcast network in the...
set the tone for broadcast rights to the NFL when it outbid CBS for the right to air NFC games with an unheard-of bid of US$395,000,000. This brought total broadcast rights fees for the league to over US$1,000,000,000. In 1998, when CBS outbid NBC for the rights to the AFC, the total rights fees doubled to over US$2,000,000,000. This is in addition to the rights fee for NFL Sunday Ticket
NFL Sunday Ticket
NFL Sunday Ticket is an Out-of-Market Sports Package that broadcasts National Football League regular season games unavailable on local affiliates. It carries all regional Sunday afternoon games produced by Fox and CBS...
, a package offered exclusively to the DirecTV
DirecTV
DirecTV is an American direct broadcast satellite service provider and broadcaster based in El Segundo, California. Its satellite service, launched on June 17, 1994, transmits digital satellite television and audio to households in the United States, Latin America, and the Anglophone Caribbean. ...
satellite television service, that began in the mid-1990s.
Several short-lived professional leagues arose in the wake of the dot-com boom in the late 1990s. The Regional Football League
Regional Football League
The Regional Football League was an American football league formed to be the self-styled "major league of spring football." The RFL season was designed for spring-summer play with the weekend prior to the Fourth of July designated as the annual date for its championship game.The inaugural season...
played one season in 1999, and the Spring Football League
Spring Football League
The Spring Football League was a professional American football that existed for only part of one mini-season in 2000. Founded by several ex-NFL players such as Eric Dickerson, Drew Pearson, Bo Jackson, and Tony Dorsett, the SFL planned to use the four game mini-season to test cities, fans,...
played only two weeks in 2000. The short-lived, highly-publicized and widely derided XFL
XFL
The XFL was a professional American football league that played for one season in 2001. The league was founded by Vince McMahon, the Chairman of the Board of Directors of WWE...
played one season in the winter of 2001.
National Football League – 2002–present
The Houston TexansHouston Texans
The Houston Texans are a professional American football team based in Houston, Texas. The team is currently a member of the Southern Division of the American Football Conference in the National Football League...
were added to the league in 2002 to replace the Oilers, bringing the league to an even 32 teams. Roger Goodell
Roger Goodell
Roger S. Goodell is the Commissioner of the National Football League , having been chosen to succeed the retiring Paul Tagliabue on August 8, 2006. He was chosen over four finalists for the position, winning a close vote on the fifth ballot before being unanimously approved by acclamation of the...
took over as commissioner from the retiring Paul Tagliabue in 2006.
Also during this era, the league began expanding its influence overseas. Fútbol Americano
Fútbol Americano
"Fútbol Americano" was the marketing name used for the first-ever National Football League regular season game ever held outside the United States. Played on October 2, 2005 at Estadio Azteca in Mexico City, the Arizona Cardinals defeated the San Francisco 49ers, 31-14...
, a one-off game in Mexico City, was the first regular-season game held outside the United States in 2005; it was followed by the NFL International Series
NFL International Series
Beginning with the 2005 season, the National Football League has hosted regular season American football games held outside the United States in a series known as the International Series.-Background:...
, an annual game held in London on the last week of October since 2007. In an unrelated move, the Buffalo Bills
Buffalo Bills
The Buffalo Bills are a professional football team based in Buffalo, New York. They are currently members of the East Division of the American Football Conference in the National Football League...
began their Bills Toronto Series
Bills Toronto Series
The Bills Toronto Series is a five-year deal consisting of a series of National Football League games featuring the Buffalo Bills played at the Rogers Centre in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The series began in the 2008 NFL season and will end during the 2012 NFL season...
, playing an annual December game in Canada, in 2008. The Toronto series will run through 2012.
In 2003, the NFL launched its own in-house network, NFL Network
NFL Network
NFL Network is an American television specialty channel owned and operated by the National Football League . It was launched November 4, 2003, only eight months after the league's 32 team owners voted unanimously to approve its formation...
. Beginning in 2006, at the end of the previous broadcast contract, the NFL launched an eight-game late-season package specifically for the network. The 2006 television contract expanded total broadcast rights to over US$3,000,000,000.
The labor peace in the NFL came to a halt in 2010, when a group of NFL owners invoked an out clause in the league's collective bargaining agreement with the players' union, subsequently imposing a lockout in 2011. The players' association responded by disbanding and having its players sue the league for antitrust violations. The two sides came to an agreement in late July 2011, after only one preseason game, that year's Pro Football Hall of Fame Game
Pro Football Hall of Fame Game
The Pro Football Hall of Game is an annual National Football League exhibition game that is held the weekend of the Pro Football Hall of Fame's induction ceremonies. The game is played at Fawcett Stadium, which is located next door to the Hall of Fame building in Canton, Ohio...
, was lost due to the lockout.
Alternate leagues ~ 2009 - present
The United Football League began play in 2009 with an abbreviated "Premiere Season" that featured four teams, two on each coast, in a six-week schedule. The UFL, which mostly featured former NFL players, marked the first professional fall league other than the National Football LeagueNational Football League
The National Football League is the highest level of professional American football in the United States, and is considered the top professional American football league in the world. It was formed by eleven teams in 1920 as the American Professional Football Association, with the league changing...
to play in the United States since the World Football League
World Football League
The World Football League was a short-lived gridiron football league that played in 1974 and part of 1975. Although the league's proclaimed ambition was to bring American football onto a worldwide stage, the farthest the WFL reached was placing a team – the Hawaiians – in Honolulu, Hawaii. The...
in the mid 1970's. All UFL games aired on Versus
Versus (TV channel)
Versus is a sports-oriented cable television channel in the United States. It was previously known as Outdoor Life Network and was launched on July 1, 1995, focusing on fishing, hunting, and other outdoor sports...
and HDnet
HDNet
HDNet is a men's interest television channel in the United States, broadcasting exclusively in high-definition format and available via cable and satellite television...
; every game was also webcast
Webcast
A webcast is a media presentation distributed over the Internet using streaming media technology to distribute a single content source to many simultaneous listeners/viewers. A webcast may either be distributed live or on demand...
. The league returned in 2010 with a new expansion team in Omaha, Nebraska and an eight-game, ten-week schedule. However, the 2011 season has seen progress stall as its expansion plans were canceled and the league contracted its Florida and Hartford franchises amid major league-wide financial losses; the UFL also lost its television contract.
The Stars Football League
Stars Football League
The Stars Football League is a semi-pro American football league operating primarily in the Southern United States. The league is headquartered in Grosse Pointe, Michigan. Its inaugural season began June 30, 2011 with two teams; the league phased two more teams into the schedule over the course of...
began play as a four-team league on June 30, 2011, with an eight-week schedule. Numerous other professional leagues attempted to launch in the late 2000s and early 2010s, but never materialized, including the All American Football League
All American Football League
The All American Football League was a proposed professional American football league. The league, which was to combine a professional pay structure with the requirement that all players be college graduates, had originally been scheduled to start in the spring of 2007, but later postponed its...
and the United National Gridiron League
United National Gridiron League
The United National Gridiron League was a proposed minor professional football league. The league was formed in August 2007 and was originally called the United National Football League.The league's inaugural draft took place January 8–9, 2009...
.
Canadian Professional Football history
Canadian football had similar origins to its American counterparts. Several Canadian professional teams are in fact older than the oldest existing American teams, because they began as amateur rugby organizations. The Canadian game evolved parallel to the American game, but several years behind: the Burnside RulesBurnside Rules
The Burnside rules were a set of rules that transformed Canadian football from a rugby-style game to the gridiron-style game it has remained ever since...
were adopted in 1905, and the forward pass
Forward pass
In several forms of football a forward pass is when the ball is thrown in the direction that the offensive team is trying to move, towards the defensive team's goal line...
(in place on the American side of the border since 1906) was adopted in 1929 after significant pressure from American coaches. The touchdown remained worth five points until 1956 (mainly due to Canadian pro football holding an American TV contract), whereas it had increased to six points in 1912 in the United States. Several relics of the old rules of the game, including goal posts on the goal line, a 110-yard field, more liberal rules for use of the drop kick
Drop kick
A drop kick is a type of kick in various codes of football. It involves a player dropping the ball and then kicking it when it bounces off the ground. It contrasts to a punt, wherein the player kicks the ball without letting it hit the ground first....
, and only three downs, remain in the Canadian game.
Canadian football was, prior to the 1950s, dominated by three amateur organizations: the Ontario Rugby Football Union
Ontario Rugby Football Union
The Ontario Rugby Football Union or ORFU was an early amateur Canadian football league with teams in the Canadian province of Ontario. The ORFU was founded in 1883 and in 1903 became the first major competition to adopt the Burnside Rules, from which the modern Canadian football code would...
(ORFU), the Interprovincial Rugby Football Union (IRFU, or "Big Four"), and the Western Interprovincial Football Union (WIFU). By 1954, the IRFU and WIFU had gone professional (in part thanks to an American television contract from NBC that paid the Big Four more than the one DuMont was offering the NFL), and in that year the ORFU dropped out of competition for the decades-old Grey Cup
Grey Cup
The Grey Cup is both the name of the championship of the Canadian Football League and the name of the trophy awarded to the victorious team. It is Canada's largest annual sports and television event, regularly drawing a Canadian viewing audience of about 3 to 4 million individuals...
, the championship of Canadian football. This is generally recognized as the moment that began the modern era of Canadian professional football. The WIFU and IRFU formalized an agreement creating the Canadian Football League
Canadian Football League
The Canadian Football League or CFL is a professional sports league located in Canada. The CFL is the highest level of competition in Canadian football, a form of gridiron football closely related to American football....
in 1958, though inter-divisional play did not happen until 1961.
The CFL has been, at various times in its history, competitive with the NFL in terms of being able to acquire talent, though the league's self-imposed rule changes have hampered that in recent years (for instance, the marquee player exemption to the salary cap that once allowed CFL teams to sign one top-level player is no longer there, and the league has banned signing suspended NFL players). It has not been competitive on a team level with the NFL, as evidenced by the fact that in a series of interleague matchups between the IRFU and the NFL in the 1950s and 1960s, the NFL won all six matches. (The Hamilton Tiger-Cats, the best team in the IRFU at the time, did win one game against an American pro team in 1961, but it was an American Football League team, not an NFL team.)
The league attempted an American expansion
CFL USA
The term CFL USA refers to the abortive expansion of the Canadian Football League into the United States in the early-to-mid 1990s. The 1993 CFL season saw the addition of the first American team to the league, the Sacramento Gold Miners...
in 1993, using a mix of a former World League
World League of American Football
The World League of American Football was founded in 1990 with support from the National Football League to play professional American football in North America, Europe and later possibly Asia...
team (Sacramento/San Antonio), a rejected proposed NFL franchise (Memphis), a spin-off of a Canadian team (Shreveport), and new expansion teams (Baltimore, Birmingham, Las Vegas), mostly based in the southern and western United States. Of the teams, only the Baltimore Stallions
Baltimore Stallions
The Baltimore Stallions were a Canadian Football League team based in Baltimore, Maryland, which played the 1994 and 1995 seasons. They were the most successful American team in the Canadian Football League, having two winning seasons and a division title. In 1995 they became the only American team...
were both financially and competitively successful, and they were retconned into the Montreal Alouettes
Montreal Alouettes
The Montreal Alouettes are a Canadian Football League team based in Montreal, Quebec.The current franchise named the Alouettes moved to Montreal from Baltimore, Maryland, in 1996 where they had been known as the Baltimore Stallions...
in 1996, while all the other American teams folded.
The two teams based in Ottawa
Ottawa
Ottawa is the capital of Canada, the second largest city in the Province of Ontario, and the fourth largest city in the country. The city is located on the south bank of the Ottawa River in the eastern portion of Southern Ontario...
and Montréal
Montreal
Montreal is a city in Canada. It is the largest city in the province of Quebec, the second-largest city in Canada and the seventh largest in North America...
have been in flux for the past three decades. The original Alouettes folded in 1982; a Montreal Concordes team was founded the same year to replace them, but the Concordes (which renamed themselves the Alouettes in 1986) folded prior to 1987. The current Alouettes arrived in Montréal in 1996, absorbing the two previous Montréal teams' histories but disowning that of the team that formed its basis, the Baltimore Stallions
Baltimore Stallions
The Baltimore Stallions were a Canadian Football League team based in Baltimore, Maryland, which played the 1994 and 1995 seasons. They were the most successful American team in the Canadian Football League, having two winning seasons and a division title. In 1995 they became the only American team...
. The Alouettes' situation has stabilized since that time. However, the Ottawa Rough Riders
Ottawa Rough Riders
The Ottawa Rough Riders were a Canadian Football League team based in Ottawa, Ontario, founded in 1876. One of the oldest and longest lived professional sports teams in North America, the Rough Riders won the Grey Cup championship nine times. Their most dominant era was the 1960s and 1970s, a...
folded in 1996 after the team was torn in two by Bernard Glieberman
Bernard Glieberman
Bernard "Bernie" Glieberman is an American real estate mogul and the president of Crosswinds Communities. Despite having made his fortune in real estate, Glieberman was perhaps best known for, with his son Lonie, making several unsuccessful and controversial forays into sports team ownership and...
as part of the American expansion experiment; the Ottawa Renegades
Ottawa Renegades
Ottawa Renegades was the most recent name of a Canadian Football League team based in Ottawa, Ontario founded in 2002, seven years after the storied Ottawa Rough Riders folded...
were named as Ottawa's next CFL team from 2002 to 2005, but that team also folded, once again with Glieberman being involved. Jeff Hunt
Jeff Hunt
Jeff Hunt is a Canadian businessman who currently owns the Ottawa 67's hockey club of the Ontario Hockey League. He started a carpet-cleaning firm called Canway. His firm was in the Profit Magazine 100 seven times in the 1990s.-OHL Hockey:...
currently holds expansion rights to a third Ottawa CFL team as well as the rights to the Rough Riders, but that team was supposed to begin play in 2010 and has since been pushed back to 2013, due to stadium problems.
Outside of the problems in Ottawa and Montréal, and the ill-fated American expansion, the CFL has shown significantly more stability than the American leagues. The league has resisted expanding beyond its current nine teams and has, to date, never moved a Canadian team from one city to another. One particular market that has been a persistent topic of discussion has been the maritime provinces. The CFL approved an Atlantic franchise for Halifax known as the Atlantic Schooners
Atlantic Schooners
The Atlantic Schooners were a conditional Canadian Football League expansion team that was to begin play in 1984 out of Halifax, Nova Scotia.On May 13, 1982, Maritime Professional Football Club Ltd. was granted a conditional expansion franchise...
in 1984 provided a stadium with sufficient capacity was built by then; however, no such stadium was ever built (the current largest stadium in Halifax, Huskies Stadium
Huskies Stadium
The Huskies Stadium is a Canadian football stadium in Halifax, Nova Scotia, that is host to Saint Mary's Huskies. It has a promoted capacity of 9,000 to 11,000 that is achieveable via temporary seating, but the actual permanent seating is only 4000. It was built in 1970...
, only seats less than half of what CFL rules mandate). The Touchdown Atlantic
Touchdown Atlantic
Touchdown Atlantic is a series of Canadian Football League games played in the maritime provinces .In 2003, the league had struck a committee to examine the feasibility of adding a tenth team, with the leading candidate cities being Quebec City and Halifax. An exhibition game between Ottawa and...
series is a series of one-off games that are played in Atlantic region stadiums; the first, a preseason game, was held at Huskies Stadium in 2003. A follow-up game was scheduled for the same venue for 2006, but was canceled due to the Ottawa Renegades (who were to play in the game) folding. The series was revived as a regular season game in 2010, but instead at New Moncton Stadium
New Moncton Stadium
The Moncton Stadium is a track and field stadium on the campus of the Université de Moncton in Moncton, New Brunswick, Canada, built to host the IAAF 2010 World Junior Championships in Athletics. The $17 million venue opened in 2010...
in Moncton, which is much closer to the CFL's capacity guidelines.