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The American Football League (AFL) was a major professional American football league that operated for ten seasons from 1960 until 1970, when it merged with the older National Football League (NFL), and became the American Football Conference. The upstart AFL operated in direct competition with the more established NFL throughout its existence.
The controversial ending of the National Football League's 1925 season led to the founding of the first AFL by Red Grange's agent, C. C. Pyle. [2] In an era in which no professional football team had a prearranged schedule (each team was responsible for booking its own games, with virtually no limitations as to the number of games), the Pottsville Maroons were hailed as the NFL champions by ...
The American Professional Football Association is formed on September 17, 1920, at Canton, Ohio, with Jim Thorpe elected president. [1] The fourteen teams were mainly drawn from the Ohio League, Chicago Circuit, New York Pro Football League and other teams from the lower midwest.
The Arena Football League (AFL) was a professional arena football league in the United States. It was founded in 1986, but played its first official games in the 1987 season, making it the third longest-running professional football league in North America after the Canadian Football League (CFL) and the National Football League (NFL) until the AFL closed in 2019.
The history of American football can be traced to early versions of rugby football and association football.Both games have their origin in multiple varieties of football played in the United Kingdom in the mid-19th century, in which a football is kicked at a goal or kicked over a line, which in turn were based on the varieties of English public school football games descending from medieval ...
So many players went overseas that several AFL and NFL teams were left with barely enough players to field viable teams. It soon became apparent to the AFL owners that the success of the league was very much in question. [2] On September 2, 1942, AFL president William D. Cox announced the league would suspend operations for the war's duration ...
The last AFL game on ABC television was the All-Star Game on January 16, 1965; rights were sold in January 1964 to NBC for $36 million over five years, beginning with the 1965 season. [ 2 ] [ 3 ] This infusion of cash helped spur a bidding war for talent with the NFL, which led to the AFL–NFL merger agreement in June 1966.
The NFL consistently outdrew the AFL at the gate, especially in the AFL's first few seasons, thus ensuring that the older league's franchises remained considerably more lucrative enterprises compared to their AFL rivals. Nevertheless, NFL owners knew they did not have unlimited resources to wage a protracted bidding war with the AFL.