When did the American Football League end?
American football
The rival American Football League arose in 1960 and challenged the NFL's dominance. The AFL began in relative obscurity but eventually thrived, with an initial television contract with the ABC network. The AFL's existence forced the conservative NFL to expand to Dallas and Minnesota in an attempt to destroy the new league. Meanwhile, the AFL introduced many new features to Professional Football in the United States: official time on the scoreboard clock, rather than on a watch in the referee's pocket, as the NFL did; optional two-point conversions by pass or run after touchdowns; names on the jerseys of players; and several others, including expansion of the role of minority players, actively recruited by the league in contrast to the NFL. The AFL also signed several star college players that had also been drafted by NFL teams. Competition for players heated up in 1965, when the AFL New York Jets signed rookie Joe Namath to a then-record US$437,000 contract. A five-year, $40 million NBC television contract followed, which helped to sustain the young league. The bidding war for players ended in 1966, when NFL owners approached the AFL regarding a merger, and the two leagues agreed on one that would take full effect in 1970. This agreement provided for a common draft that would take place each year, and it instituted an annual World Championship game to be played between the champions of each league. That game began play at the end of the 1966 season. Once the merger was completed, it was no longer a championship game between two leagues, and reverted to the NFL championship game, which came to be known as the Super Bowl.
List of American and Canadian cities by defunct football franchises
The National Football League held a monopoly on professional football in the United States for most of the 1950s, a rare occurrence for a league that had at least one competing league in every year since 1934. By 1960, a group of potential professional football owners that would become known as the Foolish Club had become frustrated with their efforts to buy into the NFL (some were NFL franchise minority owners such as Harry Wismer and Ralph Wilson; others, such as Lamar Hunt and Bud Adams, had tried but failed to buy NFL teams) and formed a new league, the American Football League. It was the eighth professional football league to use the name and the fourth to be universally considered a major-league competitor to the NFL. The AFL would prove to be the NFL's most formidable challenger to date.
United Football League (1961–1964)
The United Football League was a professional minor league American football league that operated between 1961 and 1964. It had eight teams primarily based in the Midwestern United States. After the league folded following the 1964 season, the more ambitious owners formed the new Continental Football League. The more conservative owners, who wanted to continue as a regional Midwestern bus league, broke away to form the Professional Football League in February 1965.
American Football League
As fierce competition made player salaries skyrocket in both leagues, especially after a series of "raids", the leagues agreed to a merger in 1966. Among the conditions were a common draft and a championship game played between the two league champions first played in early 1967, which would eventually become known as the Super Bowl.
List of American Football League seasons
Prior to the season, the AFL-NFL Merger was announced, including both leagues agreeing to play an annual AFL-NFL World Championship Game (later known as the Super Bowl) beginning in January, 1967.
United Football League (2009–2012)
The United Football League (UFL) was a professional American football league based in the United States that began play in October 2009 and played four seasons, the most recent being cut short in October 2012. The small league, which never had more than five teams playing at one time, played most of its games in markets where the National Football League (NFL) had no current presence. Unlike most alternative professional football leagues since the 1980s, the UFL played all of its games in the traditional fall season, competing directly with the NFL, college football, and high school football.
American Football League All-Star game
The American Football League All-Star game was the annual game which featured each year's best performers in the American Football League (AFL). The game was first played in 1961 and the final AFL All-Star game occurred in 1969, prior to the AFL-NFL merger.
American Football League (1940)
Although the AFL lost the Boston Bears franchise prior to the beginning of the 1941 season, its owners were optimistic about the league's long-term future. Although the league's average attendance was less than that of the more-established NFL, the AFL seemed to be on as firm a financial footing as the older league. By the end of the 1941 season, a new franchise was awarded to Detroit for the 1942 season. The league was the first major football league to complete a double round robin schedule, in which each team played each other twice.
American football rules
The defunct World Football League, in its first season of 1974, used an overtime system more analogous to the system long used in international soccer. The overtime consisted of one 15-minute period, which was played in its entirety and divided into two halves of 7½ minutes each, with each half starting with a kickoff by one of the teams. The league changed to the NFL's sudden-death format for its final season in 1975.
AFL–NFL merger
Due to the AAFC's poor financial situation, however, the league disbanded after the 1949 season. Three AAFC teams—the Cleveland Browns, the San Francisco 49ers, and the original version of the Baltimore Colts—were absorbed into the NFL in 1950. The league was briefly known as the National-American Football League during the offseason, but reverted to the traditional name of "National Football League" by the time the 1950 season began. The Browns would go on to shock NFL loyalists by dominating the older league and winning a championship in their first NFL season.
Dixie League (American football)
The Richmond Rebels, "Dixie League" charter members like Portsmouth and Norfolk, continued their participation in the American Football League of 1946 until that league had ""its"" later implosion in 1950 (the Rebels won the last two AFL championships, in 1949 and 1950). The team petitioned to join the competing major league, the new "All-America Football Conference" for their fourth 1950 season, but the A.A.F.C. - major league's pending merger negotiations and later agreement with the old National Football League of 1920/1922 thwarted the club's intentions.
List of defunct National Football League franchises
The following is a list and brief history of American football franchises that at one time played in the National Football League (NFL). The NFL was known as the American Professional Football Association (APFA) in 1920 and 1921. Note that the list represents NFL franchises that no longer exist, not franchises/teams that relocated. However, during the 1920s it is hard to tell if some teams changed nicknames from year to year or if each nickname represented a new franchise. It was also not uncommon for two or more teams to have the same nickname during the same season. No NFL franchise has folded since 1952. The Buccaneers, Colts, Cowboys, Giants, Lions, Panthers, and Texans franchises listed on this page are not the current franchises of those names. A defunct team, in this case, refers to a team which has had the rights to have a team returned to the NFL (or league collective at the time). Massillon Tigers attended the meetings in 1920, but never fielded a team in 1920.
Los Angeles Wildcats
Only two official AFL games were left to play in December 1926. On the 5th, the Wildcats shut out the Bulls 5-0 on a frozen field in Comiskey Park, while the Bulls hosted the Yankees the following Sunday as the visiting team wrapped up the 1926 season of the American Football League with a 7-3 victory. At the same time, in a snowstorm at the Polo Grounds, the league champion Quakers were crushed, 31-0, by the New York Giants in a game that marked the end of the American Football League, December 12, 1926.
American Football League (1926)
The first American Football League (AFL), 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 (NFL). Founded by Charles "C.C." Pyle, (1882–1939), and General Charles X. Zimmerman, (1865–1926), as Vice President and starring Hall of Fame halfback Harold Edward "Red" Grange, (1903–1991), the short-lived league with nine teams competed against the more established - then six year old NFL, both for players and for fans. While Pyle’s and Grange’s New York Yankees team and the already established Philadelphia Quakers became reliable draws, the lack of star power and the uncertain financial conditions of the other seven teams led to the league’s dissolution after one season.
Football America
Football America is a book and film series that was released by the National Football League in 1992. It was also the name of a follow-up series that aired on NFL Network from 2003 to 2005 on a regular basis.
Association of Professional Football Leagues
Left with only three teams, the Dixie League folded the next day. The compact effectively ended when the DL collapsed. On February 4, 1948, the NFL officially ended it by dissolving the links to the AFL.
American Football League (1940)
On September 2, 1942, AFL president William B. Cox announced the league would suspend operations for the war's duration.
All American Football League
The All American Football League was to be a professional American football league premised on the rule that all of its players had to have a four-year university degree, as employees of the AAFL rather than of the franchises, with the league to pay each player an average compensation of approximately $100,000 to year-round player employees and $50,000 to season-only players to attract the best non-NFL players. Also that the former college players would play in college stadiums. The AAFL's inaugural draft took place on January 26, 2008, though it was effectively voided when the league canceled that season.
For its proposed 2008 season, the AAFL established six franchises, all but one of which were located in the Southern United States (Team Michigan being the lone exception). One of the more unusual features of the league was that the teams had no nicknames, being referred to as "Team Florida", "Team Texas", etc. The teams, which had hired coaches, drafted players, and contracted with stadiums to host games for 2008 were:None of these teams actually played a single game before the league announced it was relaunching.
Dixie League (American football)
While the league opted to maintain continuity on the playing field, the "Dixie League" joined forces with the "American Association" (which now had changed its name in 1946 to the (third) third "American Football League") along with the far western Pacific Coast Professional Football League. On March 24, 1946, P.C.P.F.L. president J. Rufus Klawans announced the "Big Three" of the U.S.A.'s pro football's minor leagues had formed the coordinating "Association of Professional Football Leagues". The new A.P.F.L. entered into a working compact with the NFL, prohibiting the participation of players signed to "outlaw leagues" (originally directed toward the third AFL – which never returned from ""its"" limbo – but was subsequently applied to the now newly formed pro football "major league" competitor to the old National Football League, known as the "All-America Football Conference" of 1946-1949 which competed with the older pro football loop). The new coordinating Association however, lasted less than two years.
Super Bowl III
The National Football League (NFL) had dominated professional football from its origins after World War I. Rival leagues had crumbled or merged with it, and when the American Football League (AFL) began to play in 1960, it was the fourth to hold that similar name to challenge the older NFL. Unlike its earlier namesakes, however, this AFL was able to command sufficient financial resources to survive; one factor in this was becoming the first league to sign a television contract—previously, individual franchises had signed agreements with networks to televise games. The junior league proved successful enough, in fact, to make attractive offers to players. After the 1964 season, in fact, there had been a well-publicized bidding war which culminated with the signing, by the AFL's New York Jets (formerly New York Titans), of Alabama quarterback Joe Namath for an unprecedented contract. Fearing that bidding wars over players would become the norm, greatly increasing labor costs, NFL owners, ostensibly led by league Commissioner Pete Rozelle, obtained a merger agreement with the AFL, which provided for a single draft, interleague play in the pre-season, a championship game to follow each season, and the integration of the two leagues into one in a way to be agreed at a future date. As the two leagues had an unequal number of teams (under the new merger agreement, the NFL expanded by one team to 16, and the AFL by one to 10), realignment was advocated by some owners, but was opposed. Eventually, three NFL teams (Cleveland Browns, Pittsburgh Steelers, and the Baltimore Colts) agreed to move over to join the original AFL franchises of 1960 in what became the American Football Conference.
List of Continental Football League teams
The Continental Football League was an American football league that operated in North America from 1965 through 1969. The league was primarily formed by minor-league teams that had played in the United and Atlantic Coast football leagues. In February 1968, the ContFL merged with the Professional Football League of America (PFLA), in order to expand into the midwestern United States. In 1969, the league expanded into Texas by absorbing the Texas Football League, which also brought the first (and, to date, only) team from Mexico to play in a professional American football league, the Mexico Golden Aztecs.
List of National Football League head coaches
The National Football League (NFL) is a professional American football league consisting of 32 teams, divided equally between the National Football Conference (NFC) and the American Football Conference (AFC). The NFL is one of the four major professional sports leagues in North America, and the highest professional level of American football in the world. The NFL was founded in 1920. In the course of its existence, it has merged with the All-America Football Conference (AAFC) and the American Football League (AFL) to create the current NFL. The AAFC merged with the NFL in , and the AFL merged with the NFL in . The history and records of the AFL were incorporated into the NFL.
American Football Association (1978–1983)
The league played its games on Saturday nights in the summer (beginning its season Memorial Day weekend and ending in August) to avoid direct competition against other football in the fall, a move that foreshadowed the USFL's similar spring football schedule. The AFA ended operations in 1983, unable to take advantage of the strike that hit the NFL the year prior or weather the competition from the USFL.
Arena Football League
The Arena Football League (AFL) is a professional indoor American football league in the United States. It was founded in 1987 by Jim Foster, making it the third longest-running professional football league in North America, after the Canadian Football League (CFL) and the National Football League (NFL). The AFL plays a proprietary code known as arena football, a form of indoor American football played on a 66-by-28 yard field (about a quarter of the surface area of an NFL field), with rules encouraging offensive performance, resulting in a faster-paced and higher-scoring game. The sport was invented in the early 1980s and patented by Foster, a former executive of the United States Football League (USFL) and the NFL.
History of association football
Early football leagues in the U.S. mostly used the name football leagues: for example, the American Football Association (founded in 1884), the American Amateur Football Association (1893), the American League of Professional Football (1894), the National Association Foot Ball League (1895), and the Southern New England Football League (1914). However, the word "soccer" was beginning to catch on, and the St Louis Soccer League was a significant regional competition between 1907 and 1939. What is now the United States Soccer Federation was originally the U.S. Football Association, formed in 1913 by the merger of the American Football Association and the American Amateur Football Association. The governing body of the sport in the U.S. did not have the word soccer in its name until 1945, when it became the U.S. Soccer Football Association. It did not drop the word football from its name until 1974, when it became the U.S. Soccer Federation.
American football in the United Kingdom
Following the war, US forces stationed around Europe formed the USAFE League. The league ran from 1946 until being disbanded in 1993.
All American Football League
The All American Football League (AAFL) 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 launch to the spring of 2008, only to cancel its 2008 season a month before kickoff and suspend its launch until the next year. The league again postponed their launch each successive year, with the final postponement taking place in February 2010; despite that postponement it was stated that the league's first game would take place in spring 2011. As of spring 2011 there were no further actions from the league.
NFL Europe
The World League of American Football (shortened to WLAF or World League), later renamed the NFL Europe League (NFL Europe for short) and then NFL Europa, was a professional American football league which operated between 1991 and 2007. It was backed by the National Football League (NFL), the largest league in the United States. Each season culminated with the World Bowl.
Professional football (gridiron)
Immediately after the USFL suspended operations in 1986, USFL executive James F. "Jim" Foster 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.
Tony Rice (gridiron football)
The World League of American Football ceased its operations following the 1992 season. Rice joined the Munich Thunder of the Football League of Europe in Munich, Germany in 1994 and played quarterback for one season there as this was his last go around with professional football.
Buffalo Bills
The Bills began play as an original franchise of the American Football League (AFL) in 1960. The club joined the NFL as a result of the AFL–NFL merger for the 1970 season. The 1964 and 1965 Bills were the only teams representing Buffalo that won major league professional sports championships ("back-to-back" American Football League Championships). The Bills are the only team to win four consecutive conference championships and are the only NFL team to lose four consecutive Super Bowl games. The team was owned by Ralph Wilson from the team's founding in 1960, until his death in 2014 at the age of 95. After his death, Wilson's estate reached an agreement to sell the team to Terry and Kim Pegula, which was approved by the other NFL team owners on October 8, 2014. The Bills formerly possessed the longest active playoff drought in any of the four major professional sports in North America: they did not qualify to play in the NFL playoffs from 1999 until 2017 and were the last NFL team (and last team in the major North American professional sports leagues overall) to compete in the playoffs in the 21st century.
1965 American Football League season
The season ended when the Buffalo Bills defeated the San Diego Chargers in the AFL Championship game. The next season, the AFL would join the NFL to form the AFL-NFL World Championship game, known today as the Super Bowl.
History of American football
In 1959, longtime NFL commissioner Bert Bell died of a heart attack while attending an Eagles/Steelers game at Franklin Field. That same year, Dallas businessman Lamar Hunt led the formation of the rival American Football League, the fourth such league to bear that name, with war hero and former South Dakota Governor Joe Foss as its Commissioner. Unlike the earlier rival leagues, and bolstered by television exposure, the AFL posed a significant threat to NFL dominance of the professional football world. With the exception of Los Angeles and New York, the AFL avoided placing teams in markets where they directly competed with established NFL franchises. In 1960, the AFL began play with eight teams and a double round-robin schedule of fourteen games. New NFL commissioner Pete Rozelle took office the same year.
Professional sports leagues in the United States
The National Football League was founded in 1920 as a combination of various teams from regional leagues such as the Ohio League, the New York Pro Football League, and the Chicago circuit. The NFL partially absorbed the All-America Football Conference in 1949 and merged with the American Football League in 1970. It has 32 teams, all located in the United States.
History of American football
Several other professional football leagues have been formed since the AFL–NFL merger, though none have had the success of the AFL. In 1974, the World Football League formed and was able to attract such stars as Larry Csonka away from the NFL with lucrative contracts. However, most of the WFL franchises were insolvent and the league folded in 1975.
1966 American Football League season
The 1966 American Football League season was the seventh regular season of the American Football League. The league entered talks with the National Football League regarding an NFL-AFL merger, which took effect fully in 1970.
Midwest Football League (1935–1940)
The league changed its name once again in 1939 as it bares itself of any pretense of being a regional league. After one year of being the American Football League, the league became the American Professional Football Association, ironically the original name of the professional football league that became the National Football League. The name of the league was not the only change for the season: the Dayton Rosies became the Dayton Bombers; the Nashville Rebels left the league after only one year of competition; and Wisconsin's Kenosha Cardinals and three familiar teams joined the loop for the upcoming season.
1965 American Football League Championship Game
This game marked the last time that a final pro football championship was decided in December, within the same calendar year as regular season games (the 1965 NFL Championship Game was played on January 2, 1966). The following season would conclude with the first Super Bowl played in January 1967.
Timeline of the National Football League
The American Professional Football Association is formed. The fourteen teams were mainly drawn from the Ohio League, Chicago Circuit, New York Pro Football League and other teams from the lower midwest. A $100 membership fee was charged. The Chicago Tigers folded after the season.
National Football League
The National Football League (NFL) is a professional American football league consisting of 32 teams, divided equally between the National Football Conference (NFC) and the American Football Conference (AFC). The NFL is one of the four major professional sports leagues in North America, and the highest professional level of American football in the world. The NFL's 17-week regular season runs from early September to late December, with each team playing 16 games and having one bye week. Following the conclusion of the regular season, six teams from each conference (four division winners and two wild card teams) advance to the playoffs, a single-elimination tournament culminating in the Super Bowl, which is usually held in the first Sunday in February, and is played between the champions of the NFC and AFC.
American Soccer League (1921–33)
The American Soccer League has been a name used by four different professional soccer sports leagues in the United States. The first American Soccer League was established in 1921 by the merger of teams from the National Association Football League and the Southern New England Soccer League. For several years The ASL's popularity rivaled the popularity of the National Football League. Disputes with the United States Football Association and FIFA, and the onset of the Great Depression in 1929 led to the league's collapse in spring 1933.
1941 American Football League season
Precisely one week after the last regular season AFL game --- Sunday, December 7, 1941 --- Pearl Harbor was attacked by Japanese military forces. The euphoria of a successful season gave way to the realization that the military demands of the American participation in World War II would put the continued success of the AFL (and the NFL, for that matter) into question. As both major football leagues were losing personnel to military service, both made plans for a 1942 season (the AFL as a six team loop with a new Detroit franchise). Ironically, the NFL came close to suspending operations, but continued as a ten-team league, but on September 2, 1942, the AFL suspended operations “until the end of the war.” AFL president William Cox announced the suspension, stating “We do not have the time to go into the football business this fall. I want to stress that there is no financial problem involved. Each team definitely has enough finances to continue.”
American Football League (1940)
By the spring of 1940, the former American Professional Football Association announced intentions of turning itself into a major league with the addition of a Milwaukee team for the upcoming season over the protests of the Green Bay Packers. As the teams prepared for the upcoming season, the announcement of a rival major league resulted in the fracturing of this edition of the American Football League.
American Football League (1944)
The Northwest War Industries League and American Football League were two closely related professional football leagues based on the West Coast of the United States that played for two nonconsecutive seasons during World War II.
Modern history of American football
During the 1950s, additional teams entered the league. In 1950, the AAFC folded, and three teams from that league were absorbed into the NFL: the Cleveland Browns (who had won the AAFC Championship every year of the league's existence), the San Francisco 49ers, and the Baltimore Colts (not the same as the modern franchise, this version folded after one year). The remaining players were chosen by the now 13 NFL teams in a dispersal draft. Also in 1950, the Los Angeles Rams became the first team to televise its entire schedule, marking the beginning of an important relationship between television and professional football. In 1952, the Dallas Texans went defunct, becoming the last NFL franchise to do so. The following year a new Baltimore Colts franchise formed to take over the assets of the Texans. The players' union, known as the NFL Players Association, formed in 1956.
American Football League
The AFL added its tenth and final team on May 24, 1967, when it awarded the league's second expansion franchise to an ownership group from Cincinnati, Ohio, headed by NFL legend Paul Brown. Although Brown had intended to join the NFL, he agreed to join the AFL when he learned that his team would be included in the NFL once the merger was completed. The Cincinnati Bengals began play in the 1968 season, finishing last in the Western Division.
American Football Women's League
The American Football Women's League (AFWL) which debuted on May 15, 2002, was one of the first women's football leagues formed, originally using the name "WAFL", or "Women's American Football League" in 2001. The AFWL officially disbanded in March 2003, due to money and attendance problems.
NFL International Series
Prior to 2005, the NFL's primary method of promoting its game abroad was through the American Bowl, a series of preseason games played around the world, and NFL Europe, a developmental league based in Europe. The American Bowls ended in 2005 (though a similar China Bowl was planned for 2007 before being canceled), while NFL Europa (as it was known for its final season) folded in 2007. On October 2, 2005, the Arizona Cardinals defeated the San Francisco 49ers by a score of 31–14 at Estadio Azteca in Mexico City, Mexico under the name "NFL "Fútbol Americano"". It was the first regular season NFL game held outside the United States. The game drew the NFL's highest game attendance at the time with 103,467 spectators.
Canadian Football League in the United States
Coincidentally, the World League of American Football, an attempt by the NFL to create a spring league in major markets without NFL teams, suspended its North American operations after its 1992 season. WLAF owners Fred Anderson of the Sacramento Surge and Larry J. Benson of the San Antonio Riders applied to join the CFL as the Sacramento Gold Miners and San Antonio Texans, respectively.
Association of Professional Football Leagues
After a 1946 season that saw continued success for the minor leagues, and the NFL weathering the AAFC challenge, no one could envision the quickness of the demise of the Association of American Professional Football Leagues the following fall.
Modern history of American football
The NFL founded a developmental league known as the World League of American Football with teams based in the United States, Canada, and Europe. The WLAF ran for two years, from 1991 to 1992. The league went on a two-year hiatus before reorganizing as NFL Europe in 1995, with teams only in European cities. The name of the league was changed to NFL Europa in 2006. After the 2007 season, the NFL announced that it was closing down the league to focus its international marketing efforts in other ways, such as playing NFL regular season games in cities outside of the U.S.
2009–10 Football League One
The Football League 2009–10 (called Coca-Cola Football League for sponsorship reasons), was the seventeenth season under its current league division format. It began in August 2009 and ended on 8 May 2010.
Seaboard Football League
During the 1972 season, after the folding of the Atlantic Coast Football League, the Seaboard Football League was the second-highest ranking professional football league in the United States, behind only the NFL. The NFL played its last interleague exhibition match against an SFL team in 1972, when the New York Jets rookies defeated the SFL's Long Island Chiefs 29–3. The league dropped to third-tier after the Hartford Knights left for a revived ACFL and the league picked up teams from the semi-pro Empire Football League for play in 1973.
History of the National Football League
League membership gradually stabilized throughout the 1920s and 1930s as the league adopted progressively more formal organization. The first official championship game was held in 1933. The NFL stopped signing black players in 1927 but reintegrated in 1946 following World War II. Other changes followed after the war; the office of league President evolved into the more powerful Commissioner post, mirroring a similar move in Major League Baseball. Teams became more financially viable, the last team folding in 1952 and the league absorbing teams from the briefly more successful All-America Football Conference in 1950, two of which survive to the present day. By 1958, when that season's NFL championship game became known as "The Greatest Game Ever Played", the NFL was on its way to becoming one of the most popular sports leagues in the United States.
All-America Football Conference All-Star Game
The AAFC was an American football league which rivaled the established National Football League (NFL) from 1946 to 1949. One of the NFL’s most formidable competitors, the AAFC attracted many of the nation’s best players, produced one of pro football’s greatest teams, and introduced many lasting innovations to the game. However, the AAFC was ultimately unable to sustain itself in competition with the NFL. A major factor in the league's demise was its domination by the Cleveland Browns, who compiled a four-year record of 52-4-3 and won all four AAFC titles.
American Football League (1926)
November 1926 wasn't much brighter for the house of cards that was the American Football League. The Brooklyn Horsemen left the league when it merged with its NFL cousins, the Lions, and played the last three games of its existence (three shutout losses) as the Horsemen. By the middle of the month, the Boston Bulldogs called it quits, as did Rock Island a week later. By Thanksgiving of 1926, there were only four teams operating in the AFL (New York, Chicago, the Wildcats, and Philadelphia), with only the Quakers making a profit for the year (boosted in part by huge attendances stemming from the United States Sesquicentennial celebration and the very large stadium capable of hosting them) and Pyle was spending money to keep the other three teams afloat.
National Football League
Another meeting was held on September 17, 1920 with representatives from teams from four states-Akron, Canton, Cleveland, and Dayton from Ohio; the Hammond Pros and Muncie Flyers from Indiana; the Rochester Jeffersons from New York; and the Rock Island Independents, Decatur Staleys, and Racine (Chicago) Cardinals from Illinois. The league was renamed to the American Professional Football Association (APFA). The league elected Jim Thorpe as its first president, and consisted of 14 teams (the Buffalo All-Americans, Chicago Tigers, Columbus Panhandles, and Detroit Heralds joined the league during the year). The Massillon Tigers from Massillon, Ohio was also at the September 17 meeting, but did not field a team in 1920. Only two of these teams, the Decatur Staleys (now the Chicago Bears) and the Chicago Cardinals (now the Arizona Cardinals), remain.
Although the league did not maintain official standings for its 1920 inaugural season and teams played schedules that included non-league opponents, the APFA awarded the Akron Pros the championship by virtue of their 8–0–3 (8 wins, 0 losses, and 3 ties) record. The first event occurred on September 26, 1920 when the Rock Island Independents defeated the non-league St. Paul Ideals 48–0 at Douglas Park. On October 3, 1920, the first full week of league play occurred.
The following season resulted in the Chicago Staleys controversially winning the title over the Buffalo All-Americans. On June 24, 1922, the APFA changed its name to the National Football League (NFL).
American Football League
The AFL and NFL operated as separate leagues until 1970, with separate regular season and playoff schedules except for the championship game. NFL Commissioner Pete Rozelle also became chief executive of the AFL from July 26, 1966, through the completion of the merger. During this time the AFL expanded, adding the Miami Dolphins and Cincinnati Bengals. After losses by Kansas City and Oakland in the first two AFL-NFL World Championship Game to the Green Bay Packers (1967/1968), the New York Jets and Kansas City Chiefs won Super Bowls III and IV (1969/1970) respectively, cementing the league's claim to being an equal to the NFL.
Professional football (gridiron)
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 League, 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, Johnnie Walton 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, Jim Corcoran and the first female professional football player, placeholder Patricia Palinkas) 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.
Full Color Football: The History of the American Football League
Full Color Football: The History of the American Football League is a sports documentary miniseries that focuses on the American Football League (AFL, 1960–1969), recognized by many as the genesis of modern professional football. The 5-part series originally aired on the US pay-cable network Showtime in the fall of 2009 to coincide with the 50th anniversary season of both the AFL's founding and its original 8 teams. Reruns are currently airing on NFL Network.
Modern history of American football
In 1982, the United States Football League formed as a spring league, and enjoyed moderate success during its first two seasons behind such stars as Jim Kelly and Herschel Walker. It intended to move its schedule to the fall in 1986, and tried to compete with the NFL directly, but despite winning an anti-trust suit against the older league the USFL was only awarded token damages, depriving the league of the funds it needed to stay solvent. The USFL ceased operations a month before its first fall season was to begin.
American Football League (1940)
The organization was the third major league to bear the name American Football League. Its establishment resulted in the dissolution of the American Professional Football Association, which had just announced its intentions to compete with the NFL as a major league organization. In 1941 American Football League became the first football league to play a double round robin schedule (five home games and five away games). However, it folded after the end of the 1941 season.
Paul Tagliabue
The NFL continued to play pre-season games in Europe with the American Bowl series. Paul Tagliabue started a spring developmental league, the World League of American Football (WLAF), with seven teams in North America, plus three in Europe. The European teams dominated in 1991, the first season. After the second season, 1992, in which US-based teams played in the World Bowl, the World League was shut down as it was no success in the US. In 1995, the spring league returned as the NFL Europe with six teams in Europe. When Tagliabue retired, five teams were based in Germany. Tagliabue's successor Roger Goodell shut down the NFL Europe after the 2007 season. 
On the other hand, the NFL International Series began in October 2007 with regular season games in London.
American Soccer League (1933–83)
The American Soccer League has been a name used by four different professional soccer sports leagues in the United States. The second American Soccer League was established in summer 1933 following the collapse of the original American Soccer League, which lasted from 1921 until spring 1933. The new league was created on a smaller scale and with smaller budgets. This league existed until over-expansion and financial limitations led to its collapse in 1983. A successor league with the same name started in 2014.
American Football League
The NFL adopted some of the innovations introduced by the AFL immediately and a few others in the years following the merger. One was including the names on player jerseys. The older league also adopted the practice of using the stadium scoreboard clocks to keep track of the official game time, instead of just having a stopwatch used by the referee. The AFL played a 14-game schedule for its entire existence, starting in 1960. The NFL, which had played a 12-game schedule since 1947, changed to a 14-game schedule in 1961, a year after the American Football League instituted it. The AFL also introduced the two-point conversion to professional football thirty-four years before the NFL instituted it in 1994 (college football had adopted the two-point conversion in the late 1950s). All of these innovations pioneered by the AFL, including its more exciting style of play and colorful uniforms, have essentially made today's professional football more like the "AFL" than like the old-line NFL. The AFL's challenge to the NFL also laid the groundwork for the Super Bowl, which has become the standard for championship contests in the United States of America.
Professional football (gridiron)
In 1922, the APFA changed its name to the National Football League. While the Ohio League mostly ceased to exist after the foundation of the NFL (other than a few independent teams such as the Ironton Tanks and the pre-NFL Portsmouth Spartans), the other regional leagues continued. The New York league continued throughout the 1920s, outlasting many of the teams that it had contributed to the NFL, albeit without championships. Western Pennsylvania's league lasted until 1940. 1924 saw the foundation of eastern Pennsylvania's Anthracite League, the last regional "major league." The Anthracite League was won by the Pottsville Maroons, who, after one year (and winning the league title), jumped to the NFL. The Anthracite League remanifested itself as the Eastern League of Professional Football, an explicitly minor league, in 1926 and 1927.
1926 American Football League season
The 1926 American Football League season is the only season of the existence of the first American Football League. It started with nine teams, with the initial game of the season being played in front of 22,000 fans in Cleveland, Ohio, but by the end of the season (December 14, 1926), only four teams were still in existence: three teams owned or subsidized by league founder C. C. Pyle and star Red Grange (New York Yankees, Los Angeles Wildcats, and Chicago Bulls) and league champion Philadelphia Quakers. The initial lineup of teams included the traveling Wildcats and a charter member of the National Football League, the Rock Island Independents, which became a second traveling team after having poor attendance in its first three games.
Alliance of American Football
The Alliance of American Football (AAF) is a planned professional American football league founded by Charlie Ebersol and Bill Polian. It is set to commence play in February 2019, one week following the National Football League's Super Bowl LIII championship game. The AAF consists of eight centrally owned and operated teams; all but one are located in cities on or south of the 35th parallel and all but one in metropolitan areas that have at least one major professional sports franchise.
A-11 Football League
There have been numerous attempts to establish a spring football league in the last thirty years, the best-known being the United States Football League (1983–85), the NFL-sponsored WLAF/NFL Europe (1991–92 and 1995-2007); and the XFL (2001). Others include the Professional Spring Football League (PSFL), which folded before playing any games in 1992; the Regional Football League (RFL), which lasted a single season in 1999; the Spring Football League (SFL), which played just four games in 2000; and the Stars Football League, which intended to be a national league but spent most of its three-year existence (2011–13) as a regional semi-pro league based in Florida. (Several other proposed spring leagues never got past the planning stage; for instance, the "International Football Federation" was set to begin play in 2000, but never made it past their initial press conference.)
All-America Football Conference playoffs
The All-America Football Conference (AAFC) was an American football league which challenged the established National Football League (NFL) from 1946 to 1949.
1963 American Football League season
The season ended when the San Diego Chargers defeated the Boston Patriots in the AFL championship game – to this date the only major league championship won by the Chargers and the city of San Diego.
1932–33 American Soccer League
This was the last season for the first American Soccer League. After the disastrous 1932 season, the league began a 1932–1933 season in October 1932. Although it began well, with nine teams competing, the turmoil from earlier in the year continued as several teams withdrew during the first half and others during the mid-season break. At that point, the historical record becomes contradictory. The league may have intended the season to run from the fall of 1932 into the spring of 1933. However, a May 29, 1933, "New York Times" story has this headline: "Brookhattan Beats Americans At Soccer: Triumphs by 2-1 to Capture Honors for First Half of League Competition". This implies the possibility the league had abandoned the 1932–1933 season and tried to begin again in May 1933 with a full spring–fall season. Regardless, the league collapsed in the summer of 1933, to be replaced by the semi-professional American Soccer League that fall.
Midwest Football League (1935–1940)
The Midwest Football League (MFL) was a minor professional American football league that existed from 1935 to 1940. Originally comprising teams from Ohio, Kentucky, Indiana, and Illinois, the league eventually expanded its reach to include teams from Missouri, Tennessee, Wisconsin, and California to become a national league with major league aspirations by 1939. In 1938, the league became the American Professional Football League after the collapse of the second major league of the same name, but changed its name once again the following year to American Professional Football Association (APFA). Some sources refer to it as the American Professional Football League.
American Association (American football)
American Association president John Rosentover announced in August 1942, that the American Association was following the lead of the third American Football League, in that the league was suspending operations due to World War II. While the member teams played on in an informal assemblage, the A.A. remained officially out of action until the post-war year of 1946.
United States Football League
The last player of the USFL on an NFL roster was Philadelphia Stars punter Sean Landeta, who was signed in late 1986 by the New York Giants. He officially announced his retirement on March 6, 2008, the 25th anniversary of the first USFL game. (He last played in 2006 but he did not officially retire during the 2007 season.) The last non-kicker to retire was quarterback Doug Flutie, who played in both the CFL and NFL until 2005.
United States Football League
Five days after the verdict the Tampa Bay Bandits were effectively shut down when a judge slapped a lien on the franchise to satisfy back pay owed to former player Bret Clark. All of the team's remaining assets were seized to satisfy the debt. In a desperation move, the Arizona Outlaws arranged a meeting in January 1987 with officials with the Canadian Football League hoping to negotiate a merger with that league; the CFL's owners were "lukewarm" and ultimately rejected the Outlaws' request. With nearly all of its players under contract to the NFL and CFL, Usher announced the league would stay shuttered in 1987 as well. (Many of the USFL players who were not under NFL contract would end up playing in fall 1987 as replacement players during the strike.)
Los Angeles Bulldogs
For the 1939 season, the Bulldogs joined fellow second AFL franchise Cincinnati Bengals in joining another American Football League just before the league changed its name to the American Professional Football League. The two newcomers dominated their new league, finishing with the two greatest winning percentages, but at the league meetings, the Columbus Bullies were announced as the league champions. Shortly afterward, the Bulldogs announced their intention to leave the AFL to become a charter member of a new Pacific Coast Professional Football League (the AFL soon dissipated when three more member teams defected to a new league, which soon became the “third American Football League”).
League of American Football
In 2016 it was reorganized as The "League of American Football", LAF in short.
Professional football (gridiron)
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 (the lone exception being the Denver Broncos) played in at least one post-season game. In addition to traditional eastern cities, it placed teams in Texas, in the West with the 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 at the end of the 1966 season. 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.
History of the National Football League championship
"For a list of AAFC Championship Games and winners, see List of AAFC champions"
The All-America Football Conference was created in June 1944 to compete against the NFL. Even though the league outdrew the NFL in attendance, the continuing dominance of the Cleveland Browns led to the league's downfall.
For its first three seasons, the league was divided into two divisions: Eastern and Western (1946–1948). The league had no divisions in 1949. The site of the championship game during the first three was determined just as it was in the NFL—a divisional rotation. In 1949, the league held a four-team playoff, with home field based upon won-lost record.
The Browns, led by Quarterback Otto Graham, won all four of the league championship games.
A tiebreaker playoff game was played in 1948 to break a tie between the Baltimore Colts and Buffalo Bills (AAFC) for the Eastern Division championship. Semifinal playoff games were held in 1949, setting up a championship final between the first-place Browns and the second-place San Francisco 49ers.
In 1948, the Browns became the first professional football team to complete an entire season undefeated and untied — 24 years before the 1972 Miami Dolphins of the NFL would accomplish the task, but this feat is not recognized by NFL record books. Unlike the AFL statistics which are treated as NFL statistics, records of the AAFC and its teams (most of which folded) are not recognized. However, individual AAFC player statistics are included in Pro Football Hall of Fame records, and the defunct conference is memorialized in the Hall.
NFL regular season
The American Football League, the precursor to today's American Football Conference, postponed Week 12 of the 1963 season because of the assassination of President Kennedy, on Friday, November 22. The AFL's games were made up by adding a 15th week to a 14-week schedule. The older and more established National Football League went ahead and played as scheduled on Sunday, November 24, 1963.
Traveling team
Below is a list of the traveling teams that were members of the National Football League, the first American Football League, or the second American Football League. No other major professional league of American football had such road teams, the last of which was the 1952 Dallas Texans of the National Football League. To qualify for the list, the team must have played a complete season of at least four games on the road. Teams that had the traveling team status imposed upon them in midseason are noted.There have been no NFL traveling teams since 1952, owing to the increased stability of the league. Even in cases when an NFL team's home stadium has been rendered unusable due to damages or renovations, the teams have arranged and designated temporary home stadiums in each case and no NFL team has had to play more than two designated home games (out of eight in a season) outside their home stadium.
List of NFC champions
The National Football Conference (NFC) is one of two conferences within the National Football League (NFL), the American Football Conference (AFC) being the other. Prior to 1970, there were two separate professional football leagues, the National Football League and the American Football League (AFL). In 1970, the AFL merged with the NFL. As part of the merger, the former AFL teams, plus three former NFL teams (the Baltimore Colts, the Cleveland Browns and the Pittsburgh Steelers), were placed into the AFC. The remaining former NFL teams were placed in the NFC. As of the 2018 season only the Detroit Lions have not won an NFC championship.
American Association (American football)
The 1941 New York Yankees was not the same team as the 1940 Yankees. The latter was team of the AFL that was sold to Douglas Hertz in late 1940, but the AFL revoked the franchise in August 1941 in response to a financial controversy on the part of Hertz. The team was then sold to a group headed by William Cox (who later became the president of the AFL) as preparations for the new season had begun (under the new regime, the name of the team was changed to the New York Americans). Hertz then formed a new barnstorming team, called it the New York Yankees, and started playing independent teams in the American northeast before accepting the invitation to join the American Association. The team left the League after losing all six of its games and folded after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor ushered in the United States’ participation in World War II, December 7th, 1941, and making a question in the future temporarily for all professional sports.
United States Football League
The United States Football League (USFL) was an American football league that played for three seasons, 1983 through 1985. The league played a spring/summer schedule in each of its active seasons. The 1986 season was scheduled to be played in the autumn/winter, directly competing against the long-established National Football League (NFL). However, the USFL ceased operations before that season was scheduled to begin.
American Association (American football)
The American Association (AA) 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. After a four-year hiatus, the league was renamed the American Football League as it expanded to include teams in Ohio and Pennsylvania. In 1947, the Richmond Rebels of the Dixie League purchased the assets of the defunct AFL Long Island Indians and jumped leagues (causing the demise of the DL).
American football
Over time, professional play became increasingly common, and with it came rising salaries and unpredictable player movement, as well as the illegal payment of college players who were still in school. The National Football League (NFL), a group of professional teams that was originally established in 1920 as the American Professional Football Association, aimed to solve these problems. This new league's stated goals included an end to bidding wars over players, prevention of the use of college players, and abolition of the practice of paying players to leave another team. By 1922, the NFL had established itself as the premier professional football league.
Modern history of American football
In 1959, longtime NFL commissioner Bert Bell died of a heart attack while attending an Eagles/Steelers game at Franklin Field. That same year, Dallas, Texas businessman Lamar Hunt led the formation of the rival American Football League, the fourth such league to bear that name, with war hero and former South Dakota Governor Joe Foss as its Commissioner. Unlike the earlier rival leagues, and bolstered by television exposure, the AFL posed a significant threat to NFL dominance of the professional football world. In 1960, the AFL began play with eight teams and a double round-robin schedule of fourteen games. New NFL commissioner Pete Rozelle took office the same year. The AFL generally avoided placing teams in markets where they directly competed with established NFL franchises. Although four inaugural AFL teams shared markets with NFL teams—the Dallas Texans, Los Angeles Chargers, Titans of New York, and Oakland Raiders (the latter sharing the San Francisco Bay Area with the San Francisco 49ers)—only the franchises in New York (renamed the New York Jets) and Oakland remained in direct competition with NFL teams after the league's early years. The Chargers moved to San Diego after the 1960 season and the Texans moved to Kansas City after the 1962 season, becoming the Chiefs.
List of New York Jets seasons
This is a list of seasons completed by the New York Jets, formerly the New York Titans, an American football franchise of the National Football League (NFL). The list documents the season-by-season records of the Jets' franchise from 1960 to the present, including postseason records and league awards for individual players or head coaches. The Titans were a part of the inaugural season of the American Football League (AFL) in 1960. In 1963, the Titans changed their name to the Jets after a change in ownership.
American football on Thanksgiving
The World Football League originally planned to hold its 1974 championship game, World Bowl 1, the day after Thanksgiving in 1974; the business failures of the 1974 season led to the league reorganizing the playoff structure and pushing the World Bowl one week back (although the WFL regularly played on Thursdays during the regular season, it instead split its semifinals between the day before Thanksgiving and the day after). Had the United States Football League completed its move to autumn for the 1986 season, it would have played one of its games on Thanksgiving (a game featuring the Tampa Bay Bandits at the Memphis Showboats was scheduled for that night), but the league suspended operations prior to the season and, even if it had survived, the Bandits went bankrupt before the season would have been played. Similarly, the United Football League, which began play in 2009, held its first two UFL Championship Games over Thanksgiving weekend; both the truncated 2011 UFL season and the 2012 UFL season were cut short well before the Thanksgiving holiday due to financial shortfalls. The Fall Experimental Football League had scheduled its championship for the day before Thanksgiving Day 2014, in Brooklyn, but the game was cancelled after the season was shortened.
American Football League
The AFL was also the most successful of numerous upstart leagues of the 1960s and 1970s that attempted to challenge a major professional league's dominance. All nine teams that were in the AFL at the time the merger was agreed upon were accepted into the league intact (as was the tenth team added between the time of the merger's agreement and finalization), and none of the AFL's teams have ever folded. For comparison, the World Hockey Association (1972–79) managed to have four of its six remaining teams merged into the National Hockey League, which actually caused the older league to contract a franchise, but WHA teams were forced to disperse the majority of their rosters and restart as expansion teams. The merged WHA teams were also not financially sound (in large part from the hefty expansion fees the NHL imposed on them), and three of the four were forced to relocate within 20 years. The American Basketball Association (1967–76) managed to have only four of its teams merged into the National Basketball Association, and the rest of the league was forced to fold. Both the WHA and ABA lost several teams to financial insolvency over the course of their existences. The Continental League, a proposed third league for Major League Baseball that was to begin play in 1961, never played a single game, largely because MLB responded to the proposal by expanding to four of that league's proposed cities. Historically, the only other professional sports league in the United States to exhibit a comparable level of franchise stability from its inception was the American League of Major League Baseball, which made its debut in the early 20th century.
American Football League
On June 9, 1960, the league signed a five-year television contract with ABC, which brought in revenues of approximately US$2,125,000 per year for the entire league. On June 17, the AFL filed an antitrust lawsuit against the NFL, which was dismissed in 1962 after a two-month trial. The AFL began regular-season play (a night game on Friday, September 9, 1960) with eight teams in the league — the Boston Patriots, Buffalo Bills, Dallas Texans, Denver Broncos, Houston Oilers, Los Angeles Chargers, New York Titans, and Oakland Raiders. Raiders' co-owner Wayne Valley dubbed the AFL ownership "The Foolish Club", a term Lamar Hunt subsequently used on team photographs he sent as Christmas gifts.
2014 NFL season
Buffalo Bills owner Ralph Wilson died at age 95 on March 25. He was the founding owner of the franchise, which began in 1960 in the American Football League (AFL). Wilson played a central role in the negotiations between the AFL and NFL which eventually led to the AFL–NFL merger in . He was the last remaining NFL owner among the Foolish Club, as the original eight AFL owners were named. Wilson was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2009. Coincidentally, both Wilson and Lions owner William Clay Ford, Sr. died at their respective homes in Grosse Pointe Shores, Michigan, within three weeks of each other.
List of National Football League games played outside the United States
The American Bowl was a series of NFL pre-season exhibition games that were held at sites outside the United States between 1986 and 2005. The league started the "American Bowl" series in 1986 primarily to promote American football in other countries. The American Bowl was a fifth pre-season game, played the same weekend as the Pro Football Hall of Fame Game, and did not take away a game from the participating teams' pre-season schedules. At least one "American Bowl" game was played annually from 1986 to 2003. As many as four were played per year in the early 1990s. There was no "American Bowl" game played in 2004. The last American Bowl was held in 2005. NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell cited the league's new international strategy in the abandonment of international pre-season games as well as the closure of NFL Europe, instead focusing on playing regular season games in foreign countries. There have been three international pre-season games during the "American Bowl" era that did not receive the American Bowl name because they were not arranged by the NFL but, rather, the scheduled home team elected to play there.
American Football League (1926)
While the bulk of the AFL disappeared at the demise of the league, three members had an official existence after the Giants-Quakers game. Although the Brooklyn Horsemen disbanded after its last NFL game, the team's franchise was never withdrawn or canceled by the league. Tim Mara purchased the franchise and proceeded to lease it to C. C. Pyle for his New York Yankees team. The agreement between the two rivals limited the number of home games that the Yankees were permitted to play in its namesake stadium (four in 1927) and forced Pyle's squad to be primarily a road team displaying the talents of Red Grange. This arrangement lasted for two years: the Yankees were no more after the 1928 season. The Cleveland Panthers, on the other hand, reverted to independent status, and played until 1934.
American football in the United States
The NFL has not operated any developmental leagues since the folding of the NFL Europe League in 2007, and as of 2017 no independent minor professional leagues exist. From the time of NFL Europe's exit from the U.S. market in 1992 until the founding of the Stars Football League in 2011, there were no minor American football leagues anywhere in the country (the SFL ceased operations after its 2013 season; the Fall Experimental Football League played two seasons in 2014 and 2015).
Cincinnati Bengals (1937–41)
The Bengals continued as an independent team in 1938 (rejecting overtures from the former Midwest Football League, first as the league renamed itself the American Football League and in October 1938 after the dissolution of the Cincinnati Blades). In 1939, the team joined the newly renamed American Professional Football Association after yet another overture, finishing in second place with a 6–2–0 record. The APFA folded as Cincinnati, the Columbus Bullies, and the newly formed Milwaukee Chiefs defected to a newly formed major league, yet another American Football League, for the 1940 season.
Major professional sports leagues in the United States and Canada
The National Football League was founded in 1920 as a combination of various teams from regional leagues such as the Ohio League, the New York Pro Football League, and the Chicago circuit. The NFL partially absorbed the All-America Football Conference in 1949 and merged with the American Football League in 1970. It has 32 teams, all located in the United States.
List of American Football League seasons
The following is a list of American Football League (AFL) seasons since the inception of the league in 1960 to 1969, the year before it merged with the National Football League (NFL).
American Football League (1934)
Preparations for the 1935 season saw the Blues returning to St. Louis after the Gunners' dissolution and Louisville playing exhibition games in September, but none of the other league members had bothered to assemble their squads, including the Tigers, which were sited in the league's home city, Memphis. S. A. Goodman, both the president of the AFL and the owner of the Tigers, announced on September 26, 1935, that due to "lateness in organizing", the 1935 AFL season was cancelled, but the league would return in 1936.
Women's Football League
The Women's Football League was a small women's American football league that began playing in 2002. Its last season was in 2007. It was composed of four teams, one in Grand Rapids, Michigan, one in Tennessee, one in North Carolina, and one in Jacksonville, Florida (Jacksonville Dixie Blues), who now play in the Women's Football Alliance.