How Many Teams Were In The NFL When It Started?

The National Football League (NFL) was founded in 1920 as the American Professional Football Association (APFA) with ten teams from four states. In 1922, the NFL began to use the term “National Football League.”

The Beginnings of the NFL

The NFL was founded in 1920, and then known as the American Professional Football Association. The league began with 11 teams, and then increased to 14 teams by 1921. In 1922, the NFL had 18 teams.

The first NFL game

On October 3, 1920, the first NFL game was played between the Dayton Triangles and the Columbus Panhandles in Dayton, Ohio. The Triangles won 14-0. There were 14 players on each team, and the game was played in a driving rainstorm. Neither team had a quarterback, and there were no partisan fans in the stands.

The first NFL season

The first NFL season began in 1920 with eleven teams. The league expanded to fourteen teams in 1921, fifteen teams in 1925, and sixteen teams in 1960.

The Teams of the NFL

The NFL had humble beginnings with only eleven teams. The teams were the New York Giants, Chicago Bears, Green Bay Packers, New York Jets, Los Angeles Rams, Detroit Lions, Washington Redskins, Philadelphia Eagles, Pittsburgh Steelers, Cleveland Browns, and the Baltimore Colts. These teams have all stuck around and are some of the most popular in the NFL today.

The original NFL teams

In 1932, there were ten charter members of the NFL: the Chicago Bears, the Chicago Cardinals, the Green Bay Packers, the New York Giants, the Pittsburgh Steelers, and the Boston Braves (now the Washington Redskins), the Brooklyn Dodgers (now the Los Angeles Chargers), the Cincinnati Reds (now the Arizona Cardinals), the Detroit Lions, and the Philadelphia Eagles.

The teams that joined the NFL later on

The Indianapolis Colts, the Cleveland Browns, the Dallas Cowboys, and the Miami Dolphins are all teams that joined the NFL later on.

The Evolution of the NFL

The National Football League (NFL) was established in 1920, when eleven teams from four states (Ohio, New York, Pennsylvania, and Illinois) met in Canton, Ohio, to form the American Professional Football Association (APFA). The first game was played on October 3, 1920, between the Rock Island Independents and the St. Louis Hearts. At the end of the season, the Decatur Staleys (now the Chicago Bears) and the Chicago Cardinals (now the Arizona Cardinals) were the only two teams with winning records. The NFL was not formally established until 1922, when the APFA changed its name to the National Football League.

The NFL today

The National Football League (NFL) is the most popular and highest level of professional American football in the United States. It was formed in 1920 as the American Professional Football Association (APFA) before renaming itself to the National Football League for the 1922 season. The NFL today consists of 32 teams from across the United States, split evenly into two conferences — the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National Football Conference (NFC).

The NFL today is a multi-billion-dollar enterprise, with television contracts and merchandising revenue playing a large role in its financial success. But it wasn’t always this way — in fact, the NFL nearly went bankrupt in the early 1930s due to a number of factors, including the Great Depression. It was only through the efforts of then-commissioner Pete Rozelle that the league was able to survive and eventually thrive.

So how did we get from there to here? Let’s take a look at a brief history of the NFL.

In 1920, there were just 11 teams in the NFL — all located in or near major cities on the East Coast. The league expanded to 18 teams by 1925, but then contracted back down to just 12 teams by 1931 as franchises came and went due to financial difficulties brought on by the Great Depression. In 1932, Rozelle was hired as commissioner and he immediately set about trying to expand and stabilize the league.

Rozelle’s first major challenge came in 1933 when he helped founding owner George Preston Marshall move his team, the Boston Braves, from Massachusetts to Washington D.C., where they were renamed the Redskins. This proved to be a shrewd move financially, as Marshall was able to tap into a new market and increase revenue for his franchise. Rozelle continued to work hard to expand the league, and by 1960 there were 16 teams located across America.

In 1966, Rozelle oversaw one ofthe most important events in NFL history —
the creation of ”