When Was the NFL Started?
Contents
The National Football League was started in 1920 with eleven teams. The NFL has been America’s most popular sport for almost a century now.
The Early Years
The National Football League was founded in 1920, making it one of the oldest professional sports leagues in North America. The league originally consisted of just 10 teams, all of which were located in the northeastern United States. The NFL has come a long way since its humble beginnings, now consisting of 32 teams across the country.
The origins of professional football
professional football can trace its origins back to 1892, when an amateur team from Allegheny, Pennsylvania played against a team of semi-pro players from Pittsburgh. This was the first ever professional football game, albeit one with very few of the rules that are now familiar to fans. The game was a success, and other teams quickly began to form in order to compete against each other.
In 1902, the first professional football league was formed; the National Football League (NFL) was born. This new league faced many of the same problems as the earlier professional teams – players jumped from one team to another in order to get higher salaries, and there was little regulation or standardization of the game. However, the NFL persevered and gradually grew in popularity.
Over the next few decades, the NFL slowly but surely became the most popular professional sport in America. In 1966, another league was formed which would eventually challenge the NFL’s supremacy – this was the American Football League (AFL). The two leagues would compete against each other until they merged in 1970, creating the modern NFL as we know it today.
The first professional football game
The first professional football game was played on November 12, 1892, between the Allegheny Athletic Association and the Pittsburgh Athletic Club. William (Pudge) Heffelfinger was paid $500 by the Allegheny Athletic Association to play in the game. The tickets for the game cost $2.
The First NFL Season
The NFL was started in 1920 with 11 teams. The first NFL season was in 1920, and it was a 10 game season. The teams were the Akron Pros, Chicago Cardinals, Chicago Bears, Cincinnati Reds, Detroit Heralds, Duluth Eskimos, Hammond Pros, New York Giants, Toledo Maroons, and the Providence Steam Roller.
The teams
There were eleven teams in the NFL’s first season of 1920, which was not an auspicious debut. These included the Akron Pros, the Canton Bulldogs, the Cincinnati Celts, the Cleveland Tigers, the Dayton Triangles, the Decatur Staleys, the Hammond Pros, the Massillon Tigers, Muncie Flyers, Rock Island Independents, and the Rochester Jeffersons. The Chicago Cardinals (now located in Arizona) also joined later that year. This motley collection of teams was a far cry from today’s highly organized and centrally controlled league.
The schedule
The 1936 NFL season was the 17th regular season of the National Football League. The league expanded to ten teams with the addition of the Baltimore Colts and Pittsburgh Steelers.
The championship game
The first NFL championship game was held on December 18, 1920. The game was between the Buffalo All-Americans and the Decatur Staleys, which later became the Chicago Bears. The All-Americans won the game by a score of 7-3.
The NFL Today
The National Football League (NFL) is a professional American football league. It was formed in 1920 as the American Professional Football Association (APFA) before renaming itself the National Football League for the 1922 season. The NFL today consists of 32 teams from the United States. The teams are divided into two conferences, the National Football Conference (NFC) and the American Football Conference (AFC), each of which has 16 teams.
The teams
In the National Football League (NFL), there are 32 teams. This means that there are 32 different logos and colors schemes out there for fans to choose from and support. The teams are located all across the United States, in cities large and small. Some of the more popular teams, like the Dallas Cowboys and the Green Bay Packers, have a huge fan base that extends far beyond just their city or state. Other teams, like the Jacksonville Jaguars or the Carolina Panthers, may not be as popular nationally but still have a very strong following in their own areas.
The schedule
The NFL regular season typically begins on the last Sunday in September (this year it’s September 27) and ends on the first Sunday in January. Each team plays 16 games during the regular season, eight of them at home and eight away. There are four preseason games and four postseason games.
The NFL playoffs start the weekend after the last regular season game, on Saturday, January 3, 2015, and end with the Super Bowl on Sunday, February 1, 2015.
The NFL schedule is released in April and each team’s opponents are set 18 months in advance. The NFL plays a random scheduling formula to ensure that each team plays every other team at least once every three years.
The playoffs
The NFL playoffs are a single-elimination tournament held after the end of the National Football League (NFL) regular season to determine the NFL champion. Six teams from each of the league’s two conferences qualify for the playoffs based on regular season records, and a tie-breaking system is used to seed the teams within their conference. Entering the 2020–21 postseason, 29 teams have won at least one Super Bowl, with the Green Bay Packers holding the most victories (13).
