Who Founded the NFL?
Contents
The National Football League was founded in 1920, and has since become America’s most popular sport. But who were the men behind its creation?
Early Beginnings
The National Football League was founded in 1920, making it one of the oldest professional sports leagues in the United States. Who founded the NFL and how did it come to be?
The first professional football game
On November 12, 1892, William “Pudge” Heffelfinger, widely considered the first professional football player, was paid $500 to play for the Allegheny Athletic Association in a game against the Pittsburgh Athletic Club. This is widely considered the first professional football game.
On October 3, 1920, the American Professional Football Association was founded in Canton, Ohio. Jim Thorpe was named its first president. The APFA changed its name to the National Football League two years later.
The birth of the NFL
On September 17, 1920, representatives from four Midwestern pro football teams — the Decatur Staleys, the Chicago Cardinals, the Racine Cardinals, and the Canton Bulldogs — met in Canton to form a professional football league. These representatives chose Jim Thorpe as the league’s first president. The NFL was officially born.
The ruling body of the new NFL was called the American Professional Football Association (APFA). In 1922, the APFA changed its name to the National Football League (NFL).
In its early years, the NFL was a ragtag group of teams playing in small stadiums for meager crowds. But two men would change all that: George Halas and Curly Lambeau. In 1921, Halas founded the Chicago Bears; in 1919, Lambeau founded the Green Bay Packers. These two men would go on to build their teams into two of professional football’s most storied franchises.
The First NFL Teams
The National Football League (NFL) was founded in 1920, when eleven teams from four states (Ohio, New York, Michigan and Pennsylvania) met in Canton, Ohio, to form the American Professional Football Association. The first NFL teams were the Akron Pros, the Canton Bulldogs, the Cleveland Indians, the Dayton Triangles, the Decatur Staleys, the Hammond Pros, the Massillon Tigers, the Muncie Flyers, the Racine Cardinals, the Rochester Jeffersons and the Rock Island Independents.
The founding teams of the NFL
The NFL was founded in 1920 as the American Professional Football Association (APFA) before renaming itself the National Football League for the 1922 season. The NFL admitted its first African-American player, Fritz Pollard, in 1933. The league began to integrate with the signing of Kenny Washington and Woody Strode in 1946.
The first NFL championship game
The first NFL Championship Game was held in 1933 between the Chicago Bears and the New York Giants, with the Bears winning 32-30 at Wrigley Field. This game is considered by many to be the first “real” NFL game, as it was the first time that teams from different parts of the country played against each other for the championship title.
The NFL Today
The National Football League (NFL) is a professional American football league. It was founded in 1920 as the American Professional Football Association (APFA) before renaming itself the National Football League for the 1922 season. The NFL today is the highest level of professional football in the United States.
The current teams of the NFL
In 1932, the NFL had its first season with just 11 teams. The teams were the Chicago Bears, Chicago Cardinals, Green Bay Packers, New York Giants, Brooklyn Dodgers, Pittsburgh Pirates, Philadelphia Eagles, Staten Island Stapletons, Boston Braves (now the Washington Redskins), Detroit Lions, and the crosstown-rival New York Yankees. The Cardinals moved to St. Louis in 1960 and then to Arizona in 1988. The Braves became the Seahawks in 1976 before moving to Seattle in 2002.
The Super Bowl
The Super Bowl is the biggest and most important American football game of the year. It is the annual championship game of the National Football League (NFL). The game is played between the winner of the NFL’s American Football Conference (AFC) and National Football Conference (NFC). The winner of the Super Bowl gets to hoist the Lombardi Trophy, named after legendary Green Bay Packers head coach Vince Lombardi.
