THE HISTORY OF THE NATIONAL FOOTBALL LEAGUE rulebook or standings Also there was no way to keep players from changing teams whenever they wanted The Early Days The owners of four professional teams got together on August 20 1920 They wanted to talk about organizing their football games They named their group the American Professional Football Conference and agreed on a set of rules About one month later more teams wanted to join and create a professional football league The new group changed its name to the American Professional Football Association APFA APFA leaders created more rules for the sport In April 1921 the league crowned the Akron Pros from Ohio as its first champion From there the APFA added even more teams It started to expand to bigger cities On June 24 1922 the APFA changed its name It was now the National Football League The number of teams in the NFL rose and fell as leaders added new teams and closed struggling ones The NFL was made up almost entirely of white athletes in those days There were a few Black players in the 1920s but soon the owners wrongfully decided not to give any Black players contracts Two former college stars finally broke that barrier in 1946 The Cleveland Rams wanted to move to Los Angeles California They wanted to play their games at the LA Coliseum which was built with public money Local officials said the Rams had to integrate their roster So the team agreed to sign Kenny Washington and Woody Strode Both of these men had played locally at the University of California 6
7 34 10 17 13 Kenny Washington back row on the left and Woody Strode front row on the right made history when they joined the Rams Los Angeles UCLA Today Black athletes make up about 70 percent of NFL teams Growing Popularity Rival leagues have challenged the NFL over the years Two of the most successful ones ended up changing the face of the NFL In 1944 a group of businesspeople formed the All-America Football Conference AAFC The new league tried to form a friendly relationship with the NFL It agreed not to sign any NFL contract players The AAFC had eight teams in its first season in 1946 The Cleveland Browns were led by coach Paul Brown They won all four AAFC titles before the league shut down after the 1949 season NFL commissioner Bert Bell 7
20 19 20 15 2 THE HISTORY OF THE NATIONAL FOOTBALL LEAGUE Alan Ameche’s 1-yard touchdown run gave the Colts a 23 17 overtime win against the Giants in the 1958 NFL title game invited three of the franchises Cleveland the San Francisco 49ers and the Baltimore Colts to join the NFL The popularity of professional football grew in the 1950s as games were shown on television In 1950 the Rams became the first NFL team to have all their games on television The 1951 championship between the Rams and Cleveland Browns was the first nationally televised game The 1958 NFL Championship Game between the Baltimore Colts and New York Giants pushed professional football’s popularity to another level The nationally broadcast game is still commonly called the greatest game ever played It was the first title game to go into overtime The Colts won in sudden death behind legendary quarterback Johnny Unitas Birth of the AFL Texas oilman Lamar Hunt tried more than once to buy an NFL team He was continuously denied So the young businessman decided to start his own league He worked with several 8
2 4 72 22 22 The Chargers in white and Buffalo Bills in blue were charter members of the AFL in 1960 9
