The AFL was a professional league of American football which operated from 1960 to 1969. (There were three earlier, unrelated, and unsuccessful football leagues with the name of "American Football League", one in 1926, one in 1936-1937, and one in 1940-1941.) Of all the leagues that have attempted to challenge the dominance of the NFL, it was the only one to be truly successful. In 1970, the two leagues merged into a single league.
The AFL benefited from having been formed just at a time when professional football was beginning to catch up with (and eventually, in the 1960s, overtake) baseball as the most popular spectator team sport in the United States. It took advantage of this burgeoning popularity by locating teams in major cities that lacked NFL franchises, and by using the growing power of televised football games (bolstered with the help of a major network contract with NBC). It featured many outstanding games, such as the classic 1962 double-overtime American Football League championship game between the Dallas Texans and the defending champion Houston Oilers. At the time it was the longest, and it is still one of the best professional football championship games ever played.
The American Football League also began recruiting from small colleges, which the NFL had avoided. Drawing on this previously mainly untapped resource, it signed such stars as Elbert Dubenion (Bluffton), Lionel Taylor (New Mexico Highlands), Tom Sestak (McNeese State), Charlie Tolar (Northwestern State of Louisiana), Abner Haynes (North Texas State), and a host of others. For black players, the AFL's recruitment from small colleges opened a door that the NFL had cracked only grudgingly. Meanwhile, the AFL also successfully engaged the NFL in competition for talented players from major schools: LSU's Billy Cannon, Notre Dame's Daryle Lamonica, Kansas' John Hadl, and many more.
The bidding war, which was financially draining both leagues, and the rapidly rising popularity of the AFL were factors that eventually led to the merger.
The AFL appealed to fans by offering a flashier alternative to the more conservative NFL. Team uniforms were bright and colorful. Long passes ("bombs") were commonplace in AFL offenses, led by such talented quarterbacks as John Hadl, Daryle Lamonica, and Len Dawson. Some innovative rules changes were also put into place, such as the two-point conversion (later adopted by the NFL in 1990s); the use of the scoreboard clock as the official game clock (adopted by the NFL when the leagues merged--prior to this time, the official game clock was maintained by an official on the sidelines, and often did not match the scoreboard clock very closely); the use of player names on jerseys, (also adopted by the NFL); the sharing of gate and television revenues between home and visiting teams (also adopted by the NFL); and in 1960, the first network television coverage of all games, by ABC-TV (adopted two years later by the NFL with CBS-TV).
The AFL achieved its success in spite of little coverage by the print and electronic media. CBS-TV, which then carried NFL games, refused to give AFL game scores on its football broadcasts. Sports Illustrated ridiculed the new league, and even after the AFL was established, SI gave full page color action shots of the NFL, while it used black and white photos in its AFL coverage. In turn, each of the NFL teams in the first four Super Bowls, the Packers, the Colts, and the Vikings were heralded as "the greatest football team in history". Two out of three of those teams were defeated by their AFL opponents.
In 1966, the two leagues paved the way for a merger by agreeing to operate a common draft, and to carry out a championship game between the two league champions. The title game has come to be known officially as the Super Bowl, but originally this was just a nickname (coined, apparently, by AFL team owner Lamar Hunt, whose daughter owned a toy called a "super ball"); the game was, at first, officially called the AFL-NFL World Championship Game. The NFL champions in both 1966 and 1967, the Green Bay Packers, decisively defeated the AFL champions in the first two Super Bowls, thus confirming the view of many NFL supporters that the NFL was the superior league. However, the AFL champions won the last two Super Bowls before the merger was completed in 1970. The first of these two victories was carried out by the New York Jets over the heavily favored Baltimore Colts, and was one of the most heralded upsets in sports history.
When the two leagues merged, the AFL had 10 teams, the NFL 16. These formed the basis for the National and American football conferences of the newly merged NFL. Three teams from the NFL (the Baltimore Colts, Cleveland Browns, and the Pittsburgh Steelers), joined the ten AFL teams in the American Football Conference so that both conferences would have the same number of teams. In order to produce an eight-team playoff tournament with six divisions, the NFL instituted the innovation of the wild card playoff team, where the best second-place finishers in each conference qualified. This innovation was later imitated by major league baseball.
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2 AFL Championship Games 3 AFL All Star Games 4 Players, Coaches, and Contributors 5 Commissioners/Presidents of the American Football League 6 External Links: |
The original eight AFL teams were as follows:
Eastern Division
The league added a ninth team, the Miami Dolphins, in 1966, and a tenth team, the Cincinnati Bengals in 1968.
From 1960 to 1968, the AFL determined its champion via a single playoff game between the winners of its two divisions. In 1969, a four team tournament was instituted, with the second place teams in each division also participating.
The AFL did not play an All-Star game after its first season in 1960 but did stage All-Star games from 1962 to 1970. All-Star teams from the Eastern and Western divisions played each other every year except 1966. In 1966, the league champion Buffalo Bills played all stars from the other teams. Note year reflects the calendar year the game was played (example January 1962 game followed the 1961 season). See :Boycott of the 1965 American Football League All-star game.
AFL Teams
Western Division
The eight-team format led to a type of scheduling that matched the league's fourteen-week schedule, such that each team played every other team exactly twice. Thus, every team had an identical schedule.AFL Championship Games
AFL All Star Games
Playing sites: Balboa Stadium in San Diego (1962-64); Jeppesen Stadium in Houston (1965); Rice Stadium in Houston (1966); Oakland Coliseum (1967); Gator Bowl in Jacksonville (1968-69) and Astrodome in Houston (1970).Players, Coaches, and Contributors
Commissioners/Presidents of the American Football League
External Links: