NFL History - 90th Anniversary of the NFL
Anniversary of the NFL

On August 20, 1920, in the Jordan and Hupmobile auto showroom in Canton, Ohio, the National Football League was born.

Four independent professional football teams -- the Akron Pros, Canton Bulldogs, Cleveland Indians, and Dayton Triangles -- met to discuss the mounting problems facing the pro game, including rising salaries, the signing of college players while still in school, and players moving from team to team. The solution was to form a league. They called it the American Professional Football Conference.

On September 17, another meeting was held with more teams and the league's name was changed again to the American Professional Football Association (it was eventually changed to the NATIONAL FOOTBALL LEAGUE on June 24, 1922).

Jim Thorpe was elected APFA president at the same meeting. A membership fee of $100 per team was charged to give the appearance of respectability, but no team ever paid it. Scheduling was left up to the teams during that first season, and there were wide variations, both in the overall number of games played and in the number played against APFA member teams.

The first game featuring an APFA team was played on September 26. A crowd of 800 watched the Rock Island Independents defeat the St. Paul Ideals 48-0 at Rock Island's Douglas Park. A week later on October 3, the first game featuring two APFA teams took place between the Dayton Triangles and the Columbus Panhandles at Triangle Park in Dayton. Dayton won 14-0. The same day, Rock Island defeated the Muncie Flyers.

Since these humble beginnings, the NFL has grown into the nation's most popular sport with packed stadiums and is widely considered, as the Indianapolis Star put it, "The Gold Standard of Televised Sports."

Following are all-time NFL totals in some key categories since the league's beginning

CATEGORY TOTAL
*Includes 2010 **Approximation due to unreliable player records in 1920s and 1930s.
(Source: National Football League)
Games13,194
Points515,323
Teams82
Head Coaches437 *
Players21,000 **
Players Drafted23,105 *
Stadiums151 *
Paid Attendance657,614,845

 

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NFL History - 90th Anniversary of the NFL