title: Air Canada

text: Classic Pods feature electronic flat beds, in a 1–1–1 herringbone configuration these are being currently phased out on the Airbus A330-300s. The Classic Pods have a seat width and a seat pitch in a reverse-herringbone configuration. AVOD is provided with a touch screen.


title: Air Canada

text: "Business Class" (initially "Executive Class") is offered on all narrowbody aircraft, as well as Air Canada Express CRJ-900 and E175 aircraft. On CRJ-900 and E175 aircraft, the seat configuration is 1–2 abreast, with recline around 120°, and a width of . On Airbus and Boeing narrow-body aircraft, seat configuration is 2–2 abreast, with 124° recline, and width. The seat pitch is . All seats feature AVOD and music is provided by XM Satellite Radio. On Trans-Atlantic flights operated with the Boeing 737 MAX 8, this cabin is sold as Premium Economy.


title: Air Canada

text: Premium Economy is offered on all Airbus A330, Boeing 777, and Boeing 787 aircraft. It features a larger seat and greater recline as compared to economy class, in a 2–4–2 configuration (Boeing 777) or 2–3–2 configuration (Airbus A330 and Boeing 787) with a (Boeing 777) or (Boeing 787) seat width and a seat pitch. Entertainment is personal AVOD (Audio Video On Demand), while music is provided by XM Satellite Radio.


title: Air Canada

text: Air Canada Rouge operates flights on its aircraft with a premium economy class product, branded as Premium Rouge. This is sold as a business class product on Rouge flights within North America.


title: Air Canada

text: In Economy Class (initially "Hospitality Service"), seats are pitched with a width of and a recline to . On Air Canada Rouge aircraft, seats are pitched with a width of and of recline and does not feature any IFE system (In Flight Entertainment). Configuration is 3–4–3 on the Boeing 777, 3–3–3 on the Boeing 787, 2–4–2 on the Airbus A330, 3–3 on the Boeing 737 MAX and the Airbus A320 family, 2–3 on the Airbus A220, and 2–2 on Bombardier, De Havilland, and Embraer aircraft. All Airbus, Boeing, and Embraer aircraft, as well as the CRJ900 are fitted with personal AVOD (audio-video on demand). Music is provided by XM Satellite Radio.


title: Air Canada

text: Complimentary meals are offered on all international flights outside of North America. For domestic, North American, sun destination and Caribbean flights, food and alcoholic beverages can be purchased through Air Canada Bistro (GuestLogix point of sale terminals are used) while non-alcoholic beverages are complimentary.


title: Air Canada

text: On all narrowbody aircraft and newly renovated A330s, there is an extra legroom Preferred Seat section in the first few rows and bulkhead and exit rows afterward of the economy cabin which provides up to more seat pitch (approx. , aircraft dependent). All Air Canada Rouge planes offer Rouge Plus seats, which are identical to the Preferred Seats, but with up to more seat pitch (35" on A319s and 36" on 767s) as well as an additional of recline.


title: Air Canada

text: Air Canada Express flights operated by CRJ200 and Q400 aircraft offer a bar and refreshment service on board. The CRJ900 and E175 features "Business Class" and personal AVOD at every seat. Flights on board the E175, CRJ200/900 and Q400 which are 90 minutes or more feature "Onboard Café".


title: Air Canada

text: On 9 February 2017, a new uniform scheme coinciding with Canada's 150th and Air Canada's 80th anniversaries was unveiled. Air Canada partnered with Vancouver-born fashion designer Christopher Bates to design the new uniforms which incorporate a base colour of black or grey with red lettering and the famous maple leaf.


title: Air Canada

text: Between 2004 and 2017, Air Canada uniforms used a midnight blue colour. The uniforms were designed by Canadian fashion designer Debbie Shuchat. At a presentation in the Toronto Airport hangar, Celine Dion helped the newly solvent airline debut its new image.


title: Air Canada

text: Air Canada has 23 "Maple Leaf Lounges" located at all major airports across Canada and at international locations including London-Heathrow, Paris-Charles de Gaulle, Frankfurt, Los Angeles, Newark and New York-LaGuardia. The "Maple Leaf Lounges" are available to passengers holding a same day ticket on Air Canada in "Business Class", Star Alliance "Gold Members", Air Canada "Super Elite", Air Canada "Elite", Air Canada "Maple Leaf Club" members, American Express "Maple Leaf Club" members, American Express "AeroplanPlus Platinum" holders, holders of a one time guest pass or economy passengers who have purchased lounge access during booking.


title: Air Canada

text: Air Canada shares an Arrivals Lounge at London Heathrow Terminal 2 with some other Star Alliance members. It is available to eligible passengers arriving into London from any Air Canada international flight, holding a confirmed same-day overseas travel boarding card. Eligible groups include Business Class Passengers, Air Canada Super Elite, Air Canada Elite, Air Canada Maple Leaf Club Members or American Express Maple Leaf Club.


title: Air Canada

text: Travellers who hold paid memberships to affiliated Star Alliance lounges, such as the United Club, are also eligible for access to Maple Leaf Lounges.


title: Air Canada

text: Aeroplan is Air Canada's frequent flyer rewards program, both allowing for points collection and spending, as well as status and rewards as an Air Canada customer. After Air Canada and Aeroplan changed the division of points collection and redemption, Air Canada introduced an internal rewards program, Altitude. The two programs operate in conjunction.


title: Air Canada

text: On 11 May 2017, Air Canada announced it plans to launch a new loyalty program to replace Aeroplan and Altitude in 2020. On 10 January 2019, Air Canada re-acquired Aeroplan from Aimia. In 2020, Air Canada Altitude and Aeroplan merged, with Aeroplan as the surviving entity.


title: Air Canada

text: In Oct 2022, Air Canada announce some benefit changes for the 35K, 50K, and 75K member benefits. Starting from June 1st, 2023 the 35K members will no longer have free Maple Leaf Lounge access, instead, 35K members will have more improvement for their select benefit. The 50K and 75K and Super Elite members now will get a free Virgin Australia lounge.


title: Air Canada

text: On 20 September 2012, Air Canada unveiled its new frequent flyer status program named "Air Canada Altitude" to supplement Aeroplan. Aeroplan remained the frequent flyer rewards program, collecting miles which can be "spent", whereas status level is determined by Altitude standing.


title: Air Canada

text: There are five levels of membership in Air Canada's Altitude Program: Basic, Prestige 25K, Elite 35K, Elite 50K, Elite 75K and Super Elite 100K. The latter three are called "Top Tier" membership levels and provide travel benefits such as upgrades, lounge access, priority services (e.g., check-in, luggage handling), and bonuses when earning miles through air travel. In order to qualify for these levels, a member must earn, through flight activities, a certain number of miles "or" a certain number of segments "and" spending some level of money. Altitude refers to these as Altitude Qualifying Miles (AQM), Segments (AQS), and Dollars (AQD).


title: Air Canada

text: Prestige members and Altitude Elite 35 K receive Star Alliance Silver status, while Elite 50K, Elite 75K, and Super Elite 100K members receive Star Alliance Gold status.


title: Air Canada

text: Air Canada Status Miles are calculated on an annual basis to determine Altitude Membership Status for the following benefit year (1 March through 28 February). At the 35K and above levels, that level of status is granted when achieved, for the remainder of the current year, as well as for the next year.


title: Air Canada

text: This coincides with the alliance with Star Alliance, and this can give Star Alliance Gold passengers access to any Star Alliance lounge and discounts or upgrades on another Star Alliance member.


title: Air Canada

text: On 8 November 2020, Air Canada Altitude renamed as Aeroplan Elite Status. Altitude Qualifying Miles (AQM), Segments (AQS), and Dollars (AQD) have been replaced by Status Qualifying Miles (SQM), Segments (SQS), and Dollars (SQD).


title: Air Canada

text: Beginning 1 January 2016, for the 2017 status year, Air Canada began requiring a minimum spend level for each level, Altitude Qualifying Dollars. In 2021, the Altitude program has been replaced by the Aeroplan program. The requirements for 2021 are currently at:


title: Air Canada

text: In February 2019, TechCrunch reported that the Air Canada mobile app in the iOS App Store incorporated session-replay software from the Israeli firm Glassbox. This software, without the users' informed consent, recorded users' activities and transmitted the data, including unredacted credit card data and passport numbers, to remote servers. This compromised users' privacy and contravened the rules of the iOS App Store.


title: Bobby Charlton

text: Sir Robert Charlton (born 11 October 1937) is an English former footballer who played either as a midfielder or a forward. Considered one of the greatest players of all time, he was a member of the England team that won the 1966 FIFA World Cup, the year he also won the Ballon d'Or. He finished second in the Ballon d'Or in 1967 and 1968. He played almost all of his club football at Manchester United, where he became renowned for his attacking instincts, his passing abilities from midfield and his ferocious long-range shot, as well as his fitness and stamina. He was cautioned only twice in his career; once against Argentina in the 1966 World Cup, and once in a league match against Chelsea. His elder brother Jack, who was also in the World Cup-winning team, was a former defender for Leeds United and international manager.


title: Bobby Charlton

text: Born in Ashington, Northumberland, Charlton made his debut for the Manchester United first-team in 1956, aged 18, and soon gained a regular place in the team, during which time he became a Football League First Division champion in 1957 then survived the Munich air disaster of February 1958 after being rescued by teammate Harry Gregg; Charlton is the last survivor of the crash from the club. After helping United to win the FA Cup in 1963 and the Football League in 1965 and 1967, he captained the team that won the European Cup in 1968, scoring two goals in the final to help them become the first English club to win the competition.


title: Bobby Charlton

text: Charlton left Manchester United to become manager of Preston North End for the 1973–74 season. He changed to player-manager the following season. He next accepted a post as a director with Wigan Athletic, then became a member of Manchester United's board of directors in 1984.


title: Bobby Charlton

text: At international level, Charlton was named in the England squad for four World Cups (1958, 1962, 1966 and 1970), though did not play in the first. At the time of his retirement from the England team in 1970 he was the nation's most capped player, having turned out 106 times at the highest level; Bobby Moore overtook this in 1973.


title: Bobby Charlton

text: Charlton was the long-time record goalscorer for both Manchester United and England, and United's long-time record appearance maker – his total of 758 matches for United took until 2008 to be beaten, when Ryan Giggs did so in that year's Champions League final. With 249 goals, he was the club's highest all-time goalscorer for more than 40 years, until his record was surpassed by Wayne Rooney in 2017. He is also the third-highest goalscorer for England; his record of 49 goals was beaten in 2015 by Rooney, and again by Harry Kane in 2022.


title: Bobby Charlton

text: Charlton was born in Ashington, Northumberland, England on 11 October 1937 to coal miner Robert "Bob" Charlton (24 May 1909 – April 1982) and Elizabeth Ellen "Cissie" Charlton ("née" Milburn; 11 November 1912 – 25 March 1996). He is related to several professional footballers on his mother's side of the family: his uncles were Jack Milburn (Leeds United and Bradford City), George Milburn (Leeds United and Chesterfield), Jim Milburn (Leeds United and Bradford Park Avenue) and Stan Milburn (Chesterfield, Leicester City and Rochdale), and legendary Newcastle United and England footballer Jackie Milburn was his mother's cousin. However, Charlton credits much of the early development of his career to his grandfather Tanner and his mother Cissie. His elder brother, Jack, initially worked as a miner before applying to the police, only to also become a professional footballer with Leeds United.


title: Bobby Charlton

text: On 9 February 1953, then a Bedlington Grammar School pupil, Charlton was spotted playing for East Northumberland schools by Manchester United chief scout Joe Armstrong. Charlton went on to play for England Schoolboys and the 15-year-old signed amateur forms with United on 1 January 1953 along with Wilf McGuinness, also aged 15. Initially his mother was reluctant to let him commit to an insecure football career, so he began an apprenticeship as an electrical engineer; however, he went on to turn professional in October 1954.


title: Bobby Charlton

text: Charlton became one of the famed Busby Babes, the collection of talented footballers who emerged through the system at Old Trafford in the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s as Matt Busby set about a long-term plan of rebuilding the club after the Second World War. He worked his way through the pecking order of teams, scoring regularly for the youth and reserve sides before he was handed his first team debut against Charlton Athletic in October 1956. At the same time, he was doing his National service with the Royal Army Ordnance Corps in Shrewsbury, where Busby had advised him to apply as it meant he could still play for Manchester United at the weekend. Also doing his army service in Shrewsbury at the same time was his United teammate Duncan Edwards.


title: Bobby Charlton

text: Charlton played 14 times for United in that first season, scoring twice on his debut and managing a total of 12 goals in all competitions, and including a hat-trick in a 5–1 away win over Charlton Athletic in February. United won the league championship but were denied the 20th century's first "double" when they controversially lost the 1957 FA Cup Final to Aston Villa. Charlton, still only 19, was selected for the game, which saw United goalkeeper Ray Wood carried off with a broken cheekbone after a clash with Villa centre forward Peter McParland. Charlton was a candidate to go in goal to replace Wood (in the days before substitutes, and certainly before goalkeeping substitutes), but it was teammate Jackie Blanchflower who ended up between the posts.


title: Bobby Charlton

text: Charlton was an established player by the time the next season was fully underway, which saw United, as current League champions, become the first English team to compete in the European Cup. Previously, the Football Association had scorned the competition, but United made progress, reaching the semi-finals where they lost to holders Real Madrid. Their reputation was further enhanced the next season as they reached the quarter-finals to play Red Star Belgrade. In the first leg at home, United won 2–1. The return in Yugoslavia saw Charlton score twice as United stormed 3–0 ahead, although the hosts came back to earn a 3–3 draw. However, United maintained their aggregate lead to reach the last four and were in jubilant mood as they left to catch their flight home, thinking of an important League game against Wolves at the weekend.


title: Bobby Charlton

text: The aeroplane which took the United players and staff home from Zemun Airport needed to stop in Munich to refuel. This was carried out in worsening weather, and by the time the refuelling was complete and the call was made for the passengers to re-board the aircraft, the wintry showers had taken hold and snow had settled heavily on the runway and around the airport. There were two aborted take-offs which led to concern on board, and the passengers were advised by a stewardess to disembark again while a minor technical error was fixed.


title: Bobby Charlton

text: The team were back in the airport terminal for barely ten minutes when the call came to reconvene on the plane, and a number of passengers began to feel nervous. Charlton and teammate Dennis Viollet swapped places with Tommy Taylor and David Pegg, who had decided they would be safer at the back of the plane.


title: Bobby Charlton

text: The plane clipped the fence at the end of the runway on its next take-off attempt and a wing tore through a nearby house, setting it alight. The wing and part of the tail came off and hit a tree and a wooden hut, the plane spinning along the snow until coming to a halt. It had been cut in half.


title: Bobby Charlton

text: Charlton, strapped into his seat, had fallen out of the cabin; when United goalkeeper Harry Gregg (who had somehow got through a hole in the plane unscathed and begun a one-man rescue mission) found him, he thought he was dead. Nevertheless, he grabbed both Charlton and Viollet by their trouser waistbands and dragged them away from the plane, in constant fear that it would explode. Gregg returned to the plane to try to help the appallingly injured Busby and Blanchflower, and when he turned around again, he was relieved to see that Charlton and Viollet, both of whom he had presumed to be dead, had got out of their detached seats and were looking into the wreckage.


title: Bobby Charlton

text: Charlton suffered cuts to his head and severe shock, and was in hospital for a week. Seven of his teammates had perished at the scene, including Taylor and Pegg, with whom he and Viollet had swapped seats prior to the fatal take-off attempt. Club captain Roger Byrne was also killed, along with Mark Jones, Billy Whelan, Eddie Colman and Geoff Bent. Duncan Edwards died a fortnight later from the injuries he had sustained. In total, the crash claimed 23 lives. Initially, ice on the wings was blamed, but a later inquiry declared that slush on the runway had made a safe take-off almost impossible.


title: Bobby Charlton

text: Of the 44 passengers and crew (including the 17-strong Manchester United squad), 23 people (eight of them Manchester United players) died as a result of their injuries in the crash. Charlton survived with minor injuries. Of the eight other players who survived, two of them were injured so badly that they never played again.


title: Bobby Charlton

text: Charlton was the first injured survivor to leave hospital. Harry Gregg and Bill Foulkes were not hospitalised, for they escaped uninjured. He arrived back in England on 14 February 1958, eight days after the crash. As he convalesced with family in Ashington, he spent some time kicking a ball around with local youths, and a famous photograph of him was taken. He was still only 20 years old, yet now there was an expectation that he would help with the rebuilding of the club as Busby's aides tried to piece together what remained of the season.


title: Bobby Charlton

text: Charlton returned to playing in an FA Cup tie against West Bromwich Albion on 1 March; the game was a draw and United won the replay 1–0. Not unexpectedly, United went out of the European Cup to A.C. Milan in the semi-finals to a 5–2 aggregate defeat and fell behind in the League. Yet somehow they reached their second consecutive FA Cup final, and the big day at Wembley coincided with Busby's return to work. However, his words could not inspire a side which was playing on a nation's goodwill and sentiment, and Nat Lofthouse scored twice to give Bolton Wanderers a 2–0 win.


title: Bobby Charlton

text: Further success with Manchester United came at last when they beat Leicester City 3–1 in the FA Cup final of 1963, with Charlton finally earning a winners' medal in his third final. Busby's post-Munich rebuilding programme continued to progress with two League championships within three seasons, with United taking the title in 1965 and 1967. A successful (though trophyless) season with Manchester United had seen him take the honours of Football Writers' Association Footballer of the Year and European Footballer of the Year into the competition.


title: Bobby Charlton

text: Manchester United reached the 1968 European Cup Final, ten seasons after Munich. Even though other clubs had taken part in the competition in the intervening decade, the team which got to this final was still the first English side to do so. On a highly emotional night at Wembley, Charlton scored twice in a 4–1 win after extra time against Benfica and, as United captain, lifted the trophy.


title: Bobby Charlton

text: During the early 1970s Manchester United were no longer competing among the top teams in England, and at several stages were battling against relegation. At times, Charlton was not on speaking terms with United's other superstars George Best and Denis Law, and Best refused to play in Charlton's testimonial match against Celtic, saying that "to do so would be hypocritical". Charlton left Manchester United at the end of the 1972–73 season, having scored 249 goals and set a club record of 758 appearances, a record which Ryan Giggs broke in the 2008 UEFA Champions League Final.


title: Bobby Charlton

text: His last game for Manchester United was against Chelsea at Stamford Bridge on 28 April 1973, and before the game the BBC cameras for "Match of the Day" captured the Chelsea chairman handing him a commemorative cigarette case. Chelsea won the match 1–0. Coincidentally, this day also marked his brother Jackie's last appearance as well (for Leeds). Charlton's final goal for the club came a month earlier, on 31 March, in a 2–0 win at Southampton, also in the First Division.


title: Bobby Charlton

text: He was the subject of "This Is Your Life" in 1969 when he was surprised by Eamonn Andrews at The Sportsman's Club in central London.


title: Bobby Charlton

text: Charlton's emergence as the country's leading young football talent was completed when he was called up to join the England squad for a British Home Championship game against Scotland at Hampden Park on 19 April 1958, just over two months after he had survived the Munich air disaster.


title: Bobby Charlton

text: Charlton was handed his debut as England romped home 4–0, with the new player gaining even more admirers after scoring a magnificent thumping volley dispatched with authority after a cross by the left winger Tom Finney. He scored both goals in his second game as England beat Portugal 2–1 in a friendly at Wembley, and overcame obvious nerves on a return to Belgrade to play his third match against Yugoslavia; England lost that game 5–0 and Charlton played poorly.


title: Bobby Charlton

text: Charlton was selected for the squad which competed at the 1958 World Cup in Sweden, but he did not play.


title: Bobby Charlton

text: In 1959 he scored a hat-trick as England demolished the US 8–1; and his second England hat-trick came in 1961 in an 8–0 thrashing of Mexico. He also managed to score in every British Home Championship tournament he played in except 1963 in an association with the tournament that lasted from 1958 to 1970 and included 16 goals and 10 tournament victories (five shared).


title: Bobby Charlton

text: He played in qualifiers for the 1962 World Cup in Chile against Luxembourg and Portugal and was named in the squad for the finals themselves. His goal in the 3–1 group win over Argentina was his 25th for England in just 38 appearances, and he was still only 24 years old; but his individual success could not be replicated by that of the team, which was eliminated in the quarter-final by Brazil, who went on to win the tournament.


title: Bobby Charlton

text: By now, England were coached by Alf Ramsey who had managed to gain sole control of the recruitment and team selection procedure from the committee-based call-up system which had lasted up to the previous World Cup. Ramsey had already cleared out some of the older players who had been reliant on the loyalty of the committee for their continued selection. A hat-trick in the 8–1 rout of Switzerland in June 1963 took Charlton's England goal tally to 30, equalling the record jointly held by Tom Finney and Nat Lofthouse; Charlton's 31st goal against Wales in October the same year gave him the record alone.


title: Bobby Charlton

text: Charlton's role was developing from traditional inside-forward to what today would be termed an attacking midfield player, with Ramsey planning to build the team for the 1966 World Cup around him. When England beat the USA 10–0 in a friendly on 27 May 1964, he scored one goal, his 33rd at senior level for England.


title: Bobby Charlton

text: His goals became a little less frequent, and indeed Jimmy Greaves, playing purely as a striker, overtook his England tally in October 1964. Nevertheless, Charlton was still scoring and creating freely, and as the tournament was about to start he was expected to become one of its stars and galvanise his established reputation as one of the world's best footballers.


title: Bobby Charlton

text: England drew the opening game of the tournament 0–0 with Uruguay. Charlton scored the first goal in the 2–0 win over Mexico. This was followed by an identical scoreline against France, allowing England to qualify for the quarter-finals where they defeated Argentina 1–0. The game was the only international match in which Charlton received a caution.


title: Bobby Charlton

text: They faced Portugal in the semi-finals. This turned out to be one of Charlton's most important games for England. Charlton opened the scoring with a crisp side-footed finish after a run by Roger Hunt had forced the Portuguese goalkeeper out of his net; his second was a sweetly struck shot after a run and pull-back from Geoff Hurst. Charlton and Hunt were now England's joint-highest scorers in the tournament with three each, and a final against West Germany beckoned.


title: Bobby Charlton

text: The final turned out to be one of Charlton's quieter days; he and a young Franz Beckenbauer effectively marked each other out of the game. England won 4–2 after extra time.


title: Bobby Charlton

text: Charlton's next England game was his 75th as England beat Northern Ireland; after two more appearances he became England's second most-capped player, behind the veteran Billy Wright, who was approaching his 100th match when Charlton was starting out and ended with 105 caps.


title: Bobby Charlton

text: Weeks later he scored his 45th England goal in a friendly against Sweden, breaking the record of 44 set the previous year by Jimmy Greaves. He was then in the England team which made it to the semi-finals of the 1968 European Championships where they were knocked out by Yugoslavia in Florence. During the match Charlton struck a Yugoslav post. England defeated the Soviet Union 2–0 in the third place match.


title: Bobby Charlton

text: In 1969, Charlton was appointed an OBE for services to football. More milestones followed as he won his 100th England cap on 21 April 1970 against Northern Ireland, and was made captain by Ramsey for the occasion. Inevitably, he scored; this was his 48th goal for his country – his 49th and final goal followed a month later in a 4–0 win over Colombia during a warm-up tour for the 1970 World Cup, designed to get the players adapted to altitude conditions. Charlton's inevitable selection by Ramsey for the tournament made him the first – and still, to date, only – England player to feature in four World Cup squads.


title: Bobby Charlton

text: Shortly before the World Cup, Charlton was involved in the Bogotá Bracelet incident in which he and Bobby Moore were accused of stealing a bracelet from a jewellery store. Moore was later arrested and detained for four days before being granted a conditional release, while Charlton was not arrested.


title: Bobby Charlton

text: England began the tournament with two victories in the group stages, plus a memorable defeat against Brazil. Charlton played in all three, though was substituted for Alan Ball in the final game of the group against Czechoslovakia. Ramsey, confident of victory and progress to the quarter-final, wanted Charlton to rest.


title: Bobby Charlton

text: England reached the last eight where they again faced West Germany. Charlton controlled the midfield and suppressed Franz Beckenbauer's runs from deep. England took a 2–0 lead in the 50th minute after goals from Alan Mullery and Martin Peters. In the 69th minute, Beckenbauer pulled a goal back for the Germans and Ramsey soon replaced Charlton with Colin Bell, who further tested the German goalkeeper Sepp Maier and also provided a cross for Geoff Hurst, who missed a chance to score. West Germany, who had a habit of coming back from behind, eventually scored twice – a back header from Uwe Seeler made it 2–2. In extra-time, Geoff Hurst had a goal mysteriously ruled out after which Gerd Müller's goal won the match 3–2. England were out and, after a record 106 caps and 49 goals, Charlton decided to end his international career at the age of 32. On the flight home from Mexico, he asked Ramsey not to consider him again. His brother Jack, two years his senior but 71 caps his junior, did likewise.


title: Bobby Charlton

text: Charlton's caps record lasted until 1973 when Bobby Moore overtook him; he currently lies seventh in the all-time England appearances list behind Moore, Wayne Rooney, Ashley Cole, Steven Gerrard, David Beckham and Peter Shilton, whose own England career began in the first game after Charlton's had ended. Charlton's goalscoring record was surpassed by Wayne Rooney on 8 September 2015, when Rooney scored a penalty in a 2–0 win over Switzerland in a qualifying match for UEFA Euro 2016.


title: Bobby Charlton

text: Charlton became the manager of Preston North End in 1973, signing his former United and England teammate Nobby Stiles as player-coach. His first season ended in relegation, and although he began playing again, he left Preston early in the 1975–76 season after a disagreement with the board over the transfer of John Bird to Newcastle United. He was appointed a CBE that year and began a casual association with BBC for punditry on matches, which continued for many years. In early 1976, he scored once in three league appearances for Waterford United. He also made a handful of appearances for Australian clubs Newcastle KB United, Perth Azzurri and Blacktown City.


title: Bobby Charlton

text: Charlton joined Wigan Athletic as a director, and was briefly caretaker manager there in 1983. He then spent some time playing in South Africa. He also built up several businesses in areas such as travel, jewellery and hampers, and ran soccer schools in the UK, the US, Canada, Australia and China. In 1984, he was invited to become member of the board of directors at Manchester United, partly because of his football knowledge and partly because it was felt that the club needed a "name" on the board after the resignation of Sir Matt Busby. He remained a director of Manchester United into the late 2010s, and his continued presence was a factor in placating many fans opposed to the club's takeover by Malcolm Glazer.


title: Bobby Charlton

text: Charlton met his wife, Norma Ball, at an ice rink in Manchester in 1959 and they married in 1961. They have two daughters, Suzanne and Andrea. Suzanne was a weather forecaster for the BBC during the 1990s. They now have grandchildren, including Suzanne's son Robert, who is named in honour of his grandfather.


title: Bobby Charlton

text: In 2007, while publicising his forthcoming autobiography, Charlton revealed that he had a long-running feud with his brother Jack. They rarely spoke to each other after a falling-out between his wife Norma and his mother Cissie (who died in 1996 at the age of 83). Bobby Charlton did not see his mother after 1992 as a result of the feud.


title: Bobby Charlton

text: Jack presented him with his BBC Sports Personality of the Year Lifetime Achievement Award on 14 December 2008. He said that he was 'knocked out' as he was presented the award by his brother. He received a standing ovation as he stood waiting for his prize.


title: Bobby Charlton

text: Charlton helped to promote Manchester's bids for the 1996 and 2000 Olympic Games and the 2002 Commonwealth Games, England's bid for the 2006 World Cup and London's successful bid for the 2012 Summer Olympics. He received a knighthood in 1994 and was an Inaugural Inductee to the English Football Hall of Fame in 2002. On accepting his award, he commented: "I'm really proud to be included in the National Football Museum's Hall of Fame. It's a great honour. If you look at the names included I have to say I couldn't argue with them. They are all great players and people I would love to have played with." He is also the (honorary) president of the National Football Museum, an organisation about which he said "I can't think of a better museum anywhere in the world."


title: Bobby Charlton

text: On 2 March 2009, Charlton was given the freedom of the city of Manchester. He stated: "I'm just so proud, it's fantastic. It's a great city. I have always been very proud of it."


title: Bobby Charlton

text: Charlton is involved in a number of charitable activities, including fund raising for cancer hospitals. Charlton became involved in the cause of land mine clearance after visits to Bosnia and Cambodia and supports the Mines Advisory Group as well as founding his own charity Find a Better Way which funds research into improved civilian landmine clearance.


title: Bobby Charlton

text: In January 2011, Charlton was voted the fourth-greatest Manchester United player of all time by the readers of "Inside United" and ManUtd.com, behind Ryan Giggs (who topped the poll), Eric Cantona and George Best.


title: Bobby Charlton

text: He is a member of the Laureus World Sports Academy. On 6 February 2012 Charlton was taken to hospital after falling ill, and subsequently had a gallstone removed. This prevented him from collecting a Lifetime Achievement Award at the Laureus World Sports Awards.


title: Bobby Charlton

text: On 15 February 2016, Manchester United announced the South Stand of Old Trafford would be renamed in honour of Sir Bobby Charlton. The unveiling took place at the home game against Everton on 3 April 2016.


title: Bobby Charlton

text: In October 2017, Charlton had a pitch named after him at St George's Park National Football Centre in Burton-upon-Trent.


title: Winnie Harlow

text: Chantelle Whitney Brown-Young (born July 27, 1994), known professionally as Winnie Harlow, is a Canadian fashion model and public spokesperson on the skin condition vitiligo. She gained prominence in 2014 as a contestant on the 21st cycle of the U.S. television series "America's Next Top Model".


title: Winnie Harlow

text: Winnie Harlow was born Chantelle Brown-Young on July 27, 1994, in the Greater Toronto Area, the daughter of Lisa Brown and Windsor Young. She is of Jamaican ancestry and has two sisters. She was diagnosed with the chronic skin condition vitiligo, characterized by depigmentation of portions of the skin, at the age of four. Harlow was a victim of bullying by other children and was reportedly called a "cow, zebra, and all manner of other disparaging slurs" throughout her childhood by students both black and white. The verbal harassment led to her changing schools numerous times and dropping out of high school, after which she contemplated suicide.


title: Winnie Harlow

text: Harlow was discovered by "America's Next Top Model" host Tyra Banks on Instagram, and subsequently became one of the 14 finalists of the 21st cycle in 2014. She was the only Canadian ever cast on ANTM. She was eliminated in the second week of the finals, and participated in a separate competition called the "comeback series", where she continued to participate in the cycle's photo shoots along with the other eliminated contestants in an effort to return to the competition. After completing the comeback series, she was revealed to have received the highest average public vote score, and returned. She was eliminated again in episode 13, being the ninth eliminated overall.


title: Winnie Harlow

text: Following her elimination from "America's Next Top Model", Harlow modelled for the Spanish clothing brand Desigual and became its official brand representative. In September 2014, she walked and closed for the clothing brand Ashish for its spring/summer 2015 collection in London Fashion Week. She has modelled for fashion magazines such as "i-D" and "Dazed", and for the fashion website Showstudio.com. In 2015, Harlow modelled for the Italian clothing brand Diesel for its spring/summer 2015 campaign, which was shot by British fashion photographer Nick Knight. She modelled for the Spanish and Italian editions of "Glamour" magazine and was featured in the August/September 2015 issue of "Complex" magazine. She was also featured in the August 2015 issue of "Cosmopolitan". She was featured on "Vogue Italia"s website in an interview and accompanying photo shoot. In August 2015, Harlow shot the cover of and an accompanying editorial spread in the September issue of "Ebony" magazine, where she appeared alongside former "America's Next Top Model" contestant Fatima Siad. In 2016, Harlow was featured in a commercial for Sprite, and was featured in a campaign for Swarovski. The same year, she was chosen as one of BBC's 100 Women In 2018, she modelled at the Victoria's Secret Fashion Show.


title: Winnie Harlow

text: Harlow has appeared in advertising campaigns for Fendi, Marc Jacobs, Tommy Hilfiger, Desigual, Diesel, Swarovski, Steve Madden, Nike, Puma, MAC and Victoria's Secret.


title: Winnie Harlow

text: In July 2011, Harlow posted a video titled "Vitiligo: A Skin Condition, not a Life Changer" on YouTube. She talked about the condition and answered questions about her life living with vitiligo. In November 2014, Harlow spoke in a TEDx presentation, recalling her experience with it. She was presented with the 'Role Model' award at the 2015 Portuguese GQ Men of The Year event.


title: Winnie Harlow

text: At the 2018 Canadian Grand Prix, Harlow was invited to wave the chequered flag, signifying the end of the race. A miscommunication between race officials led to Harlow being instructed to wave the flag on what should have been the penultimate lap of the race. As a result of the application of the Formula One sporting regulations, the final result was declared based on the positions at the end of lap 68 (i.e., the official race distance was shortened by two laps from the scheduled distance of 70 laps). The error did not seriously impact the race result.


title: Winnie Harlow

text: Harlow has appeared in music videos; these including JMSN's "The One", Eminem's "Guts Over Fear", Calvin Harris' "Promises", and Black Eyed Peas' "Where's the Love?". She cameoed in Beyoncé's "visual album" "Lemonade" and was in a video of Lilly Singh (a.k.a. IISuperwomanII) on YouTube named "Three Girls, One Elevator".


title: History of Facebook

text: Facebook is a social networking service originally launched as TheFacebook on February 4, 2004. It was founded by Mark Zuckerberg and college roommates and fellow Harvard University students, in particular Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin Moskovitz, and Chris Hughes. The website's membership was initially limited by the founders to Harvard students, but was expanded to other colleges in the Boston area, the Ivy League, and gradually most universities in the United States and Canada, corporations, and by September 2006, to everyone with a valid email address along with an age requirement of being 13 and older.


title: History of Facebook

text: FaceMash was a website that opened in 2003, developed by Mark Zuckerberg; he wrote the software for the Facemash website when he was in his second year of college. The website was set up as a type of "hot or not" game for Harvard students. The website allowed visitors to compare two students' pictures side by side and let them decide who was more attractive.


title: History of Facebook

text: According to "The Harvard Crimson", Facemash used "photos compiled from the online facebooks of nine Houses, placing two next to each other at a time and asking users to choose the "hotter" person". Facemash attracted 450 visitors and 22,000 photo-views in its first four hours online.


title: History of Facebook

text: The site was quickly forwarded to several campus group list-servers, but was shut down a few days later by the Harvard administration. Zuckerberg faced expulsion and was charged by the administration with breach of security, violating copyrights, and violating individuals' privacy. Ultimately, the charges were dropped. Zuckerberg expanded on this initial project that semester by creating a social study tool ahead of an art history final exam. He uploaded art images to a website, each of which was featured with a corresponding comments section, then shared the site with his classmates, and people started sharing notes.


title: History of Facebook

text: On October 25, 2010, entrepreneur and banker Rahul Jain auctioned off the FaceMash.com domain to an unknown buyer for $30,201.


title: History of Facebook

text: A "face book" is a student directory featuring photos and basic information. In 2003, there were no universal online facebooks at Harvard, with only paper sheets distributed and private online directories. Zuckerberg told the "Crimson" that "Everyone's been talking a lot about a universal face book within Harvard. ... I think it's kind of silly that it would take the University a couple of years to get around to it. I can do it better than they can, and I can do it in a week." In January 2004, Zuckerberg began writing code for a new website, known as "TheFacebook", with the inspiration coming from an editorial in the "Crimson" about Facemash, stating that "It is clear that the technology needed to create a centralized Website is readily available ... the benefits are many." Zuckerberg met with Harvard student Eduardo Saverin, and each of them agreed to invest $1,000 in the site. On February 4, 2004, Zuckerberg launched it under the name of "TheFacebook", originally located at thefacebook.com.


title: History of Facebook

text: Zuckerberg intended to create a website that could connect people around the university. Upon finishing the site, Zuckerberg told a couple of friends, one of whom suggested sharing it on the Kirkland House online mailing list, which included several hundred people. According to his roommate, Dustin Moskovitz, "By the end of the night, we were ... actively watching the registration process. Within twenty-four hours, we had somewhere between twelve hundred and fifteen hundred registrants."


title: History of Facebook

text: Just six days after the launch of the site, three Harvard University seniors, Cameron Winklevoss, Tyler Winklevoss, and Divya Narendra, accused Zuckerberg of intentionally misleading them into believing that he would help them build a social network called HarvardConnection.com, but instead using their idea to build a competing product. The three complained to the "Crimson", and the newspaper began an investigation. Zuckerberg knew about the investigation so he used TheFacebook.com to find members in the site who identified themselves as members of the "Crimson". He examined a history of failed logins to see if any of the "Crimson" members had ever entered an incorrect password into TheFacebook.com. In the cases in which they had failed to log in, Zuckerberg tried to use them to access the "Crimson" members' Harvard email accounts, and he was successful in accessing two of them. In the end, three "Crimson" members filed a lawsuit against Zuckerberg which was later settled.


title: History of Facebook

text: Membership was initially restricted to students of Harvard University. Within the first month, more than half the undergraduate population at Harvard was registered on the service. Zuckerberg was joined in the promotion of the site by Saverin (business aspects), Dustin Moskovitz (programmer), Andrew McCollum (graphic artist), and Chris Hughes. In March 2004, Facebook expanded to Stanford, Columbia, and Yale. This expansion continued when it opened to all Ivy League and Boston-area schools. It gradually reached most universities in the United States and Canada. Facebook was incorporated in the summer of 2004, and the entrepreneur Sean Parker, who had been informally advising Zuckerberg, became the company's president. In June 2004, Facebook moved its base of operations to Palo Alto, California.


title: History of Facebook

text: The company dropped 'The' from its name after purchasing the domain name "facebook.com" in August 2005 for $200,000. The following year, the platform was made available for high school students, and in 2006, it became accessible to the general public.


title: History of Facebook

text: On October 1, 2005, Facebook expanded to twenty-one universities in the United Kingdom and others around the world. Facebook launched a high school version in September 2005, which Zuckerberg called the next logical step. At that time, high school networks required an invitation to join. Facebook later expanded membership eligibility to employees of several companies, including Apple Inc. and Microsoft. On December 11, 2005, universities in Australia and New Zealand were added to the Facebook network, bringing its size to 2,000+ colleges and 25,000+ high schools throughout the United States, Canada, Mexico, the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, and Ireland. Facebook was then opened on September 26, 2006, to everyone aged 13 and older with a valid email address.


title: History of Facebook

text: Late in 2007, Facebook had 100,000 business pages, allowing companies to attract potential customers and tell about themselves. These started as group pages, but a new concept called company pages was planned.


title: History of Facebook

text: In October 2008, Facebook announced that it would set up its international headquarters in Dublin, Ireland.


title: History of Facebook

text: In 2010, Facebook began to invite users to become beta testers after passing a question-and-answer-based selection process, and a set of Facebook Engineering Puzzles where users would solve computational problems which gave them an opportunity to be hired by Facebook.


title: History of Facebook

text: As of February 2011, Facebook had become the largest online photo host, being cited by Facebook application and online photo aggregator Pixable as expecting to have 100 billion photos by summer 2011. As of October 2011, over 350 million users accessed Facebook through their mobile phones, accounting for 33% of all Facebook traffic.


title: History of Facebook

text: On March 12, 2012, Yahoo! filed suit in a U.S. federal court against Facebook weeks before the scheduled Facebook initial public offering. In its court filing, Yahoo! said that Facebook had infringed on ten of its patents covering advertising, privacy controls and social networking. Yahoo! had threatened to sue Facebook a month before the filing, insisting that the social network license its patents. A spokesperson for Facebook issued a statement saying "We're disappointed that Yahoo, a long-time business partner of Facebook and a company that has substantially benefited from its association with Facebook, has decided to resort to litigation". The lawsuit claims that Yahoo!'s patents cover basic social networking ideas such as customizing website users' experiences to their needs, adding that the patents cover ways of targeting ads to individual users. In 2012, Facebook App Center, an online mobile store, was rolled out. The store initially had 500 Facebook apps which were mostly games.


title: History of Facebook

text: In addition to the Android and iOS mobile app, Facebook developed another Android and iOS app called Facebook Lite which uses less data. Another project from Facebook is called Facebook Zero, which allows users to use a mobile text-only version of Facebook for free, without paying for mobile data when using some mobile network operators.


title: History of Facebook

text: Facebook was initially incorporated as a Florida LLC. For the first few months after its launch in February 2004, the costs for the website operations for thefacebook.com were paid for by Mark Zuckerberg and Eduardo Saverin, who had taken equity stakes in the company. The website also ran a few advertisements to meet its operating costs.


title: History of Facebook

text: In the summer of 2004, venture capitalist Peter Thiel made a $500,001 angel investment in the social network Facebook for 10.2% of the company and joined Facebook's board. This was the first outside investment in Facebook.


title: History of Facebook

text: In his book "The Facebook Effect", David Kirkpatrick outlines the story of how Thiel came to make his investment: former Napster and Plaxo employee Sean Parker, who at the time had assumed the title of "President" of Facebook, was seeking investors for Facebook. Parker approached Reid Hoffman, the CEO of work-based social network LinkedIn. Hoffman liked Facebook but declined to be the lead investor because of the potential for conflict of interest with his duties as LinkedIn CEO. He redirected Parker to Peter Thiel, whom he knew from their PayPal days (both Hoffman and Thiel are considered members of the PayPal Mafia). Thiel met Parker and Mark Zuckerberg, the Harvard college student who had founded Facebook and controlled it. Thiel and Zuckerberg got along well and Thiel agreed to lead Facebook's seed round with $500,000 for 10.2% of the company. Hoffman and Mark Pincus also participated in the round, along with Maurice Werdegar who led the investment on behalf of Western Technology Investment. The investment was originally in the form of a convertible note, to be converted to equity if Facebook reached 1.5 million users by the end of 2004. Although Facebook narrowly missed the target, Thiel allowed the loan to be converted to equity anyway. Thiel said of his investment:


title: History of Facebook

text: I was comfortable with them pursuing their original vision. And it was a very reasonable valuation. I thought it was going to be a pretty safe investment.


title: History of Facebook

text: In April 2005, Accel Partners agreed to make a $12.7 million venture capital investment in a deal that valued Facebook at $98 million. Accel joined Facebook's board, and the board was expanded to five seats, with Zuckerberg, Thiel, and Accel's Jim Breyer in three of the seats, and the other two seats currently being empty but with Zuckerberg free to nominate anybody to those seats.


title: History of Facebook

text: In April 2006, Facebook closed its Series B funding round. This included $27.5 million from a number of venture capitalists, including Greylock Partners and Meritech Capital, plus additional investments from Peter Thiel and Accel Partners. The valuation for this round was about $500 million.


title: History of Facebook

text: A leaked cash flow statement showed that during the 2005 fiscal year, Facebook had a net gain of $5.66 million.


title: History of Facebook

text: With the sale of social networking website MySpace to News Corp on July 19, 2005, rumours surfaced about the possible sale of Facebook to a larger media company. Zuckerberg had already stated that he did not want to sell the company, and denied rumors to the contrary. On March 28, 2006, "BusinessWeek" reported that a potential acquisition of Facebook was under negotiation. Facebook reportedly declined an offer of $750 million from an unknown bidder, and it was rumored the asking price rose as high as $2 billion.


title: History of Facebook

text: In September 2006, serious talks between Facebook and Yahoo! took place concerning acquisition of Facebook, with prices reaching as high as $1 billion. Thiel, by then a board member of Facebook, indicated that Facebook's internal valuation was around $8 billion based on their projected revenues of $1 billion by 2015, comparable to Viacom's MTV brand, a company with a shared target demographic audience.


title: History of Facebook

text: On July 17, 2007, Zuckerberg said that selling Facebook was unlikely because he wanted to keep it independent, saying "We're not really looking to sell the company ... We're not looking to IPO anytime soon. It's just not the core focus of the company." In September 2007, Microsoft approached Facebook, proposing an investment in return for a 5% stake in the company, offering an estimated $300–500 million. That month, other companies, including Google, expressed interest in buying a portion of Facebook.


title: History of Facebook

text: On October 24, 2007, Microsoft announced that it had purchased a 1.6% share of Facebook for $240 million, giving Facebook a total implied value of around $15 billion. However, Microsoft bought preferred stock that carried special rights, such as "liquidation preferences" that meant Microsoft would get paid before common stockholders if the company were sold. Microsoft's purchase also included the right to place international ads on Facebook. In November 2007, Hong Kong billionaire Li Ka-shing invested $60 million in Facebook.


title: History of Facebook

text: In August 2008, "BusinessWeek" reported that private sales by employees, as well as purchases by venture capital firms, were being done at share prices that put the company's total valuation at between $3.75 billion and $5 billion. In October 2008, Zuckerberg said "I don't think social networks can be monetized in the same way that search did ... In three years from now we have to figure out what the optimum model is. But that is not our primary focus today."


title: History of Facebook

text: Facebook hired Sheryl Sandberg as its Chief Operating Officer in March 2008. Sandberg is reported to have held a number of brainstorming sessions with Facebook employees on their long-term monetization strategy, which led to the conclusion that advertising would be the main source of monetization. Under Sandberg's leadership, Facebook made a number of changes to its advertising model with the aim of achieving profitability. In September 2009, Facebook stated that it had turned cash flow positive for the first time.


title: History of Facebook

text: In early 2012, Facebook disclosed that its profits had jumped 65% to $1 billion in the previous year when its revenue, which is mainly from advertising, had jumped almost 90% to $3.71 billion. Facebook also reported that 56% of its advertising revenue comes from the U.S. alone, and that 12% of its revenue comes from Zynga, the social network game development company. Payments and other fees were $557 million up from $106 million the previous year.


title: History of Facebook

text: In August 2009, Facebook acquired social media real-time news aggregator FriendFeed, a startup created by Gmail's first engineer Paul Buchheit.


title: History of Facebook

text: In February 2010, Facebook acquired Malaysian contact-importing startup Octazen Solutions. On April 2, 2010, Facebook announced acquisition of a photo-sharing service called Divvyshot for an undisclosed amount. In June 2010, an online marketplace for trading private Facebook stock reflected a valuation of $11.5 billion.


title: History of Facebook

text: On April 12, 2012, Facebook acquired photo sharing service Instagram for approximately $1 billion in cash and stock.


title: History of Facebook

text: On March 8, 2013, Facebook announced that they acquired the team from Storylane, but not the product itself. On October 13, 2013, Facebook acquired Onavo, an Israeli analytics company, for approximately $120 million.


title: History of Facebook

text: On February 19, 2014, Facebook announced its acquisition of WhatsApp, a smartphone instant messaging application for $19 billion in a mix of stock and cash. The acquisition is the most ever paid for a venture-capital backed startup.


title: History of Facebook

text: On March 25, 2014, Facebook announced they had acquired virtual reality startup Oculus VR for $2 billion in cash and stock.


title: History of Facebook

text: In April 2020, Facebook, Inc. bought a 9.9% stake in Jio, which was the highest foreign direct investment in the Indian technology sector.


title: History of Facebook

text: Facebook filed for an initial public offering (IPO) on February 1, 2012. The preliminary prospectus stated that the company was seeking to raise $5 billion. The document announced that the company had 845 million active monthly users and its website featured 2.7 billion daily likes and comments. After the IPO, Zuckerberg retains a 22% ownership share in Facebook and owns 57% of the voting shares.


title: History of Facebook

text: Underwriters valued the shares at $38 each, pricing the company at $104 billion, the largest valuation to date for a newly public company. On May 16, one day before the IPO, Facebook announced that it would sell 25% more shares than originally planned due to high demand. The IPO raised $16 billion, making it the third largest in U.S. history (just ahead of AT&T Wireless and behind only General Motors and Visa Inc.). The stock price left the company with a higher market capitalization than all but a few U.S. corporations – surpassing heavyweights such as Amazon.com, McDonald's, Disney, and Kraft Foods – and made Zuckerberg's stock worth $19 billion. "The New York Times" stated that the offering overcame questions about Facebook's difficulties in attracting advertisers to transform the company into a "must-own stock". Jimmy Lee of JPMorgan Chase described it as "the next great blue-chip". Writers at TechCrunch, on the other hand, expressed skepticism, stating, "That's a big multiple to live up to, and [Facebook] will likely need to add bold new revenue streams to justify the mammoth valuation".


title: History of Facebook

text: Trading in the stock, which began on May 18, was delayed that day due to technical problems with the NASDAQ exchange. The stock struggled to stay above the IPO price for most of the day, forcing underwriters to buy back shares to support the price. At closing bell, shares were valued at $38.23, only $0.23 above the IPO price and down $3.82 from the opening bell value. The opening was widely described by the financial press as a disappointment.


title: History of Facebook

text: The stock nonetheless set a new record for trading volume of an IPO. On May 25, 2012, the stock ended its first full week of trading at $31.91, a 16.5% decline.


title: History of Facebook

text: On 22 May, regulators from Wall Street's Financial Industry Regulatory Authority announced that they had begun to investigate whether banks underwriting Facebook had improperly shared information only with select clients, rather than the general public. Massachusetts Secretary of State William Galvin subpoenaed Morgan Stanley over the same issue. The allegations sparked "fury" among some investors and led to the immediate filing of several lawsuits, one of them a class action suit claiming more than $2.5 billion in losses due to the IPO. Bloomberg estimated that retail investors may have lost approximately $630 million on Facebook stock since its debut.


title: New Orleans Saints

text: The New Orleans Saints are a professional American football team based in New Orleans. The Saints compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the league's National Football Conference (NFC) South division. Since 1975, the team plays its home games at Caesars Superdome after utilizing Tulane Stadium during its first eight seasons. Founded by John W. Mecom Jr., David Dixon, and the city of New Orleans on November 1, 1966, the Saints joined the NFL as an expansion team in 1967. They are named after the jazz music heritage of New Orleans and the spiritual hymn "When the Saints Go Marching In".


title: New Orleans Saints

text: The Saints were among the NFL's least successful franchises in their first several decades, where they went 20 consecutive seasons without a winning record or qualifying for the playoffs. They earned their first winning record and postseason berth in 1987, while their first playoff win would not occur until 2000, their 34th season. The team's fortunes improved amid the 21st century, especially during the late 2000s and 2010s, which saw them become more consistent postseason contenders. Their greatest success to date came in the 2009 season, when they won Super Bowl XLIV over the favored Indianapolis Colts, the team's first and only Super Bowl appearance so far. The Saints are one of two NFL franchises to win their sole Super Bowl appearance, along with the New York Jets, and the most recent to do so.


title: New Orleans Saints

text: Local sports entrepreneur Dave Dixon and a local civic group had been seeking an NFL franchise for over five years and had hosted record crowds for NFL exhibition games. To seal the NFL-AFL merger, NFL Commissioner Pete Rozelle arrived in New Orleans within a week, and announced on November 1, 1966, that the NFL officially had awarded the city of New Orleans an expansion franchise. The team was named for "When the Saints Go Marching In", the classic jazz standard associated with New Orleans. When the deal was reached a week earlier, Dixon strongly suggested to Rozelle that the announcement be delayed until November 1, to coincide with All Saints' Day. Dixon cleared the name with New Orleans' Archbishop Philip M. Hannan, who "thought it would be a good idea," according to Dixon. "He had an idea the team was going to need all the help it could get."


title: New Orleans Saints

text: Boggs' Congressional committee in turn quickly approved the NFL merger. John W. Mecom Jr., a young oilman from Houston, became the team's first majority stockholder. The team's colors, black and gold, symbolized both Mecom's and New Orleans' strong ties to the oil industry. Trumpeter Al Hirt was part owner of the team, and his rendition of "When the Saints Go Marching In" was made the official fight song.


title: New Orleans Saints

text: The inaugural game on September 17, 1967, started with Saints receiverJohn Gilliam returning the opening kickoff 94-yards for a touchdown, in a losing effort, 27–13, to the Los Angeles Rams at Tulane Stadium, with over 80,000 in attendance. It was one of the few highlights of a 3–11 season, which set an NFL record for most wins by an expansion team.


title: New Orleans Saints

text: For most of their first 20 years, the Saints finished third or fourth in their division until 1979. Until 1987, the 1979 and 1983 teams were the only ones to finish at .500.


title: New Orleans Saints

text: One of the franchise's early bright moments came on November 8, 1970, when Tom Dempsey kicked an NFL record-breaking 63-yard field goal at Tulane Stadium to defeat the Detroit Lions 19–17 in the final seconds of the game; the previous record was seven yards less, set in . Dempsey's record was not broken until by Matt Prater of the Denver Broncos, who kicked one yard farther.


title: New Orleans Saints

text: In 1980, the Saints lost their first 14 games, prompting local sportscaster Bernard "Buddy D" Diliberto to advise Saints supporters to wear paper bags over their heads at the team's home games; many bags rendered the club's name as the "'Aints" rather than the "Saints."


title: New Orleans Saints

text: Tom Benson, a successful automobile dealership owner and banker, acquired the franchise in 1985, and hired Jim Finks as general manager and Jim Mora as head coach. That combination provided the Saints with their first-ever winning record and playoff appearance, going 12–3 in 1987, which had one fewer game than normal due to a players' strike. Another playoff berth would follow during the 1990 season, and the club's first division title came in 1991. During Mora's tenure, the Saints made the playoffs four times, with teams marked by strong defenses led by the "Dome Patrol" linebacking corps, but they were never able to win a playoff game. Mora coached the Saints until the middle of the 1996 season, when he stepped down halfway through the 3–13 season. His 93 wins were three more than the Saints won in their entire history prior to his arrival, and would remain the most for any Saints coach until 2016.


title: New Orleans Saints

text: After the end of the 1996 season, ironically as Diliberto had suggested before Mora's resignation, former Chicago Bears coach Mike Ditka was hired to replace Mora. Although this initially generated a lot of excitement among Saints fans, Ditka's tenure ended up being a failure. The Saints went 6–10 in their first two seasons under Ditka (1997 and 1998). During the 1999 NFL Draft, Ditka traded all of his picks for that season, as well as the first-round and third-round picks for the following season, to the Washington Redskins in order to draft University of Texas Heisman Trophy running back Ricky Williams in the first round. Ditka and Williams had a mock wedding picture taken to commemorate the occasion. However, Ditka, most of his coaching staff, and general manager Bill Kuharich were fired at the end of the 1999 season due to the club's 3–13 record.


title: New Orleans Saints

text: Jim Haslett held the post from 2000 to 2005. In his first year, he took the team to the 2000 playoffs and defeated the defending Super Bowl champion St. Louis Rams for the team's first-ever playoff win. The team lost the following week to the Minnesota Vikings. After winning the 2000 NFL Executive of the Year Award, General Manager Randy Mueller was fired between the 2001 and 2002 seasons without explanation by Benson. The Saints failed to make the playoffs in 2001 and 2002, although in the latter year they had the distinction of beating the eventual Super Bowl XXXVII champion Tampa Bay Buccaneers in both of their regular-season meetings, only the second team to do so in NFL history.


title: New Orleans Saints

text: In 2003, the Saints again missed the playoffs after finishing 8–8. The 2004 season started poorly for the Saints, as they went 2–4 through their first six games and 4–8 through their first twelve games. At that point Haslett's job appeared to be in jeopardy; however, he managed to win the three straight games leading up to the season finale, leaving the Saints in playoff contention in the final week of the season. In week 17, the Saints defeated division rivals Carolina; however, the Saints needed other results to break their way and when the St. Louis Rams beat the New York Jets the Saints were eliminated despite having beaten the Rams, who finished with the same record. The Rams, Saints, and Vikings all were 8–8, with the Rams having a 7–5 conference record, Saints 6–6, and the Vikings 5–7. The Rams received the number 1 wild-card due to having the best conference record out of the three, followed by the Vikings due to the 38–31 loss handed to the Saints in Week 6. Haslett was fired after the 2005 season, in which the Saints finished 3–13 and did not play any regular-season games in New Orleans due to Hurricane Katrina.


title: New Orleans Saints

text: Due to the damage Hurricane Katrina caused to the Superdome and the New Orleans area, the Saints' scheduled 2005 home opener against the New York Giants was moved to Giants Stadium. The remainder of their 2005 home games were split between the Alamodome in San Antonio, Texas, and LSU's Tiger Stadium in Baton Rouge.


title: New Orleans Saints

text: On January 17, 2006, the Saints hired Sean Payton as their new head coach and, on March 14, signed former San Diego Chargers quarterback Drew Brees to a six-year, $60 million deal.


title: New Orleans Saints

text: On March 23, the Saints announced that the team's two 2006 preseason games were to be played at Shreveport, Louisiana, and Jackson, Mississippi. After a $185 million renovation of the historic stadium, on April 6 the Saints released their 2006 schedule, with all home games scheduled to be played at the Superdome. On September 19, Saints owner Tom Benson announced that the team had sold out the Louisiana Superdome for the entire season with season tickets alone (68,354 seats), a first in franchise history.


title: New Orleans Saints

text: The September 25, home opener, the first home game in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, was won by the Saints 23–3 against the Atlanta Falcons, who were undefeated in the 2006 season at that time. The attendance for the game was a sellout crowd of 70,003. Meanwhile, the broadcast of the game was ESPN's highest-ever rated program to date, with an 11.8 rating, and viewership by 10.85 million homes. It was the most-watched program for the night, broadcast or cable, and was the second-highest rated cable program of all time at the time. Green Day and U2 performed "Wake Me Up When September Ends" and "The Saints Are Coming", respectively, before the game. The game received a 2007 ESPY award for "Best Moment in Sports." The game is remembered by Saints fans for Steve Gleason's blocked punt on the opening series that resulted in a touchdown for New Orleans.


title: New Orleans Saints

text: On December 17, the Saints clinched their third division title and their first NFC South title in franchise history. For the first time in Saints' history, they clinched their NFC South title on their home field. Sean Payton became the second consecutive Saints coach to win a division title in his first season. After the Philadelphia Eagles beat the Dallas Cowboys 23–7 on Christmas Day 2006, the Saints clinched a first-round playoff bye for the first time in franchise history, finishing the regular season with a record of 10–6.


title: New Orleans Saints

text: After the first-round bye, the Saints beat the Philadelphia Eagles 27–24 in the Superdome in the 2006 Divisional Playoffs. No team had ever had such a poor record in the prior year (3–13) and then gone on to a league or conference championship game since the 1999 St. Louis Rams who advanced to win their first Super Bowl after being 4–12 the season before. Since the Saints' only previous playoff win was in the wild card round, this was the farthest the Saints had ever advanced at the time. The victory was only the second playoff win in team history. The season ended on January 21, 2007, when the Saints lost 39–14 to the Chicago Bears in the NFC Championship game.


title: New Orleans Saints

text: The Saints announced that for the second year in a row, the Louisiana Superdome had sold out every ticket for the season. Additionally, all luxury boxes had been sold out for the season. Both of these statistics are particularly surprising given that the city-proper has about 300,000 people or 150,000 fewer people than July 2005 population data (though the metro area still accounts for 1.2 million people).


title: New Orleans Saints

text: The first game of the season was against the defending Super Bowl XLI champion Indianapolis Colts. The Saints lost this game, 41–10, and lost their next three games. In one of these three games, against the Tennessee Titans, the Saints lost running back Deuce McAllister for the season with his second career (second time in three seasons) ACL tear. After winning their first game, against the Seattle Seahawks, two weeks later, the team went on a four-game winning streak to bring their record to an even 4–4. After reaching 7–7, the Saints lost their final two games to finish 7–9.


title: New Orleans Saints

text: Following a disappointing 7–9 record in the 2007 season, the Saints ended the 2008 season 8–8. Failing to qualify for the post-season for the second straight year, the Saints found themselves struggling on defense. However, the Saints would match the explosive offense they had in the 2006 season. Drew Brees ended the 2008 season just 16 yards short of beating Dan Marino's single-season record of 5084 total passing yards, and receiver Lance Moore came 72 yards short of his first 1000-yard season.


title: New Orleans Saints

text: The 2009 season was the team's most successful season, which culminated in the franchise's first league championship win against the Indianapolis Colts in Super Bowl XLIV. After achieving a record of 13–0 with their win over the Atlanta Falcons, it marked the Saints' best start to a season in its franchise history. The result clinched an NFC playoff berth, a bye in the first round of the playoffs. By winning their first 13 games, the Saints also set the record for the longest undefeated season opening (13–0) by an NFC team since the AFL–NFL merger, surpassing the previous record (12–0) held by the 1985 Chicago Bears. However, they would fall victim to the Dallas Cowboys in week 14, going on to end the season with a three-game losing streak. The Saints became the first team to win a Super Bowl after losing its last three regular-season games.


title: New Orleans Saints

text: Although its opponents would include winners of 9 of the last 15 NFL MVP awards, the team advanced to the 2009 NFC Championship game where they defeated the Minnesota Vikings, led by Brett Favre, 31–28 in overtime, advancing to their first Super Bowl appearance in franchise history. Television ratings for Super Bowl XLIV (44) were the second highest for any TV program, sports or otherwise, in history, as their successful bid to win the Super Bowl was seen by many to represent the city's resurgence after the devastating Hurricane Katrina.


title: New Orleans Saints

text: The Saints' 2010 season began in the Superdome as the defending Super Bowl champions defeated the Minnesota Vikings 14–9, in a rematch of the 2009 NFC Championship Game. It was played on Thursday, September 9, 2010, and televised on NBC, making it the first time the Saints have opened the NFL's season at home. On Sunday, August 8, 2010, NBC announced the televised opening festivities of the evening would begin with Taylor Swift and Dave Matthews Band. On December 27, 2010, with a 17–14 win against the Atlanta Falcons in Atlanta, the Saints clinched a playoff appearance (wild card). This marked the first time a team in the NFC South had made back-to-back playoff appearances since the division was formed in 2002. The Saints would face the Seattle Seahawks for the wild-card opener at Qwest Field. The Seahawks were the first NFL team to capture their division with a sub-.500 regular-season record (7–9). Drew Brees completed a postseason-record 39 passes for 404 yards and two touchdowns. Despite throwing 60 passes and hindered by a lack of depth at running back, last year's Super Bowl MVP was not intercepted and rallied the Saints within 34–30 in the fourth quarter. In the end, his efforts were negated by a defense that could not get enough stops and a late touchdown run by Marshawn Lynch breaking over a half-dozen tackles with 3:22 left which helped the Seahawks defeat the Saints 41–36.


title: New Orleans Saints

text: The Saints began their season with a loss against the Green Bay Packers, but the team rebounded for the next four weeks to bring their record to 4–1. A loss to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers brought the record to 4–2, but the team bounced back with a 62–7 blowout win against the struggling Indianapolis Colts. A surprise loss to the St. Louis Rams resulted in the record dropping to 5–3. In the next seven weeks the Saints beat talented teams such as the eventual Super Bowl XLVI champion New York Giants, Detroit Lions, and Atlanta Falcons, bringing their season record to 12–3. To cap off the season, quarterback Drew Brees broke the single-season passing record held for over 25 years, on the way to a Saints division-winning game. The Saints won the NFC South title on December 26 and ended the 2011 season as the third seed in the NFC. They finished with a 13–3 record, beating Carolina 45–17 and also giving running back Darren Sproles the record for most all-purpose yards in a single season. The team broke numerous records that year including most yards in a season, completion percentage, yards passing, completions and more. The New Orleans Saints beat the Detroit Lions in the 2011 NFC wild-card playoff game 45–28. New Orleans also tied the NFL's postseason mark for team first downs in a game (34), and broke the record for total yards with 626, eclipsing the yardage record set 49 years ago. The Saints lost in the Divisional round in the playoffs against the San Francisco 49ers in Candlestick Park that featured the Saints losing two leads in the last four minutes of regulation.


title: New Orleans Saints

text: After an off-season dominated by the bounty scandal and the year-long suspension of head coach Sean Payton, the Saints sought to refocus on football and produce yet another winning year. Instead, the team, led by offensive line coach Aaron Kromer for its first six games, started the season with four straight losses and a last-place spot in the NFC South. The team finally broke through with a win in Week 5, against the San Diego Chargers, a game that also saw quarterback Drew Brees break Johnny Unitas's longstanding record for consecutive games with a touchdown pass. After their bye week, the Saints went on to win 4 of their next 5 games, to bring their record to an even 5–5. Joe Vitt returned after his six-game suspension to serve as interim head coach for the rest of the season. The team failed to hold its momentum however, and lost the next three games, including a loss at Atlanta that also marked the end of Brees' record touchdown streak after 54 games, and a 52–27 blowout loss to the Giants that dropped the Saints to 5–8. Despite winning 2 of their last 3 games, and Brees again leading the league with 5,177 passing yards (his third time to surpass 5,000 yards, as he remained the only quarterback to break that barrier more than once), the team finished third in the NFC South, at 7–9. The Saints defense allowed 7,042 yards, setting an NFL record.


title: New Orleans Saints

text: The Saints finished their 2013 preseason 3–1, and won their first five regular-season games against the Atlanta Falcons, Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Arizona Cardinals, Miami Dolphins and Chicago Bears. The Saints under Sean Peyton had been winless in Chicago's Soldier Field and had not won in the Windy City since 2000. The Saints fared well against Chicago, Arizona and Miami, winning 26–18, 31–7 and 38–17 respectively, but needed a 4th down shutdown and a last-minute field goal to escape Atlanta and Tampa Bay. The Saints went on a 5–0 win streak, but were stopped short by the New England Patriots in Week 6, losing 30–27, with a touchdown pass by Tom Brady in the last 5 seconds of the game. New Orleans would go undefeated at home for the second straight season with Sean Payton as the head coach, but finish just 3–5 on the road. Key losses included a 7–34 blowout against the Seattle Seahawks on Monday Night Football in Seattle which cost them homefield advantage throughout the playoffs, a 16–27 upset against the St. Louis Rams in St. Louis which led to the Saints needing to win their next game against Carolina to control their own playoff destiny, and a heartbreaking 13–17 defeat to their division rival the Carolina Panthers in Charlotte who went on to win the NFC South. The Saints finished the season with an 11–5 record and earned a wild card berth as the sixth seed in the NFC. On January 4, 2014, the Saints recorded their first road playoff win in franchise history over the Philadelphia Eagles 26–24. On January 11, the Saints lost to the first seed, the Seattle Seahawks, once again in Seattle 15–23. The weather conditions were very poor, which gave the offense much difficulty. Despite the conditions, the defense of the Saints played well, holding Seattle to just 23 over the 34 points allowed against Seattle during the regular season.


title: New Orleans Saints

text: The Saints finished the season 7–9, second in their division behind the 7–8–1 Carolina Panthers. They missed out on the playoffs after being defeated 14–30 by their divisional rival, the Atlanta Falcons, in the second-to-last week of the season. This season was notorious in Saints history for having the 31st worst-ranked defense in the league, which is one of the main reasons for the Saints' poor 2014 campaign. The only two great performances by the defense out of the entire season came from a 44–23 home win against the Green Bay Packers and a 31–15 victory against the Chicago Bears in Chicago.


title: New Orleans Saints

text: The Saints finished with a 7–9 record for the second consecutive season. They were third in the NFC South after the 15–1 NFC champions Carolina Panthers and the 8–8 Atlanta Falcons. Their defense was historically bad. They allowed the most passing touchdowns in a season in NFL history as they allowed 45, effectively making them the worst passing defense in NFL history. They also set the NFL record in opposing passer rating (116.2), while finishing last in points allowed (29.8) and yards allowed per play (6.6). Atrocious play by defensive captain Brandon Browner, who set the NFL record for most penalties with 23, did not help the struggling Saints defense. Defensive coordinator Rob Ryan was fired near the half-way point in the season and was replaced by senior defensive assistant Dennis Allen. The Saints had strong play from their 2015 draft class. The Saints' first pick Andrus Peat started at right tackle and left guard at certain points in the season, and other first-round pick Stephone Anthony finished his rookie season with 112 tackles, one sack, one interception, and two forced fumbles. He had two scores, both coming against the Carolina Panthers and led all rookies in tackles. Second-round pick Hau'oli Kikaha had 4 sacks. Canadian football star Delvin Breaux, who was signed in the off-season, led the Saints struggling secondary with 3 interceptions and 19 pass deflections. Drew Brees also tied the NFL record for touchdown passes in a game with 7, coming against the New York Giants.


title: New Orleans Saints

text: The Saints finished with a 7–9 record for the third consecutive season, their offense finished first in the NFL in yards per game (426.0), second in points per game (29.3), and third in yards per play (6.2). Brees led the NFL in passing yards with 5,208. However the defense yet again struggled mightily, as they were allowed the 2nd most points per game (28.4) and 6th most yards per game (375.4) while being tied for 2nd worst in yards per play allowed (6.0).


title: New Orleans Saints

text: Despite an 0–2 start to the season, the Saints proceeded to win their next 8 games en route to an 11–5 finish, winning their first NFC South title since 2011. The Saints' turnaround was largely attributable to their draft, where they drafted cornerback Marshon Lattimore, offensive tackle Ryan Ramczyk, safety Marcus Williams, and running back Alvin Kamara. It is widely considered one of the best draft classes in NFL history. The defense drastically improved, as they allowed just 20.4 points per game while finishing third in the league with 20 interceptions. The offense continued to be excellent, finishing second in yards per game (391.2) and fourth in points per game (28.0).


title: New Orleans Saints

text: In the wild card round, the Saints defeated the Carolina Panthers in the wild-card round, 31–26. However, in the divisional round, the Saints lost 29–24 to the Minnesota Vikings after a stunning finish in which Vikings quarterback Case Keenum completed a pass towards the sideline to Stefon Diggs, then Marcus Williams missed a tackle and Diggs was able to run to the end zone for a 61-yard touchdown with no time left on the clock.


title: New Orleans Saints

text: On March 15, 2018, the Saints' owner Tom Benson died from flu at the age of 90 after he was hospitalized on February 16, 2018. Benson's wife Gayle Benson succeeded him as the owner of the Saints and the NBA's New Orleans Pelicans.


title: New Orleans Saints

text: On January 25, 2022, Sean Payton announced to the team that he was stepping away as head coach after 15 seasons with the team. During his tenure as head coach, the Saints went 152-89 in the regular season and 9-8 in the postseason.


title: New Orleans Saints

text: Black, along with old gold and white, has always been one of the team colors, but it was not the first choice of original majority owner John W. Mecom Jr. His preference was for Mecom blue, a medium shade which was used by all of his other investments. The NFL office, however, informed him that his proposed combination too closely resembled that worn by the San Diego Chargers. Although the Chargers were members of the AFL, the older league did not want to offend its soon-to-be partner so soon after the merger. Mecom settled on black as the primary color as a nod to his financial involvement in the petroleum industry. "Black gold" is a term synonymous with oil. Although the Pittsburgh Steelers—who played a few home games in New Orleans during their early years to avoid conflict with the Pittsburgh Panthers football team—have long used black and gold as their colors, their shade of gold more closely resembles yellow, making the Saints black and gold compatible with the rest of the NFL.


title: New Orleans Saints

text: Except for minor modifications, the Saints' logo and uniforms have basically remained the same since the club debuted in 1967. The team's logo is a fleur-de-lis (a symbol of the City of New Orleans and of France's Royal Family, which included the House of Bourbon), while its uniform design consists of gold helmets, gold pants, and either black or white jerseys. Minor changes to the uniform stripes and trim have been made throughout the years. The team wore black helmets during the 1969 preseason, but NFL commissioner Pete Rozelle barred the Saints from using the helmets during the regular season, since Mecom did not notify the league office of the change. Black helmets were not introduced until 2022, after the NFL repealed its "one-helmet rule" previously enforced in 2013.


title: New Orleans Saints

text: The Saints predominantly wore white at home when the club played at Tulane Stadium from 1967 through 1974 (except in 1969 and 1970), forcing opponents to suffer in their darker jerseys in the subtropical climate of New Orleans. When the surface at Tulane Stadium switched from natural grass to PolyTurf in 1971, field temperatures became hotter still. In Archie Manning's first game, in the 1971 season opener against the Los Angeles Rams, temperatures on the field reached as high as . The heavily favored Rams wilted in the stifling heat, and the Saints claimed their first-ever victory over their NFC West rivals, 24–20, on Manning's one-yard quarterback sneak on the last play of the game.


title: New Orleans Saints

text: The Saints switched to white pants in 1975, coinciding with the team's move from Tulane Stadium to the Superdome, and have worn white at home numerous times since then. One year later, they started to wear black pants with their white jerseys, a move influenced by coach Hank Stram, who introduced red pants to the Kansas City Chiefs' uniforms in 1968. In an October 3, 1976 home game against the Houston Oilers, Hank Stram used the Saints' road uniforms, the white jerseys and black pants. The Saints lost that game 31–26. During the 1981–82 seasons (Bum Phillips' first two seasons as coach), the team wore white jerseys with black pants at home, but reverted to the black jerseys and white pants for 1983. They reverted to wearing gold pants with both their black and white jerseys in 1986 under new coach Jim E. Mora. From 1986 through 1995, the sleeves of the jerseys and sides of the pants featured a logo with a fleur-de-lis inside an outline of the state of Louisiana (with the location of New Orleans marked with a star in the state outline). The logo replaced the striping pattern that had been on the uniforms since the team's inception; save for color variations, the striping pattern was similar to that used by the Washington Redskins (until 1979), Green Bay Packers (until 1997), and Cleveland Browns (until 2014), which is likely why the change was made. That logo was removed in 1996 and replaced with a fleur-de-lis on both the sleeves and sides of the pants.


title: New Orleans Saints

text: From 1996 through 1998, the Saints returned to gold numbers on both the white and black jerseys, but complaints about the numbers on the white jerseys being too difficult to read forced the numbers on the white jerseys to be changed to black in 1999. The Saints wore black pants with a wide gold stripe with their white jerseys in 1999, but following a 3–13 season and the dismissal of coach Mike Ditka, the black pants were mothballed by new coach Jim Haslett.


title: New Orleans Saints

text: In 2000, the Saints won their first playoff game as they hosted the St. Louis Rams, and after having a better road record than home record, they wore their white jerseys, and won 31–28 over the defending champion Rams. The defining play of the game came with the Saints clinging to a three-point lead with minutes to play. The Saints punted to the Rams' Az-Zahir Hakim (who would play one season for the Saints in 2005), who fumbled the punt deep in Rams' territory. Brian Milne recovered for the Saints, who then ran out the clock to preserve the victory.


title: New Orleans Saints

text: In 2001, they wore their white jerseys in the first six home games. During that same year, they primarily wore black pants with both their white and black jerseys. They became the first NFL team to wear all-black uniforms in a Week 5 road game against the Carolina Panthers, and again in weeks 16 and 17 in home games against the Washington Redskins and San Francisco 49ers; the Saints were outscored 78–10 in the final two contests to end a 7–9 campaign.


title: New Orleans Saints

text: In 2002, the Saints wore black pants with their white jerseys (except for the final road game, a 20–13 loss in Cincinnati when they went back to the gold pants), and gold pants with their black jerseys, a gold alternate jersey, and a 1967-style throwback uniform, complete with an accurate 1967-era helmet which featured a larger fleur-de-lis, a darker shade of gold and grey facemasks. But one season later, they stopped using the alternates and again reverted to wearing gold pants with both their black and white jerseys.


title: New Orleans Saints

text: The team introduced a gold alternate jersey (worn with the black pants) during a December 15, 2002 game versus the Minnesota Vikings, a 32–31 loss, but have never worn them since then. Because of the metallic gold's bright color, the gold jerseys were considered the "light" jersey in the game, so the Vikings wore their purple home jerseys as the "dark" colored team. One team must wear "dark" and one team must wear "light", this was done because of black & white t.v. broadcasts so viewers could tell the teams apart. The only exception being if both teams are wearing throwback uniforms, such as Thanksgiving Classic games. From 2003 through 2007, the New England Patriots had a "light" jersey (their alternate, a bright metallic silver) that is not white in which the other team would wear their colored, or "dark" jerseys against them since the third jersey rule was implemented in the NFL in 2002.


title: New Orleans Saints

text: The Saints also introduced a 1967-style throwback uniform in a 23–20 win on December 1, 2002, against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. This uniform was not worn again until a 40–33 win against the Houston Texans on September 25, 2011, and also on November 6, 2011, against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in a 27–16 Saints win. However, the 2011 throwbacks use the current helmet, meaning the shades of gold on the helmet and jersey do not match. This uniform was brought back on December 4, 2016, a 28–13 loss to the Detroit Tigers, in commemoration of the franchise's 50th season. It was then shelved for five seasons before returning on November 21, 2022 against the Los Angeles Rams.


title: New Orleans Saints

text: In 2006, to honor their return to Louisiana, the Saints wore a patch on their uniforms with an outline of the State of Louisiana with a fleur-de-lis superimposed, similar to the logo from the 1980s.


title: New Orleans Saints

text: The Saints originally planned to wear white jerseys at home for the 2006 season, but during the season, the players voted to wear the black jerseys at home after the second game. Since the team had informed the NFL office that they planned to wear white jerseys at home, each of the Saints' remaining home opponents would have to agree to New Orleans' request. The Atlanta Falcons, Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Cincinnati Bengals did not agree to the switch, forcing the Saints to wear white jerseys for those games.


title: New Orleans Saints

text: Starting in week 13 of the 2006 season, the Saints wore black pants with the black jerseys against the San Francisco 49ers (restoring them after a four-season absence), and in a Week 16 game in The Meadowlands against the New York Giants (a 30–7 Saints win), the Saints wore the black pants with their road white jerseys. The Saints later stuck with the black pants in their 2006 playoff run.


title: New Orleans Saints

text: Since 2008, the Saints have worn white jerseys at home for preseason games and early regular-season home games.


title: New Orleans Saints

text: In 2009, the Saints wore the black pants only once, beating St. Louis 28–23. They wore the white jerseys/gold pants combination during the Super Bowl XLIV victory over the Indianapolis Colts. In 2012 and 2014, the Saints wore black pants 12 times and wore gold pants 4 times. In 2013, gold pants were used only 7 times (including playoffs). After 2015, a season in which the gold pants were donned 10 times, the Saints only wore them sporadically in the regular season, though they were still used regularly in the preseason.


title: New Orleans Saints

text: Prior to the 2016 season, the NFL introduced the Color Rush program, and the Saints' version is a mixture of different uniform designs from earlier eras. White jersey tops featured old gold numbers with black trim along with gold and black sleeve stripes (a nod to the team's late 1960s uniforms). Complementing the uniforms were white pants (inspired from the 1975–85 look) and all-white socks. The Saints first wore the uniform during Week 11 of that season against the Carolina Panthers on the road, and was worn on the road two more times thereafter. Its first home appearance came in Week 11 of the 2018 season against the Philadelphia Eagles; the Saints were forced to wear the white uniforms at home after head coach Sean Payton lost a bet with Eagles coach Doug Pederson during a charity golf event in the offseason.


title: New Orleans Saints

text: In 2019, a variation of the all-white Color Rush look was unveiled during the Week 6 game against the Jacksonville Jaguars. The Saints wore their current white uniforms, but paired them with white pants minus any striping (an inverse of their black pants). During the regular season, New Orleans went undefeated (8–0) while wearing either all-white uniform. As a result, they opted to wear the new all-white look at home during the against the Minnesota Vikings. However, the Saints' luck finally ran out, losing in overtime 26–20.


title: New Orleans Saints

text: In 2022, the Saints unveiled an alternate black helmet, featuring a gold fleur-de-lis on each side and a triangle pattern of tiny gold fleur-de-lis logos. The helmets are worn with the Color Rush uniforms. The black helmets made its official regular season debut in an NFL London Game at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium against the Minnesota Vikings on October 2, 2022.


title: New Orleans Saints

text: Caesars Superdome is the Saints' home stadium. It has a listed seating capacity of 76,468 (expanded) or 73,208 (not expanded). The Saints own a perfect record there against the Houston Texans (2–0) and Jacksonville Jaguars (3–0), but a winless one against the Baltimore Ravens (0–2).


title: New Orleans Saints

text: The Saints' oldest rival are the Atlanta Falcons. The Falcons lead the rivalry series 53–51. The two clubs joined the NFL within a year of each other as expansion teams and have played each other twice a season since the Saints joined the league in 1967.


title: New Orleans Saints

text: The Saints have a developing rivalry with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, who have been part of the NFC South with the Saints since 2002, and the Saints lead the overall series, 38–21.


title: New Orleans Saints

text: The teams actually played each other quite often as non-division rivals. Between 1977 and 2001, there were only five years in which the teams did not play. This includes 12 years in a row from 1981 to 1992 – all as a result of the scheduling formulas in place prior to 2002 (this remains a record for most consecutive years in which two teams not from the same division met each other).


title: New Orleans Saints

text: The Saints won 13 of 20 games as non-division opponents. Since becoming division rivals, the Saints have the edge in the series, winning 16 games to the Bucs' 10.


title: New Orleans Saints

text: One notable pre-division game is a 1977 matchup that resulted in Tampa Bay's first win in franchise history coming against New Orleans after previously starting out 0–26 overall.


title: New Orleans Saints

text: On January 17, 2021, the two teams faced off in the playoffs for the first time in their rivalry history with Tampa Bay winning 30–20, despite New Orleans beating Tampa Bay twice in the regular season.


title: New Orleans Saints

text: The Saints and the Carolina Panthers have been division rivals since Carolina joined the league as an expansion franchise in 1995, first in the NFC West and then in the NFC South since 2002. An extremely close series, the Saints hold the head-to-head advantage 28–25, including a Wild Card victory in 2017.


title: New Orleans Saints

text: Carolina defeated New Orleans on the road every year from 2002 to 2008, a streak of seven seasons. Notable games include Carolina's 19–7 home victory in 1996 that sparked Saints head coach Jim Mora's infamous "Diddley Poo" rant and resignation from the team, Carolina's 10–6 win in the 2002 season finale at the Superdome to knock the Saints out of the playoffs, and the emotional 2005 season opener at Carolina where the Saints won 23–20 in the face of Hurricane Katrina and an eventual 3–13 season.


title: New Orleans Saints

text: In their last game in the 2014 NFL season, a fight between players broke out in the end zone and spilled out into the tunnel entrance after a Cam Newton touchdown, with Panther's tight end Brandon Williams getting ejected and both teams receiving offsetting penalties. The Panthers won the contest 41–10, with early turnovers by the Saints being a factor in the blowout.