# Talk:National Football League

The is American football this is not soccer we did not use the term club. Every fan and every player also every owner reference there club as team. 2601:2C6:8400:DCF0:A6E7:21:B52A:912D (talk) 07:44, 25 April 2024 (UTC)

I agree with this and have made the change, although another person then reverted it on the theory that the NFL uses "clubs." As anyone who edits Wikipedia knows, the league's usage is not controlling—the rule is to use the terminology most seen in common usage. I don’t see how anyone can seriously dispute that in American English the normal term is "teams," except perhaps among some soccer fans who persist in using other odd terminology like "kit" when they mean "uniform" and "match" when they mean "game." 1995hoo (talk) 01:02, 15 May 2024 (UTC)
This has been "Club" for over a decade now, as a good article. The proper term is "Club". The league always uses this term when referring to the organizations. We need to be accurate when referring to things - it's not a matter of WP:COMMONNAME, it's a matter of basic accuracy. "Club", "franchise", "team" - all of these have meanings. Using them incorrectly can confuse, but more importantly, it's simply not accurate. "Club" is the organization itself, "franchise" is the slot in the league, and "team" is the actual team out on the field; see, for example, the Carolina Panthers website, where "Team" links to the roster listing. See, as an example, this recent NFLPA report, which uses "club" to refer to the organization and "team" to refer to the team on the field. Team and club are not the same thing. That being said - the article, as it is right now, is inconsistent in usage, and this should be corrected. Toa Nidhiki05 01:54, 15 May 2024 (UTC)
It’s 10:00 at night, so I’m not going to think about it further tonight. But I believe your analysis, while "technically" accurate as a matter of word definitions, is unnecessarily hypertechnical because there is no doubt that the commonly used, and widely understood, term is "teams." No reader will be remotely confused by the use of "teams," which is also consistent with the usage in all the other North American major leagues' articles (even MLS, where I’d expect people to be militant about using British terminology). I sincerely doubt this word is even remotely relevant to good article status. 1995hoo (talk) 02:06, 15 May 2024 (UTC)
It's not British terminology. It's the terminology the league uses, and has always used. There are exceptions - we don't call the "extra point" the "try", for example - but it's not like "club" is unknown. Toa Nidhiki05 02:16, 15 May 2024 (UTC)
The NBA, NHL, MLB, and MLS pages all have a section titled Teams, not Clubs.  So, using the definition that teams only refers to the actual players on the field, then shouldn't the other pages be updated too?  After all,  why should the NFL page be unique in this sense? Alielmi1207 (talk) 17:16, 6 July 2024 (UTC)
Those terms aren't weird they're perfectly valid 80.45.26.79 (talk) 21:03, 4 February 2025 (UTC)
Valid vs common name are two different things. Hey man im josh (talk) 13:09, 5 February 2025 (UTC)
And what's common then? Because they were called clubs in the broadcasts of old super bowls like 5 217.8.0.213 (talk) 17:38, 12 August 2025 (UTC)
I agree with using "teams" as the common term. Overly technical pedantry is irrelevant in what word to use in the header, as it'll both are completely accurate. That is to say, even if we conceded a distinction between the organization and the playing squad, the material in the chart is applicable to both. Consistency with other major North American sports leagues should be maintained (yes, even the CFL uses "teams"). The fact that this gets changed periodically and is changed back by one editor tells me that there's some WP:OWN going on here. oknazevad (talk) 17:43, 6 July 2024 (UTC)
It's not an accurate term. A handful of Wikipedia editors who genuinely do not know what they are talking about doesn't make a commonname. Toa Nidhiki05 22:48, 6 July 2024 (UTC)
That is not an appropriate reply to charges of WP:OWN. If you look at the "Statements" section of WP:OWN, you'll see your statement smacks of the sort (that is, the sort—certainly not an exact match) of impermissible comments shown in examples 3 ("I'm an expert on the subject. If you have any suggestions, please put them in the talk page and I will review them.") and 6 ("I can see nothing wrong with the article and there is no need to change anything at all."). Your statement essentially boils down to, "I'm right on this issue and nobody else can change the article because I will revert it." I don't mean the following to sound rude, but your comments raise a question: Who, other than your own ipse dixit, says you know what you are talking about? 1995hoo (talk) 12:09, 6 September 2024 (UTC)
Well, given your argument is "Toa is correct as a matter of fact but I think it should be teams anyway", I think you already have admitted I'm correct here, no? Toa Nidhiki05 13:30, 6 September 2024 (UTC)
Practically every other sports league page has a section titled "Teams", not "Clubs", among them being the NBA, NHL, MLB, MLS, CFL, and WNBA.  So, this page should be consistent with the others to avoid confusion. Alielmi1207 (talk) 06:16, 7 October 2024 (UTC)
It doesn't matter what other pages say, or what other leagues call their organizations. Wikipedia's job is not to have a consistent word to apply to all leagues - it is to be accurate. And the accurate term here is "club". Toa Nidhiki05 13:34, 7 October 2024 (UTC)
It seems that club may be the accurate term for soccer, as there are several teams with FC in their name (C for Club), and perhaps for hockey, as we now have the Utah Hockey Club, but not for football, since the former Redskins were known as the Washington Football Team for a couple years. Alielmi1207 (talk) 16:08, 7 October 2024 (UTC)
@Toa Nidhiki05 If you refer to nfl.com, nba.com, nhl.com, and mlb.com, they all have a listing for "Teams" under their pull-down menu.  Only mlssoccer.com refers to it as "Clubs". So, I don't understand how you're concluding that it should be "Clubs" for the NFL. Alielmi1207 (talk) 03:30, 19 October 2024 (UTC)
It looks like we have a single editor displaying WP:OWN tendencies and potentially throwing borderline personal attacks (quote, " A handful of Wikipedia editors who genuinely do not know what they are talking about …"). You should feel free to change the article if you wish. 1995hoo (talk) 13:35, 19 October 2024 (UTC)
You should refrain from personal attacks, especially when you’re objectively in the wrong on the matter. Toa Nidhiki05 16:30, 19 October 2024 (UTC)
How can we be in the wrong when I have pointed out that the league's official website (www.nfl.com) refers to Teams and not Clubs?  Would creating an RfC page to get others' opinions as well be sufficient in resolving this issue once and for all? Alielmi1207 (talk) 17:17, 19 October 2024 (UTC)
The NFL Constitution and bylaws refer to them as "clubs", not teams, as cited in the article. The club is the organization, the team is the, well, team that the club fields. See Article 3:11 Section C on page 11:
The member club shall be held in a separate corporation, partnership, or trust (the “Football Company”), the primary purpose of which shall at all times be and remain the operation of a professional football team as a member club of the League, which such primary purpose shall not be changed, and the only material asset of which shall be the member club.
In other words: the league awards franchises to clubs, who field teams. The proper term for the organizations themselves are "clubs". Referring to the organizations themselves as "teams" is not accurate. The league is composed of clubs, not teams. Toa Nidhiki05 20:10, 19 October 2024 (UTC)
Needlessly pedantic. The league publicly uses "teams" just as readily. Also, that is not unique to the NFL. The MLB and NHL constitutions also officially call their member organizations clubs (the NBA constitution uses "members"), yet those articles all use "teams" because the word is accurate for what the charts contain, as it does here.
Frankly, you being the sole person insisting on "club" repeatedly over the years when everyone else commenting has wanted to change it to "teams" to be consistent with other North American sports leagues has grown into obvious WP:OWN behavior. oknazevad (talk) 01:39, 22 October 2024 (UTC)
It’s not pedantic to expect pages, especially good and featured articles, to be accurate - and “the NBA page says X” is not a good reason to be inaccurate. Toa Nidhiki05 05:33, 22 October 2024 (UTC)
The fact that the league constitution uses a word is not controlling either for Wikipedia purposes. The question is what verifiable, reliable sources use to refer to the organizations. That’s why I said once before that as a technical matter your preferred term is not incorrect—but on Wikipedia, the mere fact that something is "not wrong" does not make it the right, correct, or preferred term to use. This isn’t quite the same principle as the WP:COMMONNAME principle for naming an article, but it’s close. (Let me also add: I think the article's text distinguishes between "clubs," "franchises," and "teams" in fairly high detail.  Given that distinction, there is no need for the heading to use the soccer-ism.) 1995hoo (talk) 11:45, 22 October 2024 (UTC)
It's not just the league constitution, it's the league itself, which consistently refers to the organizations as "clubs". It's not a "soccer-ism" - it's literally what they're called. I'm genuinely bewildered you seem so internet on replacing correct verbiage with incorrect verbiage. Toa Nidhiki05 12:48, 23 October 2024 (UTC)
It's not "incorrect verbiage" at all. As I assume you know quite well, Wikipedia does not necessarily use what a particular organization might deem "official." Wikipedia uses the verifiable most common name for things (thus, for example, Wikipedia consensus is to use "Stanley Cup Finals," rather than the NHL's odd "Stanley Cup Final," because the former is the prevailing term in media reports about that competition). The most common word used to refer to the member organizations of a sports league in North America is "teams," with the exception of by some soccer fans who think they need to use Britishisms for everything and so use weird words like "kit" when they mean to say "uniform," etc. Let me emphasize that I have no quibble with the text of the article referring to the 32 "clubs"—I think the section's text explains it quite well (although this morning I was staring at it thinking the sentence or two about roster size is in the wrong place and should be moved to a location that is not yet apparent to me). My quibble is only with the section heading itself—which, of course, is intended more as an outline-type guidepost to help a reader find material and is more in the nature of a summary. 1995hoo (talk) 13:03, 23 October 2024 (UTC)
I'm not sure why you keep calling this a "soccer-ism" when it, in fact, predates soccer. Maybe you should do some more research on the history of American football. This term has been in use forever in American football. As it stands, all you've effectively done is added incorrect terminology because you personally think "club" sounds like a soccer term. Toa Nidhiki05 13:18, 23 October 2024 (UTC)
I see no point in responding further. We've both made our positions clear; it's also clear (1) that we both believe the other is wrong and (2) neither of us will change the other's mind. Have a nice rest of the day. 1995hoo (talk) 13:32, 23 October 2024 (UTC)
I'll be tagging the section as inaccurate, given your lack of interest in dialogue. Toa Nidhiki05 14:33, 23 October 2024 (UTC)
Pot meet kettle. ~~ Jessintime (talk) 14:44, 23 October 2024 (UTC)
I saw your edit summary claiming I'm "irrational." Quit it with the personal attacks. You're entitled to hold that opinion, but you are not entitled to express it that way. 1995hoo (talk) 14:48, 23 October 2024 (UTC)
Toa, we understand that "club" is the official term per the NFL (you provided the league's constitution as evidence). We don't need to argue that point any further.  In addition, as stated previously "The MLB and NHL constitutions also officially call their member organizations clubs (the NBA constitution uses "members")". I would venture to guess that the MLS constitution also uses the term "club". So, we're not arguing the accuracy of the term, but just trying to be consistent with other North American sports leagues' wiki pages. I'm curious, if you're so adamant that the NFL page state "club", then why are you not advocating the same for the other pages? Alielmi1207 (talk) 14:57, 23 October 2024 (UTC)
It doesn't matter what other pages say. And frankly, I'm not interested in those sports, nor have I researched them. What I am interested in is ensuring this article is accurate. "Franchise" is definitely better than "team", although strictly speaking "franchise" refers only to the league's authorization for a club to have a team in the league. Toa Nidhiki05 15:18, 23 October 2024 (UTC)
Support: I have no idea when this was changed, but it's absolutely not proper to call NFL franchises "clubs". I'd like to see RS that supports the claim of "clubs" being the proper way to refer to these teams, because there's a gigantic mountain of RS that refers to these as teams or franchises. As it stands now, this article reads like it was written by a soccer fan who doesn't actually follow the NFL. Hey man im josh (talk) 14:54, 23 October 2024 (UTC)
@Hey man im josh please clarify what you mean by RS. Alielmi1207 (talk) 15:12, 23 October 2024 (UTC)
@Alielmi1207: On Wikipedia, RS is shorthand for "reliable sources". I'm asking because when trying to find mentions of "NFL clubs", they're overwhelmingly referred to as teams or franchises. As such, I'm looking to see if reliable sources exist that will outweigh the countless sources that refer to the organizations as teams or franchises. Hey man im josh (talk) 15:15, 23 October 2024 (UTC)
Somewhat ironically, the first Google search result for "NFL clubs" is nfl.com/teams. ~~ Jessintime (talk) 15:19, 23 October 2024 (UTC)
Most colloquial articles will use "team" because they are referring to the team on the field. But that's not accurate to refer to the organization itself. See:
The league constitution (cited above)
The league's record and fact book (figures in charge of clubs are referred to as "club officials"; the word "club" is used over 120 times)
What we're talking about in this section are the organizations. Not the players on the field (team), or the authorization (franchise). I don't see a reason to not use the most accurate terminology. Toa Nidhiki05 15:28, 23 October 2024 (UTC)
In that same record book you linked to, the term "team" appears 2,919 times. ~~ Jessintime (talk) 15:31, 23 October 2024 (UTC)
Your own link actually helps to establish my point. The league record book sorts stats by franchise, which is overwhelming the WP:COMMONNAME / common term used to refer to them. Sure, the NFL may use the word club sometimes, but do you have sources aside from them that also do so? I could find thousands of reliable sources that overwhelmingly use team/franchise to refer to the organization. Hey man im josh (talk) 15:33, 23 October 2024 (UTC)
@Toa Nidhiki05: Not even counting news stories, which would demonstrate an overwhelming and unquestionable common usage of team / franchise over "clubs", here's a list of static pages that a number of common sites use:
NFL
Record book – All records/section titles in the index are listed "by franchise", as opposed to by club
NFL Operations, –  "Team Histories" page under "Learn the game", uses franchises and teams, specifically stating the NFL is made up of 32 franchises
Teams list – Teams is used in the header at NFL.com, and this is also the first result when googling "NFL clubs", yet there is no mention of "club" on this page
Team schedules
Pro Football Hall of Fame
Teams page
Search for "club" – Related to stats, not finding mentions for teams specifically
Search for franchise – Turns up tons ~900 entries related to NFL franchises
Pro Football Reference
Teams page – Uses "Franchises"
Arizona Cardinals – Example of how individual team pages use "franchise"
Tom Brady stat page – Column for team, not "club"
ESPN
List of teams
Depth charts for "teams"
Tom Brady stat page – Column for team, not "club"
Yahoo Sports
NFL teams
Tom Brady stat page – Column for team, not "club"
CBS Sports
NFL teams
Tom Brady stat page – Column for team, not "club"
USA Today
NFL teams
Tom Brady stat page – Column for team, not "club"
Encyclopædia Britannica
National Football League – Strictly uses team or franchise
NBC Sports
Landing page – Team in drop down menu
Tom Brady stat page – Column for team, not "club"
Football Database
Teams index
Tom Brady stat page – Column for team, not "club"
Fox Sports
Teams list
While I expect it to change now that I've pointed it out, the 8 relevant search terms for NFL clubs on Wikipedia haven't even been created: National Football League club, National Football League clubs, National Football League Club, National Football League Clubs, NFL Clubs, NFL clubs, NFL Club, NFL club.
Do I need to keep going and compile a list of a thousand RS stories stories that overwhelmingly use team or franchise instead of club to prove that it's the common name and that that's what should be used in the article? Hey man im josh (talk) 16:12, 23 October 2024 (UTC)
Support per sources and reasoning provided by Hey man im josh. Sorry but I've never heard anyone call an NFL team a club before, besides at this article. ~WikiOriginal-9~ (talk) 18:02, 23 October 2024 (UTC)
guys i agree with 2601:2C6:8400:DCF0:A6E7:21:B52A:912D, never in my life ive heard of "club." This is not soccer. Dampscotch (talk) 23:08, 3 June 2025 (UTC)
Support calling NFL franchises "teams" and not "clubs", which is not used as commonly in North American sports (if at all). Hey man im josh's sources pretty much showed "franchise" and "organization" being way more common than club, so where is the WP:COMMONNAME support coming from? ~ Dissident93 (talk) 21:57, 23 October 2024 (UTC)
Weak support - The arguments that the term "club" is not used in relation to NFL teams are absolutely wrong. There's even a quote in the article from Roger Goodell where he uses the term "club". However, this term is not in common use in NFL media and certainly not in colloquial parlance. There are some cases where using the term "club" is appropriate, but not to the extent currently employed in the article. "Team" or "franchise" should be the terms most commonly used, but "club" shouldn't be removed altogether as long it's being used appropriately. – PeeJay 14:14, 24 October 2024 (UTC)
It seems like the discussion has stalled out now. @Toa Nidhiki05, are you willing to accept that there's a general consensus to use team/franchise in place of club, despite the NFL occasionally referring to the franchises as clubs? I ask just so that we can move forward. Hey man im josh (talk) 23:52, 29 October 2024 (UTC)
I mean, does it matter whether I accept it or not? It's going to happen anyway, clearly.. Toa Nidhiki05 00:35, 30 October 2024 (UTC)
@Toa Nidhiki05: It kind of does matter. It's a discussion, one in which we're trying to come to a conclusion on how to edit the article. At the end of the day, you could drag it out based on the status quo and push further, presenting evidence for your point of view. But, based on your lack of response, I sort of thought maybe you were begrudgingly accepting it's viewed as a common name, even if you don't personally agree that's how it should be (been there and felt the same on other stuff as well). I appreciate your contributions and I wanted to be respectful about it instead of trying to steamroll ahead with changes or something. Hey man im josh (talk) 01:23, 30 October 2024 (UTC)
It's clear that editors want to refer to them as something else, it's not like I'm going to edit war and stop it. I'm not going to be happy about it, and I don't think using incorrect terminology on a Good Article is a great idea, but it's clear that editors prefer referring to clubs as franchises or teams. Of the other two terms, franchise is probably more accurate. But given how clearly lopsided the discussion is, you really don't need my approval here. Toa Nidhiki05 01:36, 30 October 2024 (UTC)
This sounds personal 217.8.0.213 (talk) 17:35, 12 August 2025 (UTC)
Either way the Packers are a club founded by a player and owned by the fans and Barcelona are a franchise according to some very bitter Americans 217.8.0.213 (talk) 17:45, 12 August 2025 (UTC)
Not sure what you're getting at. Assadzadeh (talk) 17:51, 12 August 2025 (UTC)
I think he's trying to attack me, even though I don't have a comment in this subthread. He left a vulgar message on my talk page referring to this discussion. I deleted it because I don't bother with people who can't adhere to WP:CIVIL. 1995hoo (talk) 17:54, 12 August 2025 (UTC)
Regardless, I reported the incident to WP:ANI. Assadzadeh (talk) 18:10, 12 August 2025 (UTC)
You know, this whole discussion was resolved and was long-dormant. As far as I can tell, aside from one isolated comment from Dampscotch on June 3, and now the comments today by the IP editor, this entire discussion had been dormant since last October. Does anyone know why it hasn't been archived? 1995hoo (talk) 19:10, 12 August 2025 (UTC)
I don't, but it should have been. Assadzadeh (talk) 19:29, 12 August 2025 (UTC)
it's not personal when its the truth Dampscotch (talk) 06:53, 13 August 2025 (UTC)

In the article, it says the conference president must be approved by 3/4ths of the members or 10, but that’s obviously incorrect. 208.38.225.89 (talk) 03:56, 1 February 2025 (UTC)

This discrepancy has been clarified by adding "whichever is greater" to the sentence. Assadzadeh (talk) 16:27, 3 August 2025 (UTC)

1920 Decatur, IL Staleys
1921 Chicago, IL Staleys
1922 Chicago, IL Bears
They moved from Decatur to Chicago. Shouldn't they also have an asterisk indicating that they've moved at some point in their history? 2601:14C:8000:2153:96AB:E615:A0EC:1C0E (talk) 13:41, 3 August 2025 (UTC)

You are correct, so I added an asterisk. Assadzadeh (talk) 14:31, 3 August 2025 (UTC)

The new map (File:Locations of National Football League teams.svg) of all the teams and conferences/divisions is way too visually busy. The old version (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:US_National_Football_League_Teams_Location-en.svg) was much better due to the lack of state coloring/highlighting and overall was just more clear and visually pleasing. Each state being colored with the division(s) they contain adds clutter and takes away from the simplicity of the map.
The old image was used for almost 15 years, I don't see why it needed to be changed. I'm interested in what you all think. Can it be changed back? DiamondIIIXX (talk) 07:56, 5 August 2025 (UTC)

Greater contrast by using entirely different colors for each division, instead of relying only on the shapes  of the markers (which is difficult to distinguish on smaller screens) to differentiate the corresponding divisions, is superior. The coloring of the states is totally unneeded and overly busy, however. Teams are located based on cities, not states. The state cooling can be ditched with no loss of information whatsoever. oknazevad (talk) 10:26, 5 August 2025 (UTC)
Agreed. — Dissident93 (talk) 19:13, 6 August 2025 (UTC)
I believe the reason the new map was created was because the user wanted the maps for the major professional sports leagues (MLB, MLS, NBA, and NHL) to be consistent with each other. Assadzadeh (talk) 21:41, 6 August 2025 (UTC)
I wanted to maintain a consistent format for all the maps across the major North American leagues. Some of the maps are less busy than others (by virtue of geographic alignments in NBA, NHL, MLS) vs MLB and NFL having different leagues in many different states. NBA and MLS had .png maps with shaded states, so I took that as the basis of a format.
I can update the map to remove the shaded regions for the NFL map if that's the consensus (which seems to be the trend here). Spesh531(talk, contrib., ext.) 01:14, 7 August 2025 (UTC)
My only thing is that the shaded states may make it easier for colorblind people to see distinctions in the divisions, but I can't speak to that since I'm not colorblind. (Coming up with 8 colors that work concurrently for those with protanopia, deuteranopia, or tritanopia is definitely a bit challenging). I've changed the map, though I believe anyone can revert it to the shaded version without needing to get rights to change the image if someone else wanted to chime in, in favor of a shaded map. Spesh531(talk, contrib., ext.) 01:25, 7 August 2025 (UTC)
Although this discussion is specifically in regards to the NFL, I would prefer that there be consistency across the major professional North American sports leagues. So, please consider updating the other ones as well. Assadzadeh (talk) 02:04, 7 August 2025 (UTC)
@Spesh531 The NBA map looks fine to me, it works a lot better due to each state not being involved in more than one division - e.g. Florida has 2 teams but they're all in the Southeast division, while in the NFL, FL is involved in the AFC East and South as well as the NFC South.
If you removed the state shading for the NFL map I think it would greatly improve it. DiamondIIIXX (talk) 07:46, 7 August 2025 (UTC)
@Spesh531 The servers were still caching the old version for me - I didn't realize you had updated it already. I can see the updated version if I go to the image file directly. Looks a lot better. DiamondIIIXX (talk) 07:49, 7 August 2025 (UTC)

I’d like to add YouTube as a streaming partner. 216.144.134.184 (talk) 00:24, 6 September 2025 (UTC)

 Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. If you would like content to be added to the article, please provide the exact text of your proposed addition. Day Creature (talk) 14:22, 6 September 2025 (UTC)

I’ve noticed that on every individual team season pages, the box scores for upcoming games are already filled with zeros for each quarter and the final score. This can be misleading, especially since an NFL regular season game can end in a 0–0 tie. It would be clearer to use em dashes in the box scores of future games instead of zeros. Once the game begins or concludes, those placeholders could then be replaced with the actual scores as the game progresses or after it ends. This method is similar to how box scores for future games are handled on MLB postseason pages. TheVoicelessWriter (talk) 23:22, 2 November 2025 (UTC)

I think you should post your request to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject National Football League. Assadzadeh (talk) 23:30, 2 November 2025 (UTC)
Thanks. I had no idea where to put this. TheVoicelessWriter (talk) 01:31, 3 November 2025 (UTC)
Why do we have box scores for games that haven't happened?--User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 14:10, 19 November 2025 (UTC)
Please post your question to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject National Football League. Assadzadeh (talk) 14:35, 19 November 2025 (UTC)
No, thanks. I'll just go away laughing at how stupid having them is.--User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 18:09, 23 November 2025 (UTC)