page_title: Western Pennsylvania Professional Football Circuit
section_title: Circuit "championships"
hierarchical_section_title: Western Pennsylvania Professional Football Circuit / Circuit "championships"
caption_attribution_description: English: The Latrobe Atheletic Association fielded the first professional football team that played an entire season, in 1897.
context_page_description: The Western Pennsylvania Professional Football Circuit was a loose association of American football clubs that operated from 1890 to approximately 1940. Originally amateur, professionalism was introduced to the circuit in 1892; cost pressures pushed the circuit to semi-professional status from about 1920 through the rest of its existence. Existing in some form for 48 years, it was one of the longest-lived paying football loops to operate outside the auspices of the National Football League.
  The football clubs of the 1880s and 1890s were amateur teams. They were under the membership of an athletic club, which provided both sports and the ability to wager money on the sports. However, the prestige and increased membership that could come from a successful team, led these clubs to begin secretly hiring talented players. The amateur athletics that these clubs engaged in were policed by the Amateur Athletic Union. By the mid-1890s allegations of professionalism became known to the AAU. The Allegheny Athletic Association was found guilty of paying cash to players and was permanently barred from any kind of competition with other AAU members.
caption: Latrobe Athletic Association football team in 1897, the first team to go fully professional for an entire season.
exif: {}