There are existing NFL towns that are near to extremely successful college football teams, but breaking into the market would be a different problem. Birmingham is one of many cities on our list (the others being Oakland, Portland, and San Antonio) that had a USFL team in the 1980s. The league only lasted three years, but during its run, the Birmingham Blitz was rated the most popular sports team in Alabama. After the NFL's ban on professional football following the 1969 season, the World Football League started a string of new leagues that lasted through 1975. One of these leagues, the original XFL, played from February to April 2001. If you count both the NFL and the USFL, there have been at least 10 different major professional football leagues in the last 50 years. The closest NFL city to an NCAA school is probably Washington, DC. College Park, Maryland, is only 30 miles away from the NFL's headquarters in New York City. But while Washington has proven itself capable of supporting two NFL teams, Baltimore and Philadelphia each have only one stadium that can accommodate a professional franchise. The same can be said for Cleveland, which has no college program worth mentioning. There are also no NFL teams within 300 miles of Lexington, Kentucky; Little Rock, Arkansas; or Mobile, Alabama. These are all University of Kentucky cities.