History of the National Football League The history of the National Football League has roots spanning as far back as 1892 when former Yale All - American guard William Heffelfinger was paid $ 500 by the Allegheny Athletic Association to play in a game against the Pittsburgh Athletic Club , making him the first ever professional football player . However it wasn ' t until 1920 that American football achieved a league of any true organization . The American Professional Football Association was formed on September 17 , 1920 and included ten teams from four different states . However the APFA lasted only two seasons when it was reorganized on June 24 , 1922 into the National Football League . Only two teams currently in the NFL , the Decatur Staleys ( now the Chicago Bears ) and the Chicago Cardinals ( now the Arizona Cardinals ) , are founding members . League membership gradually stabilized throughout the 1920s and 1930s as the league adopted progressively more formal organization . The first official championship game was held in 1933 . The NFL stopped signing black players in 1927 but reintegrated in 1946 following World War II . Other changes followed after the war ; the office of league President evolved into the more powerful Commissioner post , mirroring a similar move in Major League Baseball . Teams became more financially viable , the last team folding in 1952 . By 1958 , when that season ' s NFL championship game became known as " The Greatest Game Ever Played " , the NFL was on its way to becoming one of the most popular sports leagues in the United States . The rival American Football League was founded in 1959 . It was very successful , and forced a merger with the older NFL that resulted in a greatly expanded league and the creation of the Super Bowl , which has become the most - watched annual sporting event in the United States . The league continued to expand to its current size of 32 teams . A series of labor agreements during the 1990s and increasingly large television contracts has helped keep the league one of the most profitable in the U . S . , and the only major league in the U . S . since 1990 to avoid a major work stoppage . Beginnings . The National Football League was the idea of legendary American - Indian Olympic athlete Jim Thorpe , player - coach of the Canton Bulldogs , and Leo Lyons , owner of the Rochester Jeffersons , a sandlot football team . Both the Jeffersons and the Buffalo All - Stars were barnstorming through Ohio at the time . After Lyons ' s Jeffersons played , and lost badly to , Thorpe ' s Bulldogs in a 1917 match , Lyons ( wanting to build a sport that rivaled Major League Baseball in popularity ) suggested to Thorpe that a league be formed . Plans could not be initiated immediately in 1918 , due to the Spanish flu quarantines and the loss of players to World War I , which led to the Bulldogs suspending operations and most other teams either suspending operations or reducing their schedules to local teams . The teams in New York remained in operation and picked up whatever players were still available . The next year , however , Lyons started in his home state of New York , challenging a cluster of professional teams in Buffalo to a championship in 1919 ; the Buffalo Prospects took the challenge and won . Canton was already a part of the unofficial Ohio League , which included teams such as the Bulldogs , the Massillon Tigers , the Shelby Blues and the Ironton Tanks ; Thorpe convinced Bulldogs manager Ralph Hay and other Ohio teams to play under a league - style format for 1919 , after which the team barnstormed against the Detroit Heralds of Detroit , MI and the Hammond Pros of Chicago , IL . Other independent clusters of teams were playing at about the same time across Illinois , Wisconsin , Minnesota and Indiana ; Pennsylvania and New York City also had teams but did not contribute any to the NFL at the time of its founding . Ohio ' s teams , usually considered the best in the country at the time , went along with the idea in the face of escalating costs : several bidding wars in the early 1900s , both in Pennsylvania and Ohio , had damaged the sport significantly , and another bidding war was about to erupt if something was not done . By forming a national league , teams reasoned that it would eliminate the practices of looting other teams ' rosters and concentrating top talent in only a few teams , thus distributing talent more evenly and efficiently thereby reducing costs for each individual team while still keeping a top - level product on the field . A New League is Born . In August 1920 , at a Hupmobile dealership in Canton , Ohio , the league was formalized , originally as the American Professional Football Conference , initially consisting only of the Ohio League teams , although some of the teams declined participation . One month later , the league was renamed the American Professional Football Association , adding Buffalo and Rochester from the New York league , and Detroit , Hammond , and several other teams from nearby circuits . The eleven founding teams initially struck an agreement over player poaching and the declaration of an end - of - season champion . Thorpe , while still playing for the Bulldogs , was elected president . Only four of the founding teams finished the 1920 schedule and the undefeated Akron Pros claimed the first championship . Membership of the league increased to 22 teams – including more of the New York teams – in 1921 , but throughout the 1920s the membership was unstable and the league was not a major national sport . On June 24 , 1922 , the organization changed its title a final time to the National Football League . Two charter members , the Chicago Cardinals ( now the Arizona Cardinals ) and the Decatur Staleys ( now the Chicago Bears ) , are still in existence . The Green Bay Packers franchise , founded in 1919 , is the oldest team not to change locations , but did not begin league play until 1921 . The Portsmouth Spartans joined the NFL in 1930 , relocating to Detroit in 1934 to become the Lions . The Indianapolis Colts franchise traces its history through several predecessors , including one of the league ' s founding teams – the Dayton Triangles – but is considered a separate franchise from those teams and was founded as the Baltimore Colts in 1953 . Although the original NFL teams representing Buffalo , Cleveland , Chicago and Detroit no longer exist , replacement franchises have since been established for those cities . Early championships were awarded to the team with the best won - lost record , initially rather haphazardly , as some teams played more or fewer games than others , or scheduled games against non - league , amateur or collegiate teams ; this led to the title being decided on a tiebreaker in 1921 , a disputed title in 1925 , and the scheduling of an impromptu indoor playoff game in 1932 . In league meetings prior to the 1933 season , two new teams , the Pirates and the Eagles , were admitted to the NFL on July 8 , 1933 . Ten teams were now in the NFL and , at George Preston Marshall ' s urging , with Halas ' support , NFL was reorganized into an Eastern Division and a Western Division . In the Eastern Division were the Philadelphia Eagles , Brooklyn Dodgers , New York Giants , Boston Redskins , and the Pittsburgh Pirates . In the Western Division were the Chicago Bears , Portsmouth Spartans , Chicago Cardinals , Green Bay Packers , and the Cincinnati Reds . Furthermore , the two owners convinced the league to have the two division winners meet in a " NFL Championship Game " . By 1934 , all of the small - town teams , with the exception of the Green Bay Packers , had moved to or been replaced by teams in big cities , and even Green Bay established a relationship with much larger Milwaukee for support . During the early years of the league , rather coming up with original team names , many of NFL teams simply chose the name of the Major League Baseball team in the same city . Thus the Pittsburgh Steelers were the " Pittsburgh Pirates " for the first seven years of existence and other teams such as the Brooklyn Dodgers , Cleveland Indians , Cincinnati Reds , Detroit Tigers , New York Yankees , and Washington Senators all represented the NFL at one time or another . An annual draft of college players was first held in 1936 . The first televised NFL game was on October 22 , 1939 in a game the Eagles lost 23 - 14 to the host Dodgers at Ebbets Field . It was during this era , however , that the NFL became segregated : there were no black players in professional football in the United States between 1933 and 1945 , mainly due to the influence of self - admitted bigot George Preston Marshall , who entered the league in 1932 as the owner of the Boston Braves . Other NFL owners emulated Marshall ' s tactics to mollify southern fans , and even after the NFL ' s color barrier had been broken in the 1950s , Marshall ' s Washington Redskins remained all - white until forced to integrate by the Kennedy administration in 1962 . Despite his bigotry , Marshall was selected as a charter member of the NFL - inspired Pro Football Hall of Fame . College football was the bigger attraction , but by the end of World War II , pro football began to rival the college game for fans ' attention . Rule changes and innovations such as the T formation led to a faster - paced , higher - scoring game . The league also expanded out of its eastern and midwestern cradle ; in 1945 , the Cleveland Rams moved to Los Angeles , becoming the first big - league sports franchise on the West Coast . In 1950 , the NFL accepted three teams – the Cleveland Browns , San Francisco 49ers , and Baltimore Colts – from the defunct All - America Football Conference , expanding to thirteen clubs . In the 1950s , with league games being broadcast on national television , pro football finally earned its place as a major sport . Black players . At its inception in 1920 , the NFL ' s precursor , the American Professional Football Association , had several minority players , including African - American players : between 1920 and 1926 , nine black players suited up for NFL squads . It was also common , due to the number of talented players that were produced by the Carlisle Indian School ' s football team , to see teams ( both inside and outside the NFL ) openly market Native Americans ; in fact , the Oorang Indians of 1922 to 1923 consisted entirely of Native American talent . However , since Carlisle had closed in 1918 , the talent pool of Indians had dried up . Meanwhile , all black players in the NFL ( including future Hall of Famer Fritz Pollard ) were summarily kicked out prior to the 1927 season for reasons unexplained . From 1928 to 1932 , no more than one black player could be found in the league each season , and none played more than two seasons . In 1933 , there were two : Joe Lillard and Ray Kemp . Lillard was kicked off the Chicago Cardinals for fighting , while Kemp left to pursue what would become a successful coaching career . The moves left the league as all - white , and Boston Redskins owner George Preston Marshall allegedly used his pressure to keep it that way for the next several years , though each team ' s internal politics and cronyism , as well as the rising tide of racism in the United States as a whole , also played a significant role . Even during the wartime years , when much of the NFL ' s talent was overseas fighting World War II , players such as Kenny Washington who stayed in the United States were still passed up in favor of white players with normally debilitating medical conditions such as partial blindness . NFL integration occurred only when the Cleveland Rams wanted to move to Los Angeles , and the venue , the Los Angeles Coliseum , required them to integrate their team . They then signed two black players , Kenny Washington and Woody Strode . Other NFL teams eventually followed suit , but Marshall refused to integrate the Redskins until forced to by the Kennedy administration as a pre - condition for using D . C . Stadium ( now RFK Stadium ) . In spite of this open bias , Marshall was elected to the NFL ' s Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1963 . In 1946 , the Cleveland Browns of a rival Professional Football league , the All - America Football Conference , signed two black players . By 1960 , the NFL ' s new competitor , the American Football League , actively recruited players from smaller predominantly black colleges that had been largely ignored by the NFL , giving those schools ' black players the opportunity to play professional football . Early AFL teams averaged more blacks than did their NFL counterparts . However , despite the NFL ' s previous segregationist policies , the clear competitive advantage of AFL teams with liberal signing policies affected the NFL ' s drafts . By 1969 , a comparison of the two league ' s championship team photos showed the AFL ' s Chiefs with 23 black players out of 51 players ( 45 % ) pictured , while the NFL ' s Vikings had 11 blacks , of 42 players ( 26 % ) in the photo . Chiefs players have been quoted as saying that one motivating factor in their defeat of the Vikings was their pride in their diverse squad . Recent surveys have shown that the current , post - merger NFL is approximately 57 – 61 % non - white ( this includes African Americans , Polynesians , non - white Hispanics , Asians , and people that are mixed race . ) The Merger . By the middle of the 1960s competition for players , including separate college drafts , was driving up player salaries . In 1965 , in the most high profile such contest and a major boost to the AFL , University of Alabama quarterback Joe Namath signed with the New York Jets rather than the NFL ' s St . Louis Cardinals for a then - record $ 427 , 000 . In 1966 , the NFL ' s New York Giants broke an informal agreement and signed placekicker Pete Gogolak , who was under contract to the AFL ' s Buffalo Bills . Then AFL Commissioner Al Davis embarked on a campaign to sign players away from the NFL , especially quarterbacks , but behind the scenes a number of NFL team owners began action to end the detrimental rivalry . Several NFL franchises led by Cowboys General Manager Tex Schramm asked to meet with AFL owners to negotiate a merger . In an agreement brokered by Schramm and AFL founder Lamar Hunt , the two leagues announced their merger deal on June 8 , 1966 . The leagues would thenceforth hold a Common Draft and an end - of - season World Championship Game between the two league champions ( later known as the Super Bowl and reverting to simply an NFL championship game ) . Still another city received an NFL franchise thanks to the AFL , as New Orleans was awarded an NFL team after Louisiana ' s federal Congressmen pushed for the passage of Public Law 89 - 800 , which permitted the merger and exempted the action from Anti - Trust restrictions . The monopoly that would be created needed to be legitimized by an act of Congress . In 1970 , the leagues fully merged under the name National Football League and divided into two conferences of an equal number of teams . There was a financial settlement , with the AFL teams paying a combined $ 18 million over 20 years . Although the AFL ' s identity was subsumed by the NFL , the new league eventually adopted many of the AFL ' s innovations including the on - field game clock , names on player jerseys , recruiting at small and predominantly black colleges , gate and television revenue - sharing , establishment of southern franchises , and more wide - open offensive rules . Modern era . In the 1970s and 1980s , the NFL solidified its dominance as America ' s top spectator sport and its important role in American culture . The Super Bowl became an unofficial national holiday and the top - rated TV program most years . " Monday Night Football " , which first aired in 1970 , brought in high ratings by mixing sports and entertainment . Rule changes in the late 1970s ensured a fast - paced game with lots of passing to attract the casual fan . The World Football League was the first post - merger challenge to the NFL ' s dominance , and in 1974 , successfully lured some top NFL talent to its league and prompted a few rules changes in the NFL . However , financial problems led the league to fold halfway through its 1975 season . Two teams , the Birmingham Vulcans and Memphis Southmen , made unsuccessful efforts to move from the WFL to the NFL . The founding of the United States Football League in the early 1980s was the biggest challenge to the NFL in the post - merger era . The USFL was a well - financed competitor with big - name players and a national television contract . However , the USFL failed to make money and folded after three years . The USFL filed a successful anti - trust lawsuit against the NFL , but the remedies were minimal , and mismanagement ( most notably , a planned move of its niche spring football season to a head - to - head competition in the fall ) led to the league ' s collapse . 2001 saw the establishment of the XFL , an attempt by Vince McMahon and NBC , which had lost the NFL broadcast rights for that year , to compete with the league ; the XFL folded after just one season . Unlike the WFL and USFL , the XFL had no impact on the NFL ' s rules or franchise locations ( its attempts at innovations were often ridiculed ) , but a few NFL players used the XFL to relaunch their careers . The United Football League , which began play in 2009 , had originally planned to take a direct challenge to the NFL with NFL - comparable salaries and teams in New York City and Los Angeles , but the UFL never did play in those cities ( an ostensibly New York team played in Long Island and New Jersey ) , cut back its salaries , and instead opted for a complementary approach with teams in cities such as Las Vegas , Orlando and Hartford . Several other upstart leagues ( such as the AAFL , UNGL , and New USFL ) are also planned , but they have all been set back by financial and organizational problems , and none have taken the field yet ; all of these proposed leagues will play in the spring and have no plans to compete with the NFL , either for talent or for fans . On August 31 , 2007 , a story in " USA Today " unveiled the first changes to the league ' s shield logo since 1970 , which took effect with the 2008 season . The redesign reduced the number of stars in the logo from 23 ( which were found not to have a meaning beyond being decorative ) to eight ( for each of the league ' s divisions ) , repositioned the football in the manner of the Vince Lombardi Trophy , and changed the " NFL " letters to a straight , serifed font . The redesign was created with television and digital media , along with clothing , in mind . The shield logo itself dates back to the 1940s . International expansion . In recent years , the NFL has expanded into new markets and ventures outside of the United States , beginning with a regular series of exhibition games known as the American Bowl , then with a European based developmental league culminating in the now defunct NFL Europa , and starting in 2005 the league began hosting regular season games outside the United States , the first in Mexico City , Mexico , and then from 2007 hosting games London , England , and from 2008 in Toronto , Canada . The American Bowl games began in 1986 and continued until 2005 at various sites in countries around the world . Then in 1991 , the league formed the World League of American Football , later known as NFL Europe and still later as NFL Europa , a developmental league that had teams in Britain , Germany , Spain , and the Netherlands . The NFL shut down the program in June 2007 . The league played a regular - season NFL game in Mexico City in 2005 , the first - ever NFL regular season game held outside the United States , and marketed across the league as the Fútbol Americano game . On October 28 , 2007 , a regular season game between the Miami Dolphins and the New York Giants was held outside of North America for the first time in Wembley Stadium , the 90 , 000 - seat national stadium , in London . It was a financial success with nearly 40 , 000 tickets sold within ninety minutes of the start of sales , and a game - day attendance of over 80 , 000 . In 2008 , the New Orleans Saints and San Diego Chargers played at Wembley , and in October 2009 , the New England Patriots and Tampa Bay Buccaneers met . In 2010 , it was the Denver Broncos and the San Francisco 49ers that played in London . Starting from the 2008 - 09 season , building on league links with Toronto , the Buffalo Bills play an annual home game in Toronto ' s Rogers Centre , marketed by the team as the Bills Toronto Series . After 100 years of American football influence in Mexican territory , in 1998 NFL opened a representation office in Mexico , called NFL México , as the NFL identified Mexico as a key market outside the United States due to proximity and tradition . The Mexican office handles sponsorship , licencing , detail dealers , sport culture , broadcasting , public relationships and community service . Franchise relocations and mergers . In the early years , the league was not stable and teams moved frequently . Franchise mergers were popular during World War II in response to the scarcity of players . An example of this was the Steagles , temporarily formed as a merger between the Pittsburgh Steelers and Philadelphia Eagles . Franchise moves became far more controversial in the late twentieth century when a vastly more popular NFL was free from financial instability and allowed many franchises to abandon long - held strongholds for perceived financially greener pastures . This was done in spite of the promises to Congress by Pete Rozelle in 1966 that if the AFL - NFL merger were allowed , no city would lose its franchise . Those promises were made to ensure passage of PL 89 - 800 , which granted anti - trust immunity to the merged professional football leagues . While owners invariably cited financial difficulties as the primary factor in such moves , many fans bitterly disputed these contentions , especially in Cleveland ( the Rams and the Browns ) , Baltimore ( the Colts ) , Houston ( the Oilers ) , and St . Louis ( the Cardinals ) , each of which eventually received teams some years after their original franchises left ( the Browns , another Browns , Ravens , Texans , and Rams , respectively ) . Notably , Los Angeles , the second - largest media market in the United States , has not had an NFL team since 1994 after both the Raiders and the Rams relocated elsewhere . However , a new stadium project , tentatively known as Los Angeles Stadium , was approved in 2009 with the expressed purpose of attracting an NFL team to the Los Angeles market . Popularity . While baseball is known as " America ' s national pastime , " football is the most popular sport in the United States . According to the Harris Poll , professional football moved ahead of baseball as the fans ' favorite in 1965 , during the emergence of the NFL ' s challenger , the American Football League , as a major professional football league . Football has remained America ' s favorite sport ever since . In a Harris Poll conducted in 2008 , the NFL was the favorite sport of as many people ( 30 % ) as the combined total of the next three professional sports – baseball ( 15 % ) , auto racing ( 10 % ) , and hockey ( 5 % ) . Additionally , football ' s American television viewership ratings now surpass those of other sports , although football season comprises far fewer games than the seasons of other sports . However , the Harris Poll only allows one unaided selection of a " favorite sport . " Other studies and polls such as the ESPN Sports Poll and the studies released by the Associated Press ( AP ) and conducted by Sports Marketing Group ( SMG ) from 1988 to 2004 , show far higher levels of popularity for NFL football since they list from thirty to over 100 sports that each respondent must rate . According to the AP , the SMG polls from 1988 to 2004 show NFL football to be the most popular spectator sport in America . The AP stated that " In the most detailed survey ever of America ' s sports tastes " researching " 114 spectator sports they might attend , follow on television or radio or read about in newspapers or magazines , the NFL topped all sports with 39 percent of Americans saying they loved it or considered it one of their favorites . " The total percentage of Americans who liked or loved NFL Football exceeds 60 % of the American Public . In a 2003 study conducted by SMG and released by the AP , the NFL was loved or liked a lot by 42 . 8 % of Americans over 18 . The NFL has the highest per - game attendance of any domestic professional sports league in the world . However , the NFL ' s overall attendance is only approximately 20 % of Major League Baseball , due to the latter ' s longer schedule ( 162 - game scheduled regular season ) . A 2007 Turnkey Sports & Entertainment ' s Team Brand Index for " team loyalty " ranked NFL teams in twelve of the top twenty - five spots out of 122 total between the four major sports leagues . The Pittsburgh Steelers and their fanbase had the top spot , while the New England Patriots , and Indianapolis Colts had the following two spots , followed by the New Orleans Saints at number seven and the Green Bay Packers and their fanbase ranked at number ten . The Arizona Cardinals finished last in the entire survey of 122 teams , though the survey was taken before the team ' s appearance against the Steelers in Super Bowl XLIII .