National Football League ( 1902 ) The National Football League ( NFL ) was the first attempt at forming a national professional football league in 1902 . The league has no ties with the modern National Football League . In fact the league was only composed of teams from Pennsylvania , which was hardly " national " . Two of the teams were based in Philadelphia , while the third was based in Pittsburgh . The NFL was a curious mixture of football players and baseball players who adapted to playing football . Future Rube Waddell was with the Philadelphia Athletics , and Christy Mathewson a fullback for Pittsburgh . Two of the three teams were owned by the Philadelphia Phillies and Philadelphia Athletics , with the third team suspected of being owned by the Pittsburgh Pirates . The league folded after the 1902 season . History . Founding . Ironically the roots of the league lie with baseball , not football . It began as a part of the baseball wars between the National League and the new American League that began in 1901 . In Philadelphia the AL ' s Athletics lured several of the NL ' s Phillies from their contracts , only to lose them again through court action . When Phillie owner John Rogers decided to start a football team , the Athletics followed suit . A ' s owner Ben Shibe fielded a team made - up of several baseball players as well as some local football talent . He appointed his baseball manager Connie Mack as the team ' s general manager and named former Penn player , Charles " Blondy " Wallace as the team ' s coach . Each Philadelphia team was named after their respective baseball clubs and became the Athletics and Philadelphia Phillies . However both Rogers and Shibe knew that to lay claim ( to what the hoped would be ) the " World Championship " ; they had to play a team from Pittsburgh , which was the focal point of football at the time . They called on pro football promoter Dave Berry and a Pittsburgh team was soon formed around a championship team from Homestead . This team was named the Stars , after the number of football players on the team who were considered football stars during the era . The team was owned and operated by Berry , the former manager of the Latrobe Athletic Association . However many historians believe that due to Berry ' s limited wealth and the amount of talent on team , that Pittsburgh Pirates owner Barney Dreyfuss and Pirates president William Chase Temple may have secretly owned the team . The first league had no bylaws , no offices and no schedule - making powers . However three of the top professional football teams in country helped make up for those shortfalls . These three teams are all that made up the 1902 NFL . Due to the animosity that existed between Philadelphia ' s Shibe and Rogers , Dave Berry was picked to the league ' s president . Attempts were initially made to expand the league outside of Pennsylvania into other major cites like Chicago and New York City . However neither city was interested in joining the league at the time . 1902 season . With all the baseball involvement , training didn ' t get underway for the football teams until September 29 , 1902 with the season was scheduled to open a week later on October 4 . However , most of the players were already in shape . Besides the baseball players , many of the others had jobs that kept them in good condition . For example , Pittsburgh halfback , Artie Miller , came in after a summer ' s lumberjacking in the Wisconsin woods . To make the preseason even less stressful , the average football team in 1902 only used about a half - dozen plays and they were all standard . The league played all of its games on Saturdays , since there were no Sunday sports events according to Pennsylvania blue laws in 1902 . The Pittsburgh team played all of its home games at the North Shore Coliseum , while the two Philadlephia teams used their own respective baseball stadiums , Columbia Park and National League Park , for home games . Each team played two games against each of other two teams . When they were not playing each other , the teams played various teams from colleges and athletic clubs from Pennsylvania and southern New York state . On Thanksgiving Day 1902 , Berry billed a game between the Stars and the Athletics as being for the championship of the National Football League . The Athletics had split on the season with the Phillies , as had Pittsburgh . Although a Philadelphia victory on Thanksgiving would give the A ' s the championship hands down , a win by the Stars could tie the league race tighter . Mack readied his A ' s for the big game by playing an exhibition tour through northern Pennsylvania and southern New York . In Elmira , New York the Athletics joined in the first night game in pro football history . Lights were set up along the sidelines and giant searchlights glared from behind the goal posts . The A ' s won the game 39 – 0 over the Kanaweola Athletic Club . 1902 championship first attempt . When Mack agreed to Berry ' s championship game , he was promised $ 2 , 000 for his team ' s participation . However when he arrived in Pittsburgh , he saw that the stands were pretty much empty and since his $ 2 , 000 came from the ticket sales at the gate , it looked as if he wouldn ' t be getting his $ 2 , 000 and his team would be stranded , with no money , in Pittsburgh . Therefore seeing no reason to take the field , Mack refused to play until his team was paid their share of the gate , $ 2 , 000 . It looked as if the game wouldn ' t be played . However Mack received a check for $ 2 , 000 from William Corey , the head of Carnegie Steel who impatiently wanted to see the game , and the game soon began . Corey got his money ' s worth , if he liked evenly matched games . Both teams played at their best to a scoreless tie . It was a fair verdict , but Berry ' s " championship game " hadn ' t decided anything . 1902 championship . Another championship game was soon planned between Berry and Mack . But because of a lack of funds Berry almost ended up cancelling the game . However , he later promised to his players , they would all share equally in Saturday ' s game , which was sure to be a sell - out . After some complaints were addressed , everything was set . The crowd was a little better on Saturday , but not much . About 2 , 000 fans showed up , and the players knew before the game began that they were going to come up short at pay time . The game looked like it might once again end in a tie . However a late touchdown by Ellis and another by Artie Miller led Pittsburgh to an 11 – 0 win over the Athletics . Afterwards . Not many fans noticed the championship win . The Pittsburgh players were too busy suing Temple for their Thanksgiving Day money to do much gloating over their victory , and the story disappeared from the newspapers before the suit was settled . Most of the players tried it again with Franklin or Canton or Massillon in the next few years . The Philadelphia Athletics went home and beat the Phillies to wrap up second place . It was a nice win and gave them the city championship , but that ' s all it was ; the season was won by Pittsburgh the week before . Meanwhile several members of the Athletics and the Phillies went on to play in the first World Series of Pro football on a team erroneously named " New York " at Madison Square Garden ( the " error " was deliberate as the tournament ' s founder felt that the combined team was the best in the event , and bestowed upon them home field advantage for the tournament ) . New York and Syracuse AC played in the first indoor football game in front of 3 , 000 spectators , on December 28 , 1902 . Syracuse , with Glenn Scobey " Pop " Warner at offensive guard , won the game 6 – 0 and went on to win the tournament . The league quietly folded , and the war between the baseball leagues was resolved the next spring . While the NFL thrived in Philadelphia , it never took hold in Pittsburgh . Public relations errors by Berry resulted in a lukewarm reaction to the franchise . Many Pittsburghers followed their local athletic clubs and colleges more than the Stars . In fact the Washington and Jefferson Presidents football team had a much greater following than the Stars . It would not be until 1920 that the idea for a true " national football league " would come to be accepted . Controversy . With the win , A ' s players decided to call the Stars game an exhibition , and declared themselves the champs . However the team had agreed to that season - ending championship game against Pittsburgh the Saturday after Thanksgiving , and they had lost it . This was recognized by all parties at the time as the championship game . Each team carried a record of 2 – 2 for league play . Pittsburgh had by far the better point ratio , scoring 39 points to their opponents ' 22 . Both the Athletics and the Phillies gave up more points than they scored in their league games . Finally Dave Berry used his power as league president and name his Stars the 1905 champions . 1917 restart attempt . In 1917 , an unnamed representative from a professional football club in Detroit attempted to start a professional football league , based on the model of the 1902 NFL . The plan called for the league to be backed by Major League Baseball , with the teams to be based in Chicago , New York City , Detroit , Michigan , Pittsburgh , Indianapolis , Cleveland and Columbus . Several of these metropolitan areas and cities had existing professional clubs in the Ohio League and various other " major regional " leagues of the era , such as the Detroit Heralds , Columbus Panhandles , and the McKeesport Olympics ( in the Pittsburgh metro area ) , and Cleveland , though it did not have an Ohio League team at the time , was not very far away from the Northeast Ohio trifecta of dominant pro football teams : the Canton Bulldogs , Akron Pros and Massillon Tigers . Philadelphia also had a strong semi - pro football circuit , which included ( among other teams ) the Union Club of Phoenixville , 30 miles northeast of Philadelphia . Under the proposal , teams would then begin play immediately after baseball season concluded and continue as long " as the weather is favorable . " To build name recognition , it was determined that those baseball players with sufficient football skill would be featured on league rosters with the remaining slots filled by ex - college football players . The games would be played in the baseball parks such as Forbes Field , Comiskey Park , the Polo Grounds and Navin Field . The unnamed agent pitched the idea Frank Navin , the owner of Detroit Tigers , and Charles Comiskey , the owner of the Chicago White Sox . Comiskey was told reporters , " If pro football can be made to pay it will be an answer to a problem that has confronted baseball owners since the game started . For years we have been going along using our ballparks three months in a year , only to see the property lie idle the other nine months . " He then stated that he would take the upcoming week to think over the proposal . The story was only closely examined by only two national newspapers , the " Philadelphia Inquirer " and " Los Angeles Times " . On January 4 , 1917 , an editorial in the " Inquirer " declared the idea " no good in Philadelphia " and supported their conclusion by citing a similar idea of fifteen years earlier , which was " long remembered as a failure " . The commentary ended with a statement that college football was too big and would always draw a bigger crowd , that the pro game . Meanwhile the " Los Angeles Times " featured two articles on the pros and cons of a professional football league . " Times " columnist , Harry A . Williams , supported the idea of a league , however he felt that the league would have a better chance by teaming up with teams associated with the Pacific Coast League instead of major league baseball , due to the warmer weather . The opposing opinion was given by Warren Bovard , the manager of the University of Southern California football team , who stated that football is tailored for colleges and not professional play . He then stated that pro football would have to rely on all - star games , which draw well at first , but fail to hold any long term interest . However after Bovard ' s article , all mention of the new league disappeared from the papers . Comiskey ' s decision to take part in organizing a new professional football league based on the 1902 NFL , was never made public . All interest in the story died by April 1917 , when the country entered into World War I , a flu pandemic swept the world , and virtually all of the professional football teams in the country shut down or drastically scaled back operations . The modern National Football League , formed as a confederation of the existing professional football clubs and with no baseball backing , was established three years later in 1920 .