Professional football ( gridiron ) In the United States and Canada , the term professional football includes the professional forms of American and Canadian gridiron football . In common usage , it refers to former and existing major football leagues in either country . Currently ( 2009 ) , there are multiple professional football leagues in North America : the three best known are the National Football League ( NFL ) and the Arena Football League ( AFL ) in the U . S . and the Canadian Football League ( CFL ) in Canada . The NFL has existed continuously since being so named in 1922 . Organization . Compared to the other major professional sports leagues of the United States and Canada , football has comparatively few levels of play and does not have a well - developed minor league system , either official or otherwise . In North America , the top level of professional football is the National Football League , with the Canadian Football League second to the NFL in prominence and pay grade . Despite the lower level of play , the CFL has greater popularity in Canada because of its long history in the country , the lack of NFL teams in Canada ( except the annual Bills Toronto Series game ) , and a general environment of Canadian cultural protectionism . Indoor football has also developed in the United States , beginning with the Arena Football League , which formed in 1987 . The AFL is the second longest running professional football league in the United States after the NFL , although its current incarnation is a separate entity from the original , which folded due to bankruptcy in 2008 . From its debut until 1997 , the Arena Football League operated with a monopoly on the indoor game , due to a broad interpretation that virtually all of the league ' s rules , collectively known as arena football , were covered under its patent ; the Professional Indoor Football League successfully defeated the AFL ' s legal action against it in 1997 , opening the possibility for other indoor football leagues to form . Only one significant aspect of the patent , the large rebound nets the AFL has used since its debut to keep balls in play , was fully protected ; the patent expired in 2007 , although no other professional indoor league has adopted rebound nets since . As of 2011 , two national leagues ( the AFL and the Indoor Football League ) , along with several regional professional and semi - pro leagues , are in operation . As of 2011 , no professional indoor football league has had any significant presence in Canada ( despite an abundance of hockey arenas that are ideal for the game ) ; only one indoor team , the AFL ' s short - lived Toronto Phantoms ( 2000 to 2002 ) , has ever played its games in Canada . The all - female Lingerie Football League is planning a Canadian expansion ( including the Toronto Triumph , which began play in 2011 ) , but that league is currently playing at the amateur level . Up until the 1970s , semiprofessional and minor football leagues would often develop lower end players into professional prospects . Though there are still numerous teams at the semi - pro level in both the United States and Canada , they have mostly dropped to regional amateur status , and they no longer develop professional prospects , in part due to the rise of indoor football . Though Japan ( X - League ) and Europe have professional football leagues composed primarily of national citizens , they are generally of a lower level of play than the Western Hemisphere counterparts , and they do not generally contribute players to North American leagues either . Player development . Professional football is considered the highest level of competition in gridiron football . Whereas most of the other major sports leagues draw their players from the minor leagues , the NFL currently draws almost all of its players directly from college football . College football , in turn , recruits players from high school football , with most potential stars receiving scholarships to play . The source for the vast majority of professional football players is the Division I Bowl Subdivision , with most coming from the six Bowl Championship Series conferences . Under current regulations , players must be at least three years removed from high school graduation to qualify to play in the NFL . Because of these barriers , players who do not play college football have very few options for breaking into the league . The college football development system is a unique feature in the professional football system , stemming from the fact that the game of American football originated at the college level , unlike other sports that were products of independent clubs . Although ostensibly amateurs , college athletes are compensated with five years of free undergraduate college education ( more than enough time to pursue a bachelor ' s degree ) , room and board for their time . As a result of the college system , first - time players ( rookies ) enter professional football older , more mature and more prepared for the professional game than players in other sports . The Canadian Football League has a special requirement that a minimum of half of each team ' s roster be composed of persons who have lived in Canada since childhood . As such , Canadian Interuniversity Sport feeds players to the CFL to meet these quotas , much as the NCAA does in the United States . The remaining half of the roster may be filled by either Canadians or by " imports " ( American players who play in the CFL ) . The NFL has , over the course of its history , recruited rugby union , association football and Australian rules football players from other countries ( particularly those who are retired from competition in their home countries ) to play in the league , almost always as kickers and punters . Rules . The rules of professional football are more likely to vary from league to league than the high school and college levels . Since interleague play is extremely rare , there is no need for a nationwide standard for all leagues , and each league will adopt and discard rules as they see fit . The Arena Football League had a patent on several of its rules that expired in 2007 . Several professional leagues have experimented with rules in an effort to improve the quality of the game or to create a novelty . Nevertheless , the rules of professional football at the outdoor level are nearly identical to those at the high school and college levels , with some minor exceptions ( such as the locations of hash marks , procedures for overtime , and the number of feet required to be in - bounds to catch a forward pass ) . Indoor football ' s rules are closely based on outdoor football but are heavily altered to compensate for the smaller field . U . S . professional football history . The first professional football player . Professional football evolved from amateur " club " football , played by general interest athletic clubs or associations . These clubs began playing football in the 1880s , approximately ten years after the game took form in American colleges . Amateur club football established itself as a somewhat lower quality alternative to the more popular college football ; some of the better teams would play against college teams . Eventually , some ostensibly amateur teams would secretly begin paying players a small sum to cover their expenses on an under - the - table basis , or arrange for amateur athletes to receive jobs in a company connected to the team ( the Olympic Club of San Francisco , California is believed to have done the latter , thus creating the designation of " semi - pro " football in 1890 , before football had gone professional ) ; in most cases , the practice was within the rules of amateurism at the time . The first record of an American football player receiving " pay for play " came in 1892 with William " Pudge " Heffelfinger ' s $ 500 contract to play in a game for the Allegheny Athletic Association against the Pittsburgh Athletic Club , with the second being Ben " Sport " Donnelly ' s $ 250 contract to play for the same team the next week ; the sums were very large by the standards of the day , and like most payment arrangements , both players denied any payment ever took place for much of their lives . For several years afterwards , individual players and sometimes entire teams received compensation to play in " barnstorming " type games without rigid schedules and against a variety of opponents . John Brallier became the first open professional after accepting $ 10 to play for the Latrobe Athletic Association ; Latrobe became the first all - professional club soon after . William Chase Temple would become the first man to directly bankroll a football team himself when he assumed " ownership " of the Duquesne Country and Athletic Club in either 1898 or 1899 . Throughout the 1890s , the Western Pennsylvania Professional Football Circuit would act as the " de facto " major league ( and , in fact , the " only " professional circuit ) for football in the United States ; it , like many of its successors , was not a " league " in the modern sense of a formalized organization , but rather an informal group of teams in free association with each other and any other team willing to play them . The oldest existing professional football club is the Arizona Cardinals , a current member of the National Football League . The Cardinals organization , which was originally based on Racine Street in Chicago , has operated near - continuously since 1913 , but counts an earlier team that played from 1898 to 1906 as part of its history . The Watertown Red & Black is the oldest semi - professional club , tracing its history to 1896 . Early leagues ~ 1902 - 1919 . While the practice of professional and semi - pro teams playing college and amateur teams was common in the 1890s , the Amateur Athletic Union began pressuring and threatening college teams with the loss of amateur status if they did so . Over the course of the first few years of the 20th Century , college and professional football began to diverge , until the NCAA formed in 1906 , giving college football a separate sanctioning body . College - professional interplay effectively ended after the NCAA formed . The next step in pro football stemmed from an unusual source : baseball . For reasons unknown , the champions of the two major leagues at the time declined to play in a World Series that year , as was custom . Instead , teams from each championship city ( Pittsburgh and Philadelphia ) , three in all , received support from baseball teams in their cities and formed the National Football League ( 1902 ) , the first all - professional league . The league hoped to draw fans by featuring stars such as Rube Waddell and Christy Mathewson touring Pennsylvania and New York . It was during this time that Blondy Wallace emerged as the biggest , and most controversial , name in professional football . The league didn ' t draw as many fans as hoped , but promoter Tom O ' Rourke considered the league to be the best teams in America . O ' Rourke brought a coalition of the two Philadelphia teams to his World Series of Football and immediately labeled them the favorite for the tournament . The " New York " team was upset by the Syracuse Athletic Club in the first round . An agreement between the baseball leagues to form modern Major League Baseball led directly to the end of the first NFL . From there , professional football ' s focus moved west , as teams such as the Massillon Tigers and the short - lived Franklin Athletic Club went on buying sprees in an effort to defeat local teams . Massillon ' s buying spree led to the rise of the Ohio League , drawing much of the top professional football talent in America from Pennsylvania to Ohio , including Wallace , who signed with the Canton Bulldogs . Ohio pioneered the concept of playing games on Sundays to avoid competition with college football games ; this was illegal in Pennsylvania ( as well as New York City ) due to still - existing blue law s , but eventually became the professional standard . A fabricated betting scandal , coupled with a lack of competitive games and increasing price tags , effectively ruined the Ohio League by 1907 . Professional football took a step back as the Ohio League relied more on local , cut - rate talent , such as player - promoter George Parratt . By 1915 , however , when Canton signed superstar athlete Jim Thorpe to combat Parratt ' s successful squads , the bidding war was sparked again . However , the New York Pro Football League and other associations in the midwest ( particularly Chicago ) began competing at a level comparable to the Ohio League by 1919 . New York , with future NFL teams such as Buffalo Prospects , Tonawanda Kardex , and Rochester Jeffersons , introduced the playoff tournament to professional football , resulting in Buffalo winning . Barnstorming tours between the circuits , along with the continuing bidding wars , led to the regional circuits forming connections and laying the groundwork for the first truly national professional league . American Professional Football League / Association ~ 1920 - 1921 . A year after the Buffalo Prospects won the first Professional Football championship game , the Ohio League became the American Professional Football League in 1920 . One month later , the league added the Buffalo Prospects and the Rochester Jeffersons , and changed its name to the American Professional Football Association ( APFA ) . In an effort to expand beyond the midwest , the league staged a showcase game between Canton and Buffalo at the Polo Grounds in New York City ( Buffalo won ) in December 1920 . The league did not have a championship game or playoff , setting its championship with a vote of the league owners . The Akron Pros had the best record in 1920 , and the Chicago Staleys were the 1921 " champions , " albeit not without controversy . National Football League ~ 1922 - 1932 . In 1922 , the APFA changed its name to the National Football League . While the Ohio League mostly ceased to exist after the foundation of the NFL ( other than a few independent teams such as the Ironton Tanks and the pre - NFL Portsmouth Spartans ) , the other regional leagues continued . The New York league continued throughout the 1920s , outlasting many of the teams that it had contributed to the NFL , albeit without championships . 1924 saw the foundation of eastern Pennsylvania ' s Anthracite League , the last regional " major league . " The Anthracite League was won by the Pottsville Maroons , who , after one year ( and winning the league title ) , jumped to the NFL . The Anthracite League remanifested itself as the Eastern League of Professional Football , an explicitly minor league , in 1926 and 1927 . From 1922 through 1932 , the NFL still declared as champions the team with the best record . There were no set schedules , and each team did not play the same number of games : some teams played against college or other amateur teams . The confusion reached a peak in 1925 , when the aforementioned Maroons were hailed as the NFL champions by several newspapers after Pottsville defeated the Chicago Cardinals on December 6 , even though there were still two weeks left in the season . This led to other teams scrambling to add extra games , including the Chicago Cardinals , who won two ' extra ' games and claimed the championship . In the melee , the league cancelled games and suspended Pottsville ' s franchise . Through the 1920s , the smaller cities gave up on top - level pro football , while larger cities such as Boston , New York and Philadelphia saw teams take root there . This portion of the NFL ' s existence saw the admission of the Boston Braves , owned by George Preston Marshall who was to exert major positive and negative influences on the league . First American Football League ~ 1926 . In 1926 , teams from nine cities ranging from the New York Yankees to the Chicago Bulls to the Los Angeles Wildcats ( actually based in Chicago ) formed the first American Football League in competition with the NFL . Because of the 1925 shenanigans , the NFL ' s Rock Island Independents left the seven - year - old league to join the AFL . The major attraction of the new league was Red Grange of the Yankees , but the league folded after just one year , with the Yankees being absorbed into the NFL . National Football League ~ 1933 - 1945 . In 1933 , the league divided into the Eastern and Western divisions , and finally instituted a championship game between the division winners . Each team played from 10 to 13 games per season during this period , and by 1945 , the league had two five - team divisions , with each team playing a 10 - game regular season schedule . In 1936 , to select and assign graduating college players to particular Pro teams , the first Professional Football ' entry draft ' was held . The University of Chicago ' s Heisman Trophy - winning running back Jay Berwanger was selected first overall by the Philadelphia Eagles . However , Berwanger chose not to play Professional Football . The league was dominated by the Chicago Bears , Green Bay Packers , and New York Giants , with stars like quarterback Sid Luckman ( Bears ) ; and fullbacks Tuffy Leemans ( Giants ) and Clarke Hinkle ( Packers ) . Even with the stellar fullback Cliff Battles , Marshall ' s team , now called the Redskins , was driven out of Boston in 1936 by a competing league , and he moved his franchise to Washington , DC as the Washington Redskins . Marshall introduced the marching band and a team song to Professional Football , along with other promotional efforts . However , he also refused to have black players on his team , and his influence resulted in the entire NFL excluding blacks after 1934 . In 1939 , NBC broadcast the first - ever televised Professional Football game from Ebbets Field , an October 22 contest between the Brooklyn Dodgers and the Philadelphia Eagles . There were two fixed monochrome iconoscope cameras and a single play - by - play commentator , Skip Walz . Second American Football League ~ 1936 - 1937 . In 1936 , a second American Football League of six teams was formed to challenge the NFL . It included another New York Yankees team , as well as the Cleveland Rams , the predecessor to today ' s St . Louis Rams . Future American Football League ( 1960 – 1969 ) coach and Hall of Famer Sid Gillman played his only year of Professional Football with the Rams . Before this AFL ' s second year , the Rams jumped to the NFL and were replaced by the first Professional Football team to actually play its home games on the West Coast , the Los Angeles Bulldogs , who had several stars including quarterback Harry Newman and end Bill Moore . The Boston Shamrocks , with all - star end Bill Fleming , outdrew the NFL ' s Redskins in 1936 , causing George Preston Marshall to move the team to Washington . However the league as a whole could not compete , and folded after the 1937 season . Also in 1936 , the American Association was founded as a minor league . It played for five seasons , suspending operations for World War II , and returned under the " American Football League " name in 1946 before sputtering to a collapse in 1950 . Third American Football League ~ 1940 - 1941 . Still another try at an American Football League was made in 1940 , with five franchises , including a third New York Yankees team . The league was the first major Professional Football league to complete a double round robin schedule , in which each team played each other twice . The onset of World War II and the resultant draft dried up the source of players for professional football and the new league did not have enough resources to continue . All - America Football Conference ~ 1946 - 1949 . A year after World War II , another new Professional Football league was formed - the All - America Football Conference ( AAFC ) . It attracted some of the nation ' s best football players and posed a serious challenge to the NFL . Like the pre - war AFL , it used a double round robin schedule . The league was dominated by a franchise owned and coached by Paul Brown : the Cleveland Browns , a team that would win the league ' s championship every year of its existence . The Browns featured players such as fullback Marion Motley , quarterback Otto Graham and kicker Lou Groza , while the San Francisco 49ers had running back Elroy ' Crazylegs ' Hirsch and the Baltimore Colts ( not related to today ' s Indianapolis Colts , which began play in Baltimore in 1953 ) fielded quarterback Y . A . Tittle . Paul Brown made many innovations to the game on and off the field , including year - round coaching staffs , precision pass patterns , face masks , and the use of “ messenger guards ” . He was the first coach to film the opposition and break down those game films in a classroom setting , also attributed to him . While the NFL was still segregated , the AAFC ' s Browns became the first modern Professional Football team to sign black players . Although many of its teams outdrew NFL teams , by 1949 the AAFC ' s costs had risen so steeply that the league agreed to a ' merger ' with the NFL . It was more of a ' swallowing ' of the AAFC , with only the Browns , 49ers , and Colts being admitted to the established league , even though the Buffalo Bills drew good crowds and raised funds from citizens to back the franchise . Players from the Bills and the other AAFC teams not ' merged ' were distributed among the NFL teams . Motley , Graham , Groza , Hirsch and Tittle all starred in the NFL after the ' merger ' . Of the three AAFC teams that joined the NFL : National Football League ~ 1946 - 1959 . Following five years of what the league perceived to be weak leadership on behalf of commissioner Elmer Layden ( of Four Horsemen fame ) , league officials appointed Philadelpha Eagles owner - founder Bert Bell as commissioner in 1946 . After twelve years without black players in the NFL , the Los Angeles Rams added them in 1946 , as they were required by their stadium lease to integrate the team . The league had two five - team divisions , each team playing an unwieldy 11 - game schedule , with some teams playing more home games than others . They increased to twelve games the following year , partly because of the success of the rival AAFC ' s 14 - game format . After the AAFC folded , the NFL added three of its teams , for a total of thirteen , but maintained the 14 - game format . The first year after admitting the Cleveland Browns , the NFL was humbled by having the Browns , a team from what it had ridiculed as an inferior league , win its championship . The Browns went on to be NFL champions in three of their first six years in the league . In 1958 , the Baltimore Colts defeated the New York Giants 10 - 3 in professional football ' s first sudden - death championship game , and repeated the victory against the same team in the 1959 NFL title game , this time by a score of 31 - 16 . The Colts had folded after the 1950 season and from 1951 through 1959 the NFL had twelve teams , six each in the East and West conferences . The league during this period featured not only star players absorbed from the AAFC ' merger ' but others such as halfback Frank Gifford ( New York Giants ) ; the Philadelphia Eagles ' quarterback Norm Van Brocklin and receiver Tommy McDonald ; and the Colts ' quarterback Johnny Unitas and running back Lenny Moore . Television coverage of the league was spotty , with some teams starting in 1950 to have individual arrangements with the Dumont Network and NBC . CBS began to televise selected NFL regular season games in 1956 , but there was no league - wide , national television ( the Browns , for instance , held out and syndicated games themselves until the early 1960s when a league - wide contract was imposed ) . Fourth American Football League ~ 1960 - 1969 . By the start of the 1960s , the NFL was complacent in its dominance of the market for Professional Football fans , and had little incentive to expand that market . The AAFC was history , and the NFL had chosen not to capitalize on the boost it had received from the 1958 Colts - Giants sudden - death game . It was content with a 12 - team league playing a 12 - game schedule and featured " ball - control " football . When Texas oilmen Lamar Hunt and Bud Adams tried to purchase existing NFL franchises to move to Texas , or to establish new NFL franchises there , they were told that the conservative NFL was not interested . The result was that Hunt and Adams joined with six other businessmen to form the fourth American Football League ( 1960 – 1969 ) . The league started out by signing half of the NFL ' s 1960 first - round draft choices including the Houston Oilers ' Billy Cannon , and never slowed down . With future Hall of Fame Coaches Hank Stram ( Dallas Texans / Kansas City Chiefs ) and Sid Gillman ( LA / San Diego Chargers ) as well as others like the Buffalo Bills ' Lou Saban , the league offered a more risk - oriented on - field approach that appealed to fans . The AFL also actively recruited from predominantly black colleges and other small colleges , a source the NFL virtually ignored . This led to a higher percentage of minority players , as well as several firsts , such as the first black number one draft choice ( Buck Buchanan , Chiefs ) ; the first black middle linebacker , Willie Lanier , Chiefs ; and the first modern black starting quarterback ( Marlin Briscoe , Broncos ) . The AFL was similar to the AAFC in that it offered innovations , like a return to the double round robin schedule introduced by the earlier league and had eight teams in two divisions like the AAFC . The AFL also introduced official scoreboard clocks , player names on jerseys , the two - point PAT conversion and important off - the field elements such as gate and TV revenue - sharing and national TV contracts . The AFL developed the first ever cooperative television plan for professional football , in which the proceeds of the contract were divided equally among member clubs . ABC and the AFL also introduced moving , on - field cameras ( as opposed to the fixed midfield cameras of CBS and the NFL ) , and were the first to have players " miked " during broadcast games . But the American Football League was different from the AAFC in its overall competitive balance . While the Browns - dominated AAFC had had the same champion every year , six out of the Original Eight AFL teams won at least one AFL championship , and all but one played in at least one post - season game . In addition to traditional eastern cities , it placed teams in Texas , in the West with the Denver Broncos , Oakland Raiders and the Chargers , and eventually in the Midwest Kansas City and the deep South Miami . The league forced a merger with its rival , and made possible the Super Bowl . Although it lost the first two , by its demise it had beaten two NFL teams proclaimed as " the best in history " to win the final two World Championship games between two Professional Football league champions . The decade ended with the AFL retaining its original franchises , plus two expansion teams , and those ten teams represented the first time a major sports league had merged with another without losing a franchise . The legacy of the American Football League is that virtually every aspect of today ' s wildly popular professional football , on and off the field , can be traced to innovations developed by the AFL and adopted by the NFL . National Football League ~ 1960 - 1969 . After the sudden death of commissioner Bert Bell in 1959 , Pete Rozelle was named his replacement . The 1960 NFL had ten teams , only two south of Washington , DC and / or west of Chicago ( the Los Angeles Rams and San Francisco 49ers ) , and none in the Southern United States , where college football still dominated . Though it had rebuffed efforts to move or expand , it immediately was put on the defensive by the new AFL , first causing the owners of the proposed Minnesota franchise in that league to renege for an NFL franchise to start in 1961 , and immediately establishing the Cowboys in previously rejected Dallas , as competition to Hunt ' s Dallas Texans . The NFL also expanded its footprint by moving the Chicago Cardinals to St . Louis , Missouri in 1960 . Later , it impeded the AFL ' s planned expansion to Atlanta by offering that city ' s investor the Falcons ' NFL franchise . Ironically , the Falcons ' replacement in the AFL were the Miami Dolphins who have appeared in five Super Bowls , winning two , while the Falcons were losers in their one appearance . Star NFL players during this period included the Browns ' fullback Jim Brown ; the Green Bay Packers ' quarterback Bart Starr , fullback Jim Taylor and halfback Paul Hornung ; halfback Gale Sayers of the Chicago Bears ; Cowboys receiver Bob Hayes ; the Philadelphia Eagles ' and the Redskins ' Charley Taylor . The AFL ' s influence on the NFL was evident in several ways : in 1962 , the NFL emulated the junior league by arranging its own league - wide national television contract , with CBS ; and late in the ' sixties , the NFL began recognizing the wide talent pool the AFL had tapped in small and predominantly black colleges , and it , too , started scouting and signing from those schools . Tired of raids on players and escalating salaries , in the mid - 1960s , certain NFL owners secretly approached AFL principals , seeking a merger of the two leagues . The merger was agreed to in 1966 , with a championship game to be played between the league titlists , and a merged schedule beginning with the 1970 season , when existing TV contracts could be re - worked . The decade was dominated in the NFL by the Packers , who won four NFL titles , and by the mid - to late 1960s their head coach Vince Lombardi had fashioned a team that , with its ball - control style , would overpower the NFL and carry on to defeat AFL opponents in the first two AFL - NFL Championship Games after the 1966 and 1967 Professional Football seasons . The NFL champions in 1968 , the Colts , and in 1969 the Minnesota Vikings , were each in turn considered to be " the best team in the history of the NFL . " By 1969 , the NFL had grown to 16 teams , with four teams directly attributable to the existence of the AFL : the Vikings , Cowboys , and Falcons , added to compete with the AFL , and the New Orleans Saints , who were added as a reward to Louisiana federal legislators for their support of PL 89 - 800 , which permitted the merger . Likewise , the AFL - NFL wars brought two teams to Missouri ( one in each league ) , marking the first time NFL teams had played in the state since the 1930s . Minor Leagues ~ 1961 to 1973 . Concurrently with the AFL and NFL rivalry , several minor leagues thrived in this era as well . The United Football League lasted from 1961 to 1964 and was concentrated in the midwest . However , in 1962 it was quickly eclipsed by the Atlantic Coast Football League , which was run by the same people ( the Rosentover family ) as the previous American Association of the 1930s . When the UFL folded , and the Newark Bears of the ACFL unsuccessfully applied to join the AFL , two new leagues formed : the Professional Football League of America ( PFLA ) , which ran from 1965 to 1967 , and the more prominent Continental Football League ( ContFL ) , which ran from 1965 to 1969 . The ACFL lost three of its best teams to the ContFL , but survived . The ContFL and ACFL had different strategies : the ContFL had major - league aspirations , while the ACFL was happy as a developmental league and ( like previous leagues run by the Rosentovers ) allowed its teams to become farm teams to the AFL and NFL teams ( for instance , the Hartford Knights were a farm team to the AFL ' s Buffalo Bills ) . The ContFL arguably had better talent that went on to NFL and CFL stardom ( Ken Stabler , Don Jonas , and Sam Wyche ) , but folded after 1969 , and plans to take on the CFL head - to - head were abandoned . The ACFL also produced some significant talent ( e . g . Marvin Hubbard and the first female professional football player , placeholder Patricia Palinkas ) and lasted longer , through 1971 , with a return season in 1973 . The attempted major World Football League sapped the ACFL of most of its talent , and forced it to fold prior to the 1974 season . National Football League ~ 1970 - 1975 . In 1970 , the NFL realigned into two conferences , with the Browns , Steelers and Colts joining the ten former American Football League teams in the American Football Conference and the remaining NFL teams forming the National Football Conference . The AFL ' s official scoreboard clock and jersey - back player names were adopted by the merged league , but the two - point PAT conversion was not adopted until 1994 . The AFL - NFL merger also led to the creation of a weekly showcase game : " Monday Night Football " . Originally broadcast on ABC beginning with the 1970 season , it moved to ESPN in 2006 . All American Football League records and statistics were accepted by the merged league as equivalent to pre - merger NFL records and statistics . Thus , a yard gained in the AFL in 1960 is as valid as a yard gained in the NFL in 1960 . AFL All - Star Game selections and appearances are equivalent to NFL ' Pro Bowl ' choices . They are equivalent , but , however , not identical , and this has caused errors in reporting by some sources . For example , John Hadl is listed in most on - line records as having been selected for the 1970 Pro Bowl , played after the 1969 Professional Football season . However , in 1970 , there were both an NFL Pro Bowl and an AFL All - Star Game . Hadl , of the San Diego Chargers was MVP of the January 1970 AFL All - Star Game . The January 1970 NFL Pro Bowl was a different game , featuring only NFL players . Similar errors are made when players like the Oakland Raiders ' Jim Otto are cited as having " fifteen years of NFL experience . " In fact , Otto had ten years of AFL experience and five years of NFL experience , or fifteen years of " Professional Football " experience . In 1974 , the rival World Football League successfully lured several NFL stars to its upstart league , but collapsed midway through the 1975 season due to financial problems . The Memphis Southmen made an unsuccessful bid to join the NFL , even going as far as to file a lawsuit to attempt to force it , and the Birmingham Vulcans also raised ticket funds to attempt to do the same , but never got as far as Memphis . Neither city has an NFL franchise . Also in 1974 , the NFL , after over four decades of having its goal posts on the goal line ( as Canadian football does ) , finally moved its goalposts back to the end line , as is the norm in high school and college football in the United States . National Football League ~ 1976 - 1994 . In 1976 , the NFL added the Seattle Seahawks and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers to the NFL . To accommodate the larger league , the schedule expanded from 14 games to its current length of 16 games in 1978 . The playoff field was likewise expanded to ten teams , then again to twelve teams in 1990 , where it has remained ever since . The NFL began experiencing problems in the 1980s . Labor stoppages in 1982 ( which led to the NFL season being cut in half ) and 1987 ( resulting in the league using replacement players for three games ) , combined with Al Davis winning a lawsuit to allow his team , the Raiders , to move from Oakland to Los Angeles against league wishes , forced NFL Commissioner Pete Rozelle into retirement . Paul Tagliabue was named his replacement . The NFL backed the minor - league World League of American Football , a league based in the U . S . , Canada , and Europe , which ran for two seasons . After its suspension , two American teams jumped to the Canadian Football League , though only one ( the Sacramento franchise ) would play in that league . United States Football League ~ 1983 - 1985 . The United States Football League was the most significant challenger to the NFL since the American Football League , and the last of any significance to date . The USFL ' s gimmick was to avoid direct head - to - head competition with the NFL and college ball , and play in the spring . Originally intended as a minor league , this ended when several deep pocketed owners began luring top talent such as Herschel Walker to the USFL with high salaries . The groundwork for what eventually led to the demise of the USFL was set mainly by Donald Trump , owner of the New Jersey Generals and a vocal opponent of the league ' s spring football concept , who led a coalition that sought to take the NFL on head - to - head with a fall schedule and later force a merger . This was a major problem for several teams , who were ill - prepared to face the NFL juggernaut , and fans quickly walked away from these lame - duck franchises when it became clear the USFL was done with spring football . The USFL pinned its hopes on an anti - trust lawsuit against the NFL ; though the USFL won the case , it was a Pyrrhic victory , as the jury only awarded damages of US $ 3 . The USFL ' s biggest legacy was the fact that it helped develop some of the best quarterbacks in professional football during the 1990s . Many members of the prolific draft classes of 1983 through 1985 played in the USFL and went on to have strong careers in the NFL and CFL , including Steve Young , Jim Kelly , Doug Williams ( who was actually drafted several years earlier , in 1978 ) , Bobby Hebert and Doug Flutie . Arena Football ~ 1987 - present . Immediately after the USFL suspended operations in 1986 , USFL executive James F . " Jim " Foster began work on a brand new variant of football . Known as " arena football , " the sport was played on a much shorter 50 - yard field and was built heavily on a high - scoring offensive game . After two test games , he launched a professional league , the Arena Football League , in 1987 . The AFL began its 24th season in 2011 , and is currently the United States second longest running professional football league ever , after the NFL . The AFL also had a minor league , AF2 , which ran for 10 seasons , from 2000 to 2009 . The Arena Football League season runs from March to August , culminating with the ArenaBowl championship . In 2011 , the AFL began an 18 - game season with 18 teams . The success of arena football led to a revival of interest in indoor football , particularly after the AFL lost a lawsuit over the extent of its patents in 1998 . As of 2013 , two other national leagues ( American Indoor Football and the Indoor Football League ) and five regional leagues play professional indoor football . One unusual variant of indoor football is the Lingerie Football League , in which scantily clad women play the game by a modified variant of indoor rules . National Football League ~ 1995 – 2001 . The USFL ' s impact was not limited to players , however . The USFL apparently established Oakland , Baltimore , Jacksonville and Arizona as viable markets for professional football . As such , the St . Louis Cardinals moved to Phoenix , Arizona to become the Arizona Cardinals in 1988 . In 1993 , the NFL began exploring expansion , eying one former NFL market ( St . Louis ) , three USFL markets ( Memphis , Baltimore , Jacksonville ) and one former World Football League market ( Carolina ) . The " Carolina Cougars " ( later renamed Carolina Panthers ) and Jacksonville Jaguars received franchises to begin play in 1995 . At the same time , Al Davis , frustrated with Los Angeles , moved back to Oakland ( another former USFL market ) , and Georgia Frontiere concurrently moved her Rams franchise to St . Louis , leaving Los Angeles with no NFL franchises for the 1995 season . Memphis did not receive a permanent franchise , and their proposal moved to the CFL , where it played for one year . Tennessee , however , did not end up empty - handed ; the Houston Oilers moved to Nashville beginning in 1997 , becoming the Tennessee Titans . It was not until after the 1995 season , after Baltimore ' s CFL team won the Grey Cup , that Baltimore got a second look , this time from Art Modell , who took the core of his Cleveland Browns team to Baltimore to found the expansion Baltimore Ravens . The effort effectively killed the CFL ' s American expansion . The Browns returned , restocked with new players and with new ownership , in 1999 . Also borrowed from the USFL was the two - point conversion , which the NFL adopted in 1994 , and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers ' color scheme , which was loosely based on that of the Tampa Bay Bandits . The NFL revived the WLAF in 1995 , this time headquartered solely in Europe , eventually changing the name of the league to the NFL Europe League ( known as either NFL Europe or , in its last season , as NFL Europa , to avoid RAS syndrome ) . Originally having its teams spread across several countries including Spain , England , Scotland , the Netherlands and Germany , by the end of the league ' s run in 2007 , only the Netherlands and Germany ( the latter of which had five of the league ' s six teams ) were still in the league . Strained relations between the NFL and its players ' union quieted down significantly in the 1990s , and the development of free agency as well as a salary cap led to peaceful relations between the two entities for over a decade . This was helped by new television contracts : in 1994 , Fox Broadcasting Company set the tone for broadcast rights to the NFL when it outbid CBS for the right to air NFC games with an unheard - of bid of US $ 395 , 000 , 000 . This brought total broadcast rights fees for the league to over US $ 1 , 000 , 000 , 000 . In 1998 , when CBS outbid NBC for the rights to the AFC , the total rights fees doubled to over US $ 2 , 000 , 000 , 000 . This is in addition to the rights fee for NFL Sunday Ticket , a package offered exclusively to the DirecTV satellite television service , that began in the mid - 1990s . Several short - lived professional leagues arose in the wake of the dot - com boom in the late 1990s . The Regional Football League played one season in 1999 , and the Spring Football League played only two weeks in 2000 . The short - lived , highly - publicized and widely derided XFL played one season in the winter of 2001 . National Football League – 2002 – present . The Houston Texans were added to the league in 2002 to replace the Oilers , bringing the league to an even 32 teams . Roger Goodell took over as commissioner from the retiring Paul Tagliabue in 2006 . Also during this era , the league began expanding its influence overseas . Fútbol Americano , a one - off game in Mexico City , was the first regular - season game held outside the United States in 2005 ; it was followed by the NFL International Series , an annual game held in London on the last week of October since 2007 . In an unrelated move , the Buffalo Bills began their Bills Toronto Series , playing an annual December game in Canada , in 2008 . The Toronto series will run through 2012 . In 2003 , the NFL launched its own in - house network , NFL Network . Beginning in 2006 , at the end of the previous broadcast contract , the NFL launched an eight - game late - season package specifically for the network . The 2006 television contract expanded total annual broadcast rights to over US $ 3 , 000 , 000 , 000 , and the 2011 renewal of those rights pushed the annual total to nearly US $ 5 , 000 , 000 , 000 . Between 2006 and 2022 , the networks will have paid the NFL nearly US $ 70 , 000 , 000 , 000 — a total greater than the resale value of all thirty - two NFL teams combined . The labor peace in the NFL came to a halt in 2010 , when a group of NFL owners invoked an out clause in the league ' s collective bargaining agreement with the players ' union , subsequently imposing a lockout in 2011 . The players ' association responded by disbanding and having its players sue the league for antitrust violations . The two sides came to an agreement in late July 2011 , after one preseason game , that year ' s Pro Football Hall of Fame Game , was lost due to the lockout . The current collective bargaining agreement , which has no opt - outs , lasts through 2021 . Alternate leagues ~ 2009 - present . The United Football League began play in 2009 with an abbreviated " Premiere Season " that featured four teams , two on each coast , in a six - week schedule . The UFL , which mostly featured former NFL players , marked the first professional fall league other than the National Football League to play in the United States since the World Football League in the mid - 1970s . All UFL games aired on Versus and HDnet ; every game was also webcast . The league returned in 2010 with a new expansion team in Omaha , Nebraska and an eight - game , ten - week schedule . From there , however , the UFL collapsed , cutting both its 2011 and 2012 seasons short after four weeks of play and failing to timely play most of its bills . The Stars Football League began play as a four - team league on June 30 , 2011 , with an eight - week schedule . Numerous other professional leagues attempted to launch in the late 2000s and early 2010s , but never materialized , including the All American Football League and the United National Gridiron League . Canadian Professional Football history . Canadian football had similar origins to its American counterparts . Several Canadian professional teams are in fact older than the oldest existing American teams , because they began as amateur rugby organizations . The Canadian game evolved parallel to the American game , but several years behind : the Burnside Rules were adopted in 1905 , and the forward pass ( in place on the American side of the border since 1906 ) was adopted in 1929 after significant pressure from American coaches . The touchdown remained worth five points until 1956 ( mainly due to Canadian pro football holding an American TV contract ) , whereas it had increased to six points in 1912 in the United States . Several relics of the old rules of the game , including goal posts on the goal line , a 110 - yard field , more liberal rules for use of the drop kick , and only three downs , remain in the Canadian game . Canadian football was , prior to the 1950s , dominated by three amateur organizations : the Ontario Rugby Football Union ( ORFU ) , the Interprovincial Rugby Football Union ( IRFU , or " Big Four " ) , and the Western Interprovincial Football Union ( WIFU ) . By 1954 , the IRFU and WIFU had gone professional ( in part thanks to an American television contract from NBC that paid the Big Four more than the one DuMont was offering the NFL ) , and in that year the ORFU dropped out of competition for the decades - old Grey Cup , the championship of Canadian football . This is generally recognized as the moment that began the modern era of Canadian professional football . The WIFU and IRFU formalized an agreement creating the Canadian Football League in 1958 , though inter - divisional play did not happen until 1961 . The CFL has been , at various times in its history , competitive with the NFL in terms of being able to acquire talent , though the league ' s self - imposed rule changes have hampered that in recent years ( for instance , the marquee player exemption to the salary cap that once allowed CFL teams to sign one top - level player is no longer there , and the league has banned signing suspended NFL players ) . It has not been competitive on a team level with the NFL , as evidenced by the fact that in a series of interleague matchups between the IRFU and the NFL in the 1950s and 1960s , the NFL won all six matches . ( The Hamilton Tiger - Cats , the best team in the IRFU at the time , " did " win one game against an American pro team in 1961 , but it was an American Football League team , not an NFL team . ) The league attempted an American expansion in 1993 , using a mix of a former World League team ( Sacramento / San Antonio ) , a rejected proposed NFL franchise ( Memphis ) , a spin - off of a Canadian team ( Shreveport ) , and new expansion teams ( Baltimore , Birmingham , Las Vegas ) , mostly based in the southern and western United States . Of the teams , only the Baltimore Stallions were both financially and competitively successful , and they were retconned into the Montreal Alouettes in 1996 , while all the other American teams folded . The two teams based in Ottawa and Montréal have been in flux for the past three decades . The original Alouettes folded in 1982 ; a Montreal Concordes team was founded the same year to replace them , but the Concordes ( which renamed themselves the Alouettes in 1986 ) folded prior to 1987 . The current Alouettes arrived in Montréal in 1996 , absorbing the two previous Montréal teams ' histories but disowning that of the team that formed its basis , the Baltimore Stallions . The Alouettes ' situation has stabilized since that time . However , the Ottawa Rough Riders folded in 1996 after the team was torn in two by Bernard Glieberman as part of the American expansion experiment ; the Ottawa Renegades were named as Ottawa ' s next CFL team from 2002 to 2005 , but that team also folded , once again with Glieberman being involved . Jeff Hunt currently holds expansion rights to a third Ottawa CFL team as well as the rights to the Rough Riders , but that team was supposed to begin play in 2010 and has since been pushed back to 2013 , due to stadium problems . Outside of the problems in Ottawa and Montréal , and the ill - fated American expansion , the CFL has shown significantly more stability than the American leagues . The league has resisted expanding beyond its current nine teams and has , to date , never moved a Canadian team from one city to another . One particular market that has been a persistent topic of discussion has been the maritime provinces . The CFL approved an Atlantic franchise for Halifax known as the Atlantic Schooners in 1984 provided a stadium with sufficient capacity was built by then ; however , no such stadium was ever built ( the current largest stadium in Halifax , Huskies Stadium , only seats less than half of what CFL rules mandate ) . The Touchdown Atlantic series is a series of one - off games that are played in Atlantic region stadiums ; the first , a preseason game , was held at Huskies Stadium in 2003 . A follow - up game was scheduled for the same venue for 2006 , but was canceled due to the Ottawa Renegades ( who were to play in the game ) folding . The series was revived as a regular season game in 2010 , but instead at New Moncton Stadium in Moncton , which is much closer to the CFL ' s capacity guidelines . Professional football has yet to be played in two provinces : Prince Edward Island ( which is likely too small to accommodate any professional game ) and Newfoundland and Labrador .