NFL History Introduction

In A Nutshell

The NFL is mighty today, but believe it or not, has a humble past. 

The story of the National Football League is the greatest success story in the history of American sports. Baseball may always be called "the national pastime," but in recent decades, pro football has become a national obsession. Pro football is by far, the most popular sport in America, its tens of millions of impassioned fans turning the NFL into a rapidly growing multibillion-dollar business. 

This fall, more than 17 million people will attend an NFL game in person. Hundreds of millions more—an estimated three out of every four American men, women, and children—will watch at least one game on television. The league's championship game, the Super Bowl, will be celebrated next February as a virtual national holiday, the best day of the year not only for sports, but also for the television, advertising, and snack food industries.

Today, it's hard to believe that the National Football League, this behemoth of American sporting culture, was founded as a humble association of four teams you've never heard of—the Akron Pros, Canton Bulldogs, Cleveland Indians, and Dayton Triangles—meeting in a Canton, Ohio automobile showroom after the close of business one night in 1920. 

None of the NFL's charter teams could even afford to pay the nominal franchise fee of $100, worth about $1,000 today. For years, the NFL struggled merely to survive. Its franchises collapsed with disturbing frequency—at least 43 short-lived NFL teams went defunct in the league's first dozen years of existence—as the pro game struggled to gain fans and establish its legitimacy in a sports world dominated by Major League Baseball, heavyweight boxing, and college football.

So, how did the NFL grow from a struggling federation of small-town Ohio football clubs into an unstoppable cultural and economic juggernaut? 

The story of the NFL is, in part, a story of savvy business decisions, as league executives figured out how to use the 20th century's most powerful communications medium—television—to build pro football into the 21st century's most popular game. The story of the NFL is also in part, a story of racial conflict and progress, as the league moved from tolerance to segregation and, finally, back to tolerance. And the story of the NFL is lastly, in part, a story of cultural resonance, as the Super Bowl grew from a mere football game, appealing mainly to male football fans, into a hoopla-laden midwinter fiesta that today attracts rapt viewers from every conceivable demographic.

But, to its fans, the story of the NFL is, most importantly, the story of the game itself.

 

Why Should I Care?

If you're like most Americans, you probably have a favorite NFL team. You probably watch games on TV and if you're lucky enough to live in a city with an NFL team, you may well shell out for spendy game tickets to cheer them on live. 

No matter where you live, you almost certainly watch the Super Bowl—even if it's just to check out the new commercials. If you're not wearing an NFL team logo-bearing hat, t-shirt or jacket today, you'll almost certainly run into somebody who is. 

The NFL, it seems, has become an unavoidable presence in American popular culture. 

  • But how did this happen?
  • When did the NFL become America's most popular sport?
  • When did Sunday become "game day?"
  • When did the Super Bowl become a kind of unofficial national holiday?
  • How in the world did the National Football League—an outfit founded in a Canton, Ohio automobile showroom—become the most powerful cultural, social, and economic force in American sports?

We've got the answers here. Game on.