American Football League

• 1. Introduction

  ›

  The American Football League was born out of rejection. In the late 1950s, a young Texas oil heir named Lamar Hunt tried to buy an NFL franchise, got nowhere, and instead of walking away, decided to build an entirely new league from scratch. What followed was ten seasons of professional football that reshaped the sport permanently, produced one of the most famous guarantees in American sports history, and forced the old-guard NFL to negotiate on equal terms.

  How did a league dismissed by rivals as inferior end up changing professional football forever? And what did it take for a group of owners who called themselves "The Foolish Club" to earn a seat at the table?

• 2. The Foolish Club

  ›

  Lamar Hunt first approached the Bidwill family of the Chicago Cardinals, hoping to buy the franchise and move it to Dallas. The Bidwills wouldn't give up controlling interest, so Hunt walked away. On his return flight to Dallas, he conceived an entirely new league.

  Hunt reached out to Bud Adams, Bob Howsam, and Max Winter, among others. His first meeting with Adams took place in March 1959. By the 14th of August 1959, the first league meeting was held in Chicago, granting charter memberships to Dallas, New York, Houston, Denver, Los Angeles, and Minneapolis-Saint Paul. Eight days later, at a meeting in Dallas, the group gave the new organization its name: the American Football League.

  NFL commissioner Bert Bell had actually given the new league his public approval before dying suddenly in October 1959. Individual NFL owners then moved quickly to undermine it, approaching AFL owners with promises of NFL franchises. The Minneapolis-Saint Paul group accepted and joined the NFL in 1961 as the Minnesota Vikings. The NFL also announced it had reversed its position against expansion, planning teams in Houston and Dallas for 1961, with the Dallas Cowboys actually beginning play in 1960.

  Ralph Wilson, who held a minority interest in the Detroit Lions, brought the team that became the Bills to Buffalo after Buffalo was awarded its franchise on October 28. On November 22, a ten-man Boston ownership group led by Billy Sullivan received the AFL's eighth team. On the 30th of November 1959, Joe Foss, a World War II Marine fighter ace and former governor of South Dakota, was named the AFL's first commissioner. Raiders co-owner Wayne Valley coined the nickname "The Foolish Club" for the original owners, a label Hunt later used on team photographs he sent as Christmas gifts.

• 3. Survival on Low Bleachers

  ›

  The AFL's first major victory came off the field. On the 9th of June 1960, the league signed a five-year television contract with ABC, bringing in approximately $2.125 million per year for the entire league. It was the first cooperative television plan in professional football history, with proceeds divided equally among member clubs.

  On the field, the Houston Oilers made the AFL's biggest early splash by signing Billy Cannon, the 1959 Heisman Trophy winner from LSU, to a $100,000 contract, despite Cannon having already signed a $50,000 deal with the NFL's Los Angeles Rams. The court upheld the Houston contract, and Cannon helped the Oilers reach the first three AFL championship games, winning two.

  Attendance told a harder story. In 1960, the NFL averaged more than 40,000 fans per game. The AFL averaged about 16,500. The Oakland Raiders drew a league-worst average of 9,612 and lost $500,000 in their first year, surviving only after receiving a $400,000 loan from Bills owner Ralph Wilson. Titans owner Harry Wismer grew so desperate that he had fans move to seats closer to the field to create the illusion of a fuller stadium on television. By the 8th of November 1962, the AFL took over operations of the Titans after Wismer could no longer meet payroll. A five-person ownership group headed by Sonny Werblin bought the team on the 28th of March 1963, and the new owners renamed it the New York Jets.

  On the 17th of June 1960, the AFL filed an antitrust lawsuit against the NFL. It was dismissed in 1962 after a two-month trial.

• 4. The Deal That Changed Everything

  ›

  On the 29th of January 1964, the AFL signed a $36 million television contract with NBC, starting with the 1965 season. Pittsburgh Steelers owner Art Rooney reportedly told NFL Commissioner Pete Rozelle after hearing the news that the AFL no longer had to call them "Mister."

  The bidding war for players intensified in 1965. When the New York Jets and the NFL's St. Louis Cardinals both drafted University of Alabama quarterback Joe Namath, Namath signed with the Jets on the 2nd of January 1965, for $427,000, a deal that also included a new car. It was the highest amount of money ever paid to a collegiate football player, and the source identifies it as the strongest contributing factor to the eventual merger.

  In April 1966, Wellington Mara, owner of the NFL's New York Giants, broke a standing gentleman's agreement by luring kicker Pete Gogolak away from the AFL's Buffalo Bills. New AFL commissioner Al Davis, the former Oakland Raiders head coach appointed after Joe Foss resigned on April 7, responded by recruiting players already on NFL rosters, focusing on quarterbacks. In two months, Davis persuaded seven NFL quarterbacks to sign with the AFL.

  Behind the scenes, Dallas Cowboys general manager Tex Schramm secretly approached Lamar Hunt and other AFL owners that same month. By the end of May, Hunt and Schramm had completed the basic groundwork for a merger. On the 8th of June 1966, it was officially announced. The AFL agreed to pay $18 million in indemnities to the NFL over 20 years. Davis resigned as AFL commissioner on July 25 rather than oversee the deal's completion. NFL Commissioner Pete Rozelle formally became chief executive of the AFL on the 26th of July 1966.

• 5. The Guarantee

  ›

  The first AFL-NFL championship game, played on the 15th of January 1967, in Los Angeles, did not go well for the AFL. After a close first half, the Green Bay Packers pulled away to beat the Kansas City Chiefs 35-10. Packers head coach Vince Lombardi said afterward, "I do not think they are as good as the top teams in the National Football League." Super Bowl II yielded a similar result, with Green Bay beating the Oakland Raiders 33-14.

  The perception shifted on the 17th of November 1968, when NBC cut away from a Jets-Raiders game to air the children's movie Heidi. The resulting public uproar revealed that AFL football had built a real national audience that would not be ignored.

  Then came the 12th of January 1969. The AFL champion New York Jets faced the NFL champion Baltimore Colts, who had completed the 1968 season with a 13-1 record, beaten the Cleveland Browns 34-0 in the NFL title game, and entered Super Bowl III favored by as many as 18 points. The Colts had allowed a record-low 144 points that season. The Jets, by contrast, had allowed 280 points, the highest total for any division winner in the two leagues.

  Three days before the game, quarterback Joe Namath responded to a heckler at the Touchdown Club in Miami: "We're going to win Sunday, I guarantee it." Namath and the Jets held the Colts scoreless until late in the fourth quarter, winning 16-7 in what is regarded as one of the greatest upsets in American sports history.

  One year later, the Kansas City Chiefs, favored underdogs by 12.5 points, beat the Minnesota Vikings 23-7 in Super Bowl IV, the last championship game between the two separate leagues. The AFL ceased to exist as an unincorporated organization on the 1st of February 1970.

• 6. What the AFL Left Behind

  ›

  When the merger was complete, three existing NFL teams joined the ten AFL franchises to form the new American Football Conference: the Baltimore Colts, Cleveland Browns, and Pittsburgh Steelers, each receiving $3 million to make the switch.

  The AFL's influence ran deeper than conference realignment. The league introduced player names on jerseys, scoreboard clocks for official game time, and a 14-game schedule that the NFL adopted one year after the AFL began it in 1960. The AFL introduced the two-point conversion to professional football 34 years before the NFL followed in 1994.

  The AFL also actively recruited from small and predominantly Black colleges while the NFL was still emerging from decades of segregation influenced by Washington Redskins owner George Preston Marshall. That opening led not only to more Black players on the field but, over time, to Black coaches and front-office personnel.

  The AFL's coaching influence persisted long after the merger. Chuck Noll worked for Sid Gillman and the AFL's Los Angeles and San Diego Chargers from 1960 through 1965. Bill Walsh spent one season as a protege of Al Davis with the Oakland Raiders. John Madden coached the AFL's Raiders. Two-time Super Bowl winner Tom Flores played for the 1969 Kansas City Chiefs and later coached the Raiders to a Super Bowl title.

  The Pittsburgh Steelers provide a precise measure of the merger's effect. Before 1970, the franchise had posted only eight winning seasons and one playoff appearance since 1933. The $3 million indemnity they received helped them draft Terry Bradshaw and Joe Greene, launching a run of four Super Bowl titles in the 1970s. The last AFL player active in professional football was Pro Football Hall of Fame receiver Charlie Joiner, who started with the Houston Oilers in 1969 and retired after the 1986 season with the San Diego Chargers.