The History of Pro Football

The National Football League (NFL) was founded in 1920 in Canton, Ohio, and adopted its current name in 1922. The league was loosely structured in its early days, but by the 1930s had abandoned most of its small-town Midwest roots and moved to major cities, and established a championship game. With the advent and explosion of television in the 1950s, the NFL became a major spectator sport -- the famed 1958 NFL championship game between the New York Giants and Baltimore Colts cemented the league and its increasing popularity in the minds of the American sporting public.

In 1960, the rival AFL began play, but it wasn't until 1967 that the two leagues agreed to send their league champions to an AFL-NFL championship game. Shortly thereafter, the game began to be officially known as the Super Bowl. The upstart New York Jets, led by "Broadway Joe" Namath, won Super Bowl III in one of the most stunning upsets in sports history; and in 1970, the merger of the two leagues was completed. Since then, the NFL has added several teams in previously untested cities, and the Super Bowl has continued its soaring popularity to become America's leading spectator-sports event.