"In 1959, the NFL had just a dozen teams, with only two located west of the MIssissippi River. For 40 years, it had enjoyed total dominance over the gridiron, tackling rival franchises and knocking them out of the game. But a revolution was coming to American football, and it all began with a man named Lamar Hunt, the Texas millionaire who desperately wanted a league of his own"--Inside cover flap.

The All-American Football Conference was the only challenger to the NFL (except for the American Football League of the 1960s) to survive more than two seasons in competition with the established league. It ultimately failed to achieve its goal of a peaceful coexistence with the NFL and folded in 1949. Its Cleveland Browns and San Francisco 49ers, which were absorbed by the NFL in 1950, are still in business. This book takes a brief look at all of the NFL's challengers (and would-be challengers) from 1926 to 1945. It looks particularly at the All-American Conference, which overcame obstacles that proved too difficult for others and opened the 1946 season with teams on the East Coast, in the Midwest, on the West Coast, and in the deep South, making it a truly "All-American" enterprise. Each season and off-season is examined in detail.

Wearing borrowed uniforms, practicing on obscure college campuses, and led by a former Marine Corps W.W. II fighter ace as commissioner, the American Football League (AFL) debuted in the Fall of 1960 to challenge the monopoly of the well-established National Football League. Within ten years it had won two Super Bowls and had forced a merger with its rival, splitting the NFL into the National and American Football Conferences. This colorful history of the AFL and its unforgettable cast of characters, from Billy Cannon to Joe Namath to its "Foolish Club" of team owners, arrives on the 50th anniversary of the AFL's first season to recount the startling success of an upstart league that prevailed against long odds.

Unable to buy into an existing team and rebuffed by National Football League owners who had no desire to expand, 27-year-old Lamar Hunt, the son of Texas billionaire H.L. Hunt, formed the American Football League in 1959. He placed his team in Dallas, called them the Texans, and invited other young entrepreneurs to join him. The seven men who did called themselves members of the "Foolish Club," but on September 9, 1960, the AFL made its regular season debut and went on to change the face of football forever. Unlike the NFL, the American Football League featured wide open offenses and innovative coaching strategies, capturing a new generation of fans dedicated to the league and its players. The AFL aggressively pursued college stars--Heisman Trophy winner Billy Cannon in its inaugural season and Joe Namath in 1965. The eight teams signed a collective television agreement that split the money equally among the franchises, thus providing far more stability and balance than earlier start-up leagues. Based on interviews with owners, coaches, players, scouts, broadcasters and writers from the era, this is a colorful account of the AFL and its place in sports history.

Explores the often overlooked role of the NFL in the American civil rights movement Watching a football game on a Sunday evening, most sports fans do not realize the profound impact the National Football League had on the civil rights movement. Similarly, in a sport where seven out of ten players are Black, few are fully aware of the history and contributions of their athletic forebears. Among the touchdowns and tackles lies a rich history of African American life and the struggle to achieve equal rights. Outside the Lines traces how football laid a foundation for social change long before the judicial system formally recognized the inequalities of racial separation. Integrating teams to include white and Black athletes alike fifty years before the reversal of Plessy v Ferguson, the National Football League served as a microcosmic fishbowl of the highs and lows—the trials and triumphs—of racial integration. In this chronicle of the important stories of Black NFL athletes in the early twentieth century, Charles K. Ross has given us an important insight into the role of sports in the fight for racial justice.

This book lays down a marker as to the state of economists’ understanding of the National Football League (NFL) by assembling sophisticated, critical surveys of by leading sports economists on major topics associated with the league. The book is divided into four parts. The first three chapters in Part I provide an overview of the business of the NFL from an economist’s perspective. Part II is a collection of surveys of the economics of the NFL’s most important revenue streams, including media, attendance, and merchandising. The NFL’s labor economics is the focus of Part III, with chapters on player and coach labor markets, the draft, and contract structure. Part IV includes essays on competitive balance, gambling, economic impacts of the Super Bowl, behavioral economic issues associated with the league, and antitrust issues. This book will appeal to sports economists, sports management professionals, and policy-makers, and would be useful as a supplementary text for sports economics and management courses as well as a reference text.

Remember the AFL features an unprecedented season-by-season, team-by-team history of the league that lasted from 1960 to 1969. Through in-depth research, dozens of player interviews, and hundreds of photos, including many classic football cards, this book brings that unique era in professional football to life. It’s all here, from the behind-the-scenes stories of the early days, when the league struggled for survival, through Super Bowl III, when "Broadway” Joe Namath guaranteed -- and delivered -- a victory against the NFL’s Baltimore Colts. Fans will also relive the history of the AFL by engaging the challenge of over 500 trivia questions. This is pure 1960s nostalgia for football fans old and young.

The All-America Football Conference and the National Football League battled for supremacy from 1946 through 1949. In the end, the players from the AAFC, as well as three teams, were brought into the NFL. Through extensive research, the Professional Football Researchers Association (PFRA) has corrected the statistics and coaching records, selected offensive and defensive All-Pro Teams for all four seasons and an All-Conference team, and provided brief biographies and scouting reports for the members of the All-Conference Team.

The epic tale of the five owners who shepherded the NFL through its tumultuous early decades and built the most popular sport in America The National Football League is a towering, distinctly American colossus spewing out $14 billion in annual revenue. But it was not always a success. In The League, John Eisenberg focuses on the pioneering sportsmen who kept the league alive in the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s, when its challenges were many and its survival was not guaranteed. At the time, college football, baseball, boxing, and horseracing dominated America's sports scene. Art Rooney, George Halas, Tim Mara, George Preston Marshall, and Bert Bell believed in pro football when few others did and ultimately succeeded only because at critical junctures each sacrificed the short-term success of his team for the longer-term good of the league. At once a history of a sport and a remarkable story of business ingenuity, The League is an essential read for any fan of our true national pastime.

Mark Bernstein shows that much of the culture that surrounds American football, both good and bad, has its roots in the Ivy League. With their long winning streaks, distinctive traditions, and impressive victories, Ivy teams started a national obsession with football in the first decades of the twentieth century that remains alive today. In so doing they have helped develop our ideals about the role of athletics in college life.