You probably got so used with NFL having two conferences and you know that AFC stands for American Football Conference and NFC for National Football Conference. You probably know that the winner of each conference meet and play for the Super Bowl trophy every year. Generally, this is the most that people know about how the AFC and NFC are different as they prefer to focus on their own team and its games because that’s where all the excitement is. As an online bettor, if you decide to start staking your money on football lines, it’s good to have a good idea about how NFL got all the way here.
History
Similarly to baseball, the Football Professional League or the NFL is composed of two conferences. The understand why, we need to look back in time. Professional football started being played in the United States in the 1890s but the leagues and games were at the regional level between a handful of clubs.
NFL
The sport popularity grew in particular after the first world war and in 1920 the American Professional Football Association was formed in Carlton, Ohio. Weeks later teams from Buffalo, Rochester and Detroit also joined this league. After two years, as was growing in popularity and membership it changed its name to National Football League (NFL).This early version of the NFL was somehow chaotic with many teams joining and leaving in the first years (Green Bay Packers which is the oldest team that never changed locations) and winners decided through various means that were not consistent year over year.
In 1933 the NFL was split in two divisions: East and West with the winners to meet in an NFL Championship Game.
All American Football League (AAFL)
The AAFL was founded in 1944 in Chicago and with the end of the war near, it rapidly grew in popularity with teams from all th major cities joining. The AAFC quickly became a real competitor to the NFL which start losing players and fans to the new professional league.
The Merge
The two leagues reached an agreement for a merge in 1966 and by 1970 the merge was fully completed with two conferences holding the same number of teams under the NFL name.
Although the new league seem to be mostly a continuation of the old NFL, there were many innovations that were carried forward and adopted from the AAFL. They included the on-field game clock, the names on player jerseys, recruiting at small and predominantly black colleges, gate and television revenue-sharing, establishment of southern franchises, and more wide-open offensive rules.
Modern NFL and its popularity
Since the 1980s the Super Bowl became a national holiday and it continues to be the most watched sports event in the world.
In the USA, football remained the most popular sport since the merge of the two leagues. Current stats place NFL at 30% of total votes for the most popular league which is as much as the next three combined (baseball 15%, auto racing 10% and hockey 2%). This is reflected in the in TV ratings, with football being the absolute leader even though it offers much less games per year compared to other sports.
The NFL has the highest per-game attendance of all the domestic professional sports league in the world. In terms of the teams with the largest fan base, the Pittsburg Steelers take the first place, followed by New England Patriots, Indianapolis Colts, New Orleans Saints and Green Bay Packers.
The sport and the league show no sign of stopping from its domination of American sports so feel free to join the excitement and fun associated with the NFL games and season.