A Brief History of Start-up Pro Football Leagues Part One: 1940s thru 1970s

A new professional football league called the XFL will start in 2020 following the conclusion of the upcoming NFL season. Pro football leagues have been popping up since the 1940’s. Most don’t last more than a few seasons. Several have generated great players that made it to the NFL. One contributed three new teams that joined the NFL. The most successful league still exists today in the NFL as the American Football Conference. Here is Part One of a summary of the leagues that have tried to compete or coexist with the NFL and what happened to them. Part Two will continue next week.

Pacific Coast Professional Football League (1940-1948)

An attempt to bring pro football to the west coast lasted several seasons while the NFL’s westernmost franchises were the Chicago Bears and Green Bay Packers. Known better for his legendary baseball career, Jackie Robinson played for the PCPFL Los Angeles Bulldogs as a running back. Once the Cleveland Rams moved to LA in 1946, attendance for the PCPFL dropped off dramatically. Teams getting 10,000 fans had trouble getting 1,000 after the NFL came to town and in December of 1948 the league shut down.

All-American Football Conference (1946-1949)

Chicago Tribune sports editor Arch Ward put together a group of wealthy businessmen to form a league to directly compete with the NFL. Ward thought with World War II over, a surplus of talent could start a new league. Playing in large stadiums in major cities and drawing crowds as large as 71,000 the league attracted top college talent and over 100 players with NFL experience. The resulting bidding war on talent would take its toll on both the AAFC and NFL as almost every team in both leagues were losing money. After the 1949 season the AAFC dissolved and the NFL agreed to merge three teams into the NFL. Those teams were the Baltimore Colts, Cleveland Browns, and San Francisco 49ers. Fifteen NFL Hall of Fame members got their start in the AAFC including the legendary Otto Graham.

American Football League (1960-1969)

The most successful of all the start-up leagues. The AFL would go on to become the American Football Conference after agreeing to merge with the NFL in 1966. Being nationally broadcast by first ABC, then NBC after 1965, provided the league with the money and exposure it needed to sustain itself. Again, the competition of another league caused salaries to soar in both leagues leading to the merger in 1966 and the first Super Bowl in 1967.

Continental Football League (1965-1969)

Initially envisioned to be a minor league of sorts for the NFL and AFL the CFL decided to change gears and directly compete with the NFL in 1970 for college recruits. The prized target of the time was USC star OJ Simpson. This proved to be the leagues undoing as the CFL owners couldn’t afford to compete with the deep pockets of the NFL and the backers of the CFL pulled out. Spokane Shockers quarterback Ken Stabler (1968-1969) would go on to be a star for the Oakland Raiders in the 1970’s. He was the quarterback for the Raiders Super Bowl XI win and would be inducted to the NFL hall of Fame in 2016.

World Football League (1974-1975)

Gary Davidson, who helped start both the American Basketball Association and World Hockey Association was the organizer behind this league. Initially planned to start in 1975, the talk of strikes in both the NFL and Canadian Football League in 1974 caused a rushed plan to get the WFL started a year early. This would prove to be the leagues undoing as several franchises were granted to owners who didn’t have the resources to run them. Both the NFL and CFL avoided strikes and their regular seasons would start on time in 1974. The WFL ran out of money midway through the 1975 season and folded. The biggest name to come out of this league was likely coach Marty Schottenheimer.