AskBiography Logo   Latest News  Follow Us on Twitter  Follow Us on Google Buzz  Became Fan - Facebook  Subscribe to RSSRSS   Bookmark and Share

American Football League

American Football League
Sports League information
SportAmerican football
Founded1959
Claim to fame2-2 record in World Championship games against the NFL.
Inaugural season1960
No. of teams8 (1960), 9 (1966), 10 (1968-1970)
CountryUnited States
Ceased1970, with NFL
Most recent championKansas City Chiefs
Most championshipsKansas City Chiefs (3)

     Home | Sports League | American Football League



The American Football League (AFL) was a major Professional Football league that operated from 1960 until 1969, when the established National Football League (NFL) merged with it. The upstart AFL operated in direct competition with the more established NFL throughout its existence. Though downplayed by the NFL as inferior, the AFL signed half of the NFL's first-round draft choices in 1960, including All-American Billy Cannon, perennial All-Star Johnny Robinson, and Hall of Famer Ron Mix. Overall, AFL teams signed 75% of the league's draft choices that first year. It continued to attract top talent from colleges and the NFL by the mid-1960s, well before the Common Draft which began in 1967.

A merger between the two leagues was sought by the senior league and announced in 1966, but was not finalized until 1970. During its final two years of existence, the AFL teams won upset victories over the NFL teams in Super Bowl III and IV, the former considered one of the biggest upsets in American sports history. When the merger took place, all ten AFL franchises became part of the merged league's new American Football Conference (AFC), with three teams from the original 16-team NFL (the Pittsburgh Steelers, Cleveland Browns, and Baltimore Colts) joining them. The remaining 13 original NFL teams became the inaugural members of the National Football Conference (NFC). The AFL logo was incorporated into the newly minted AFC logo, although the color of the "A" was changed from blue and white to red. The NFL retained its old name and logo and claims the rights to all AFL products including the eagle logo.


Warning: simplexml_load_file(http://gdata.youtube.com/feeds/api/videos/-/American/Football/League?orderby=viewCount&max-results=10) [function.simplexml-load-file]: failed to open stream: HTTP request failed! HTTP/1.0 410 Gone in /home/askbio/public_html/index_bio.php on line 257

Warning: simplexml_load_file() [function.simplexml-load-file]: I/O warning : failed to load external entity "http://gdata.youtube.com/feeds/api/videos/-/American/Football/League?orderby=viewCount&max-results=10" in /home/askbio/public_html/index_bio.php on line 257

Fatal error: Call to a member function children() on a non-object in /home/askbio/public_html/index_bio.php on line 260