So last night officially kicked off this year’s NFL season. The NFL has now expanded beyond our borders, with games to be played in England and Germany this year.
The NFL got its start in a car dealership — in 1920, representatives from several professional American football franchises met at Ralph Hay’s Hupmobile auto showroom in Canton, Ohio, to form what would eventually become the NFL. At the start, it was known as the American Professional Football association (APFA) before being changed to the NFL a couple of years later.
The Green Bay Packers are the only publicly-owned franchise in the NFL. The team’s bylaws stipulate that profits are to be reinvested in the team or donated to charity.
The first live televised NFL game was played on October 22, 1939 between the Philadelphia Eagles and the Brooklyn Dodgers. Only about 500 TV sets in New York received the broadcast.
The longest game in NFL history took place on Christmas Day in 1971 between the Miami Dolphins and Kansas City Chiefs. The Dolphins won, after 82 minutes and 40 seconds, including two overtime periods.
Lamar Hunt, the founder of the American Football League (AFL) coined the term “Super Bowl” after watching his children play with a Super Ball — a popular toy in the 1960s. The name stuck and has been used since the third championship game.
So we’re off and running in the new football season. Good to have it back, because football is the most important of the less important things in the world.
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