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History of Football
Sports
Dec 20, 2001, 13:48
By Kelly Reynolds Staff
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The history of football can be traced back to 1895 where a game played between a team in Latrobe, Pennsylvania against a team from Jeannette, Pennsylvania marked the beginning of professional football history. Although many teams were formed during the course of the next 15 years, it was not until the formation of the American Professional Football Association in 1920 that football history was truly ignited.
According to the history of football, the American Professional Football Association was created by members of four professional clubs who met in Canton, Ohio. Initially charging a $100 admission fee per team, the first organization in football history transformed into the National Football League in 1922.
Following rules drafted by the National Collegiate Athletic Association for 13 years, it was hard to distinguish between NFL and college football history in the beginning. As a result, most players early in NFL football history considered football to be a part-time position and held other jobs during the day.
In the first official NFL Championship Game in football history, the Chicago Bears defeated the New York Giants 23-21 in 1933. This is also the same year that the ten professional football teams were divided into Eastern and Western Divisions.
Another first in football history came in 1939 when the first NFL game was televised by NBC. This game between the Philadelphia Eagles and the Brooklyn Dodgers caused the league attendance to exceed one million (1,071,200) for the first time in the history of football.
The television industry continued to advance right alongside the professional football league. In 1950, the Rams became the first NFL team in football history to have every game of the season broadcast on television.
In 1961, the first legislation was passed by Congress regarding contracts between professional sports leagues and television networks. The bill legalized single network contracts by professional sports leagues, and the first television contract in the history of football was signed in 1962. This contract permitted CBS to televise all of the NFL’s regular season games for the first time in football history.
The first Super Bowl to be played in football history took place in Los Angeles, California at the Memorial Coliseum in January of 1967. The game between Green Bay and Kansas City was the first and only game in the history of football to be televised by two networks. The only undefeated, untied record in NFL football history was captured by the Miami Dolphins in 1972, which led to their success in Super Bowl VII.
With regard to football history, the 1970’s also saw the addition of two new teams to the NFL and an increase of games to the regular season. In 1976 the Seattle Seahawks and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers became part of football history, and the regular season was increased from 14 games to 16 games in 1978.
In the decade of the 1980’s professional football found its niche in American football history. Super Bowl XVI attained the highest television rating ever for a sporting event. The 1982 game between San Francisco and Cincinnati topped of the regular season, which also set a record in football history with an average of 60,745 fans watching the combined season.
Expanding in the 1990’s to include 31 teams, the NFL is the largest league in all of professional sports. While there have already been a tremendous number of firsts throughout football history, professional football continues to gain popularity each and every year. As a result, you can bet that there will be several more records added to the history of football.
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