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The Birth of a Rival: How the AFL Challenged the NFL · Sports History Network

• 0:47
  On August 22, 1959, long before the modern era of billion dollar television contracts, long before the super bowl was even an idea, the eyes of the sporting world were not on Dallas at all.
• 0:58
  But in a modest meeting in room in Dallas, Texas, six men cast a vote that would fracture a monopoly and force a game of football to evolve.
• 1:06
  They gave their outlaw circuit a name.
• 1:08
  The American Football League.
• 1:11
  I'm your host, Darren hayes of the pigskindispatch.com and we have a comprehensive timeline of American football history.
• 1:16
  In this episode, we peer into that portal to time to discuss the incredible story of the American football league.
• 1:22
  In 1959, the National Football League was not the colossus we know it as today.
• 1:27
  It was a cautious, conservative cartel of 12 teams clustered in the Northeast and Midwest.
• 1:31
  They had just witnessed the greatest advertisement.
• 1:33
  The 1958 championship game between Baltimore, New York, Johnny unites.
• 1:38
  A sudden death classic that captivated 45 million viewers.
• 1:41
  The nation was proving it was hungry for pro football, but the NFL refused to feed it.
• 1:46
  For more than a decade, the league had denied every plea for expansion.
• 1:49
  Cities like Dallas, Houston, Buffalo, booming with oil money and post war growth, were told wait indefinitely.
• 1:55
  The talent pool was overflowing.
• 1:57
  Colleges were producing more stars than 12 rosters could ever hold.
• 2:00
  And the league's unspoken quotas kept many brilliant Black athletes from HBCUs waiting for a chance that never came.
• 2:07
  It wasn't just a full league.
• 2:08
  It was a fortress that had locked its gates.
• 2:11
  And a fortress by its nature invites a siege.
• 2:16
  Now the provocateur was a man named Lamar Hunt, 27 years old, the son of a Texas oil tycoon, H.L.
• 2:23
  Hunt, and a sportsman with an impeccable pedigree and quite a disarming resolve.
• 2:27
  Now, Hunt didn't just set out to be a rebel.
• 2:30
  He first begged to join the establishment.
• 2:32
  He approached the Chicago Cardinals, a struggling franchise, and offered to buy them.
• 2:36
  He was rebuffed.
• 2:37
  He signed an expansion franchise for Dallas and he was told, quote, no expansion is planned, end quote.
• 2:43
  Most men would have accepted the verdict, but hunted something different.
• 2:46
  In the winter and spring of 1959, he began calling other men who had also been told no.
• 2:51
  In Houston, there was Bud Adams, another oil heir equally spurned in his bid for an NFL team.
• 2:57
  In Denver, there was Bob Howson.
• 2:59
  In Los Angeles, Baron Hilton, heir to the hotel empire.
• 3:02
  And.
• 3:02
  And one by one, Hunt assembled not just investors, but the disenfranchised.
• 3:07
  They had met informally on August 14, but it was on August 22, 1959, in Dallas that that Crucial administrative milestone was reached.
• 3:15
  The charter members were all present.
• 3:17
  Dallas represented by Hunt himself.
• 3:19
  Houston with Bud Adams.
• 3:20
  Denver, Los Angeles, Minneapolis St.
• 3:22
  Paul and New York led by Harry Wesmer.
• 3:25
  Now six franchises, six markets and and the NFL had deemed unworthy or unready and were in that room.
• 3:32
  And they did two things.
• 3:32
  They made the dream irrevocable.
• 3:34
  First, they officially voted to name their rival circuit the American Football League.
• 3:39
  The afl.
• 3:40
  The name carried intent.
• 3:41
  Not a minor league, the American Football League was a direct challenge to the National Football League.
• 3:46
  Using football league alongside American intentionally mirrored the tone and stature of the dominant NFL.
• 3:52
  Positioning themselves as an equal league.
• 3:54
  Now the name was reflected.
• 3:57
  The upstart organization echoing the prestigious name of earlier historic leagues while signaling its intent to cover the entire United States.
• 4:06
  Now this wasn't just a callback to a bygone rival leagues that had the NFL had either swallowed or crushed.
• 4:13
  Now this wasn't just a callback to the bygone leagues that the NFL had either swallowed or crushed.
• 4:19
  The original American Football League or Red grange league in 1926, the the second AFL that lasted in 1936 and 37, the third installment in American football again 40 and 41.
• 4:29
  And even the All American Football Conference of 45 through 49 these unrelated separate league ventures competed and ultimately bowed to the NFL.
• 4:38
  Secondly, they established their identity as a legitimate organized competitor ahead of the inaugural 1960 season.
• 4:44
  This was no longer a group of wealthy men talking.
• 4:46
  It was a league with a name, a constitution and and a very deep war chest.
• 4:51
  It's easy to see that this was not mere paperwork.
• 4:54
  It was not.
• 4:55
  It was a psychological warfare.
• 4:57
  And by naming the league they had forced the NFL to acknowledge them.
• 5:00
  By meeting in Dallas, the heart of Hunt's territory, they signaled they would not be driven into the shadows.
• 5:07
  And Minneapolis, the sixth city at the table, would soon prove how real that war had become when the NFL tried to steal them away from just months later forcing the AFL to replace them with Oakland.
• 5:19
  But that is a story for our next chapter.
• 5:22
  Now if you're enjoying this deep dive into American football history, this is what we do here in pigskin Dispatch is grid on your timeline.
• 5:28
  We rebuild football's year by year story.
• 5:30
  Not as list of scores, but as the human gambles that built the modern game.
• 5:34
  Stick with us.
• 5:35
  Because these gamble these six men took in Dallas would soon give the wide open offenses names on the jerseys and a game that would become the Super Bowl.
• 5:45
  Think you know your football history, it's time to put your pads on with the pigskin Trivia drive Choose your play, go for a run short pass or risk it all with a long pass.
• 5:54
  Answer fast to rack up the yardage and reach the yellow line for a first down and earn audible to wipe away those wrong answers.
• 6:01
  But watch out.
• 6:01
  That play clock has gotcha.
• 6:03
  We got 25 seconds before the penalty hits.
• 6:05
  Score as many touchdowns as you can in five minutes and claim your spot on a global leaderboard.
• 6:10
  Pigskin Drivia drive where your football IQ is the MVP play now@piganddispatch.com what hunt and his partners launched in that Dallas room was more than just a second league.
• 6:21
  It was a tactical chess match that forced evolution of the game.
• 6:25
  Now to compete, the AFL had to be different.
• 6:27
  They offered a more daring brand of football, a master class in the forward pass.
• 6:31
  And when the NFL was still grinding it out in the mud, they split television revenue equally and ensuring Denver would compete with New York.
• 6:38
  And they put players names on the backs of their jersey so fans could know who their heroes were and who they're rooting for.
• 6:43
  They embrace the talent that the NFL had overlooked.
• 6:46
  For seven years.
• 6:47
  The two leagues hammered each other in bidding wars for draft picks and lawsuits and headlines.
• 6:51
  The cost was grueling, but the competition was precisely what pro football needed.
• 6:55
  By 1966, the siege succeeded.
• 6:58
  The leagues agreed to merge and with a settle of supremacy on the field in a final contest between the champions, they called it the AFL NFL World Championship Game.
• 7:07
  We now know it as a Super Bowl.
• 7:09
  The void was filled.
• 7:11
  A new era had begun.
• 7:12
  On August 22, 1959, six men in a Dallas hotel room did not just name a league.
• 7:18
  They named the future of American sports.
• 7:20
  They proved that when a fortress refuses to open its gates, the answer is not to keep knocking.
• 7:24
  The answer is to build a better fortress across the street and make the world choose the afl.
• 7:29
  Is that gone as a separate league, but still its gospel remains.
• 7:33
  And every bomb thrown by the Kansas City chief or a franchise Dallas built and every shared television money that keeps the league balanced and in every Super Bowl Sunday that exists because of that vote cast.
• 7:44
  Thanks for joining us today on the Gridiron Timeline story.
• 7:46
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• 7:49
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• 7:58
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• 8:06
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• 8:12
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• 8:19
  And until next time everybody have a great gridiron day.
• 8:23
  That's all the football history we have today folks.
• 8:25
  Join us back tomorrow for more of your football history.
• 8:30
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• 8:42
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• 8:44
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• 8:56
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• 9:03
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• 9:09
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