North America Football History

The Birth of A Sport

• After the first recorded public football game in North America, many colleges began to adopt it as an officially sanctioned sporting activity. Sports writer Walter Camp had a great influence in popularizing the sport through his work at Collier's and Harper's Weekly. Camp is often called the "Father of American Football," helping to transform the game into the one we know today.

Rise in Popularity

• The organization of professional football can be traced back to 1892, when former Yale player William "Pudge" Heffelfinger entered a $500 contract with the Pittsburgh area's Allegheny Athletic Association, becoming America's first professional football player. The first professional league was formed in 1903 in Ohio, though the first professional championship football game was in 1913 between the Buffalo Prospects and Canton Bulldogs. Once the NFL was formed in 1920 (then called the American Professional Football Association, changing its name to the National Football League two years later), football as a sport greatly increased in popularity.

The Evolution of The NFL

• By 1925, the NFL had 23 franchises that included both the New York Giants and the Detroit Panthers. Late that season, one of the greatest coups occurred in gaining national attention when University of Illinois player Harold "Red' Grange signed with the Chicago Bears. The Bears drew crowds of 36,000, and eventually 75,000 for their last game that season -- the largest crowd sizes in professional football history at the time.

The Role of Television

• The first televised NFL game occurred on Oct. 22, 1939, broadcasting to over 1,000 TV sets. By 1950, the Los Angeles Rams (as they were called at the time) became the first NFL team to televise all of its home and away games. The Washington Redskins followed suit shortly after, until it became common practice amongst all professional football teams. In December 1951, the NFL Championship Game was televised nationally for the first time, with the DuMont Network paying $75,000 for the rights to the game. NBC eventually replaced DuMont as the network for NFL title games in 1954, paying $100,000 for rights. The following year, CBS began to broadcast NFL regular season games to selected television markets nationally. Though it can be said that the early half of the 20th century was dominated by football above all other sports (with perhaps the exception of baseball), its peak during the pre-1960 period can have been said to occur when, at a 1958 Championship Game, football was dubbed the "greatest game ever played."

Development of The Super Bowl

• In 1960, a rival football league called the American Football League began to play in conjunction with the NFL. This competitive pressure on the NFL spurned a merger between the two leagues. This then led to the creation of the championship game pitting the winners of both leagues, the Super Bowl, which has since remained the single most watched television event in North America on an annual basis. In the 1970s, the NFL began to schedule major games for Monday nights during the football season, which, on a much lesser degree than the Super Bowl, is also a significant cultural event in the lives of most Americans. In 2006, the NFL added Thursday and Saturday night games, which has since sustained and possibly served to increase football's visibility and popularity among the people of North America.

Youth and High School Football

• Football is also a popular sport amongst high, middle, and even elementary school children in North America. Teams are commonly sanctioned by the schools themselves. Many children also participate in junior leagues like Pop Warner, one of the most prominent leagues in both North and South America. Youth football really started to burgeon nationally around the 1960s; by the decade's end, approximately 3,000 Pop Warner teams were up and running. Today, about 5,000 Pop Warner teams play the game of football.