In 1969, the final year of the independent AFL, Professional Football's first "wild card" playoffs were conducted. While NFL management was contemplating the penalties for the suspended Pottsville franchise (which was eventually reinstated with the payment of a moderate fine) in December, C. C. “Cash and Carry” Pyle surprised the league by requesting a franchise in New York City for himself and star back Red Grange and secured a five-year lease for baseball's The first AFL did not maintain individual statistics (the same was true of the NFL until 1934). Every other professional league that had competed against the NFL before the AFL-NFL merger had folded completely: the three previous leagues named "American Football League" and the The AFL was also the most successful of numerous upstart leagues of the 1960s and 1970s that attempted to challenge a major professional league's dominance. The Continental League, a proposed third league for Major League Baseball that was to begin play in 1961, never played a single game.

The agreement also called for a title game to be played between the champions of the respective leagues. Hunt and Schramm completed the basic groundwork for a merger of the two leagues by the end of May, and on June 8, 1966, the merger was officially announced. Lamar Hunt felt that despite winning the league championship in 1962, the Texans could not succeed financially competing in the same market as the A series of events throughout the next few years demonstrated the AFL's ability to achieve a greater level of equality with the NFL. It was the first major competitor to the National Football League (NFL). The first American Football League (AFL), sometimes called AFL I, AFLG, or the Grange League, was a professional American football league that operated in 1926. Attendance for the 1960 season was respectable for a new league, but not nearly that of the NFL. The NFL, which had played a 12-game schedule since 1947, changed to a 14-game schedule in 1961, a year after the American Football League instituted it. The agreement between the two rivals limited the number of home games that the Yankees were permitted to play in its namesake stadium (four in 1927) and forced Pyle's squad to be primarily a road team displaying the talents of Red Grange. The Kansas City Chiefs were the first Super Bowl champion to win two road playoff games and the first wildcard team to win the Super Bowl, although the term "wildcard" was coined by the media, and not used officially until several years later. His successor was Oakland Raiders head coach and general manager The same month Davis was named commissioner, several NFL owners, along with Dallas Cowboys general manager Tex Schramm, secretly approached Lamar Hunt and other AFL owners and asked the AFL to merge. They had also only narrowly beaten the favored Oakland Raiders 27–23 in the AFL championship game. The war for talent and audience had a disastrous effect on all but the strongest teams. Present-day Pro Football is essentially the American Football League with another name. In 1963, the Buffalo Bills and Boston Patriots finished tied with identical records of 7–6–1 in the AFL East Division. The following week, Brooklyn played its third (and last) home game in the AFL, in front of mainly empty stands.As the Yankees went on a barnstorming tour and the Quakers repeatedly tried to arrange for a game between champions of the two leagues, the Wildcats officially became inactive (in reality, they were touring with the Yankees as the "designated opponent"). The Chiefs upset the Raiders in Oakland 17–7 in the league's Championship, the final AFL game played. Independent American Football League. On-field game elements, including the two-point conversion, names on players' jerseys, official time shown on stadium scoreboards (instead of on a stopwatch in the NFL referee's pocket), and wide-open offensive play were all characteristics of the AFL… The Patriots traveled to San Diego as the Chargers completed a three game season sweep over the weary Patriots with a 51–10 victory. Hunt's vision not only brought a new professional football league to California and New York, but introduced the sport to Colorado, restored it to Texas and later to fast-growing Florida, as well as bringing it to New England for the first time in 12 years. An AFL franchise was awarded to In 1966, the rivalry between the AFL and NFL reached an all-time peak. The Raiders beat the Chiefs 41–6 in a division playoff to qualify for the AFL Championship Game. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_American_and_Canadian_football_leagues Hunt also approached Willard Rhodes of Seattle, Washington, but that effort failed when Rhodes was turned down by On August 14, 1959, the first league meeting was held in Chicago, Illinois, and charter memberships were granted to Dallas, New York, Houston, Denver, Los Angeles, and Minneapolis-Saint Paul. The IAFL owner, Tracey Rico, will be committed only to the teams in the league. 2019 Member Teams MEDIA CENTER MARKETPLACE CONTACT Join … A similar situation occurred in the 1968 season, when the Oakland Raiders and the Kansas City Chiefs finished the regular season tied with identical records of 12–2 in the AFL West Division.