Although the current NFL is well-represented at virtually every position by African-American athletes, that was not always the case. The league had a few black players until 1933, one year after entry to the league of George Preston Marshall. Marshall's policies not only excluded blacks from his Washington Redskins team but may have influenced the entire league to drop blacks until 1946, when pressure from the competing All-America Football Conference induced the NFL to be more liberal in its signing of blacks. Another theory holds that the NFL, like most of the United States during the Great Depression, simply fired black workers before white workers, but this could hardly account for the league's apparent "all-white" policy during this period. Still, Marshall refused to sign black players until threatened with civil rights legal action by the Kennedy administration in 1962, in which it was explained to him that his lease on the then-new D.C. Stadium, which was at the time controlled by the United States Department of the Interior, would be voided if he continued to refuse to sign any black players. This action, and pressure by another competing league, the more racially-liberal American Football League, slowly managed to reverse the NFL's racial quotas. The AFL's Denver Broncos were the first modern-era team to have a black starting quarterback, Marlin Briscoe, who started the fourth game of the 1968 season, and broke pro football rookie records for passing yardage and touchdowns. The next year 1969, another American Football League team, the Buffalo Bills were the first professional football team of the modern era to begin the season with a black, James Harris as their starting quarterback. The Chicago Bears had a black quarterback in 1953, Willie Thrower, who played in only one game and did not start in any games. After that, no old-line NFL team had a black starting quarterback until the Steelers' Joe Gilliam in 1972.

Even after that, for many NFL teams the door would remain closed to black quarterbacks through the 1970s. 1978 Rose Bowl MVP Warren Moon played for six seasons in the CFL before his abilities finally landed him the starting role with the Houston Oilers. It took until 1988 before a black quarterback started for a Super Bowl team, when Doug Williams won it for the Redskins. To this day, the NFL's head-coach hiring policies are questioned, and it has had to institute measures to attempt to have black head coach candidates be treated more equitably.

(disputed — see talk page)

White skill players have become increasingly rare in the modern NFL, as most positions are filled by blacks. White running backs, defensive backs, and receivers have become less and less common over the last 25 years. In 2005, a slim majority of offensive linemen are white, while no whites are listed as Tailbacks or Cornerbacks on NFL rosters. Most quarterbacks, punters, and kickers are white, while almost all running backs, wide receivers, defensive backs, defensive linemen, safeties, punt returners, and kickoff returners are black. Increasingly, positions such as tight end, fullback, and linebacker are being filled by blacks. In the early 1980s, blacks and whites each made up roughly half of the players. Since then, the percentage of black players has increased steadily to its present 2005 level of 69%. Whites make up the majority of the remaining players, followed by Pacific Islanders, Hispanics, and Asians.

Television

For more details on this topic, see NFL on television.

The television rights to pro football are the most lucrative (and most expensive) rights of any sport available. In fact, it was television that brought pro football into prominence in the modern era of technology. Since then, NFL broadcasts have become among the most-watched programs on American television, and the fortunes of entire networks have rested on owning NFL broadcasting rights.

History

For information on the development of football prior to formation of the NFL, see: History of American football.

Professional football dates at least to 1892, when an athletic club in Pittsburgh paid William "Pudge" Heffelfinger $500 to take part in a game. Over the next few decades, while most attention was paid to football at elite colleges on the East Coast, the professional game spread widely in the Midwest.

The American Professional Football Association was founded in 1920 at a Hupmobile dealership in Canton, Ohio. Legendary athlete Jim Thorpe was elected president. The group of 11 teams, all but one in the Midwest, was originally less a league than an agreement not to rob other teams' players. In the early years, APFA members continued to play non-APFA teams.

In 1921, the APFA began releasing official standings, and the following year, the group changed its name to the National Football League. However, the NFL was hardly a major league in the '20s. Teams entered and left the league frequently. Franchises included such colorful representatives as the Oorang Indians, an all-Native American outfit that also put on a performing dog show.

Yet as former college stars like Red Grange and Benny Friedman began to test the professional waters, the pro game slowly began to increase in popularity. By 1934 all of the small-town teams, with the exception of the Green Bay Packers, had moved to or been replaced by big cities. One factor in the league's rising popularity was the institution of an annual championship game in 1933.

By the end of World War II, pro football began to rival the college game for fans' attention. The spread of the T formation led to a faster-paced, higher-scoring game that attracted record numbers of fans. In 1945, the Cleveland Rams moved to Los Angeles, becoming the first big-league sports franchise on the West Coast. In 1950, the NFL accepted three teams from the defunct All-America Football Conference, expanding to 13 clubs.

In the 1950s, pro football finally earned its place as a major sport. The NFL embraced television, giving Americans nationwide a chance to follow stars like Bobby Layne, Paul Hornung and Johnny Unitas. The 1958 NFL championship in New York -- considered by many to be the most-important game in the rise of the NFL -- drew record TV viewership and made national celebrities out of Unitas and his Baltimore Colts teammates.

The rise of pro football was so fast that by the mid-'60s, it had surpassed baseball as Americans' favorite spectator sport in some surveys. As more people wanted to cash in on this surge of popularity than the NFL could accommodate, a rival league, the American Football League, was founded in 1960. The ensuing costly war for players between the NFL and AFL almost derailed the sport's ascent. In 1966, the leagues agreed to merge as of the 1970 season. The ten AFL teams joined three existing NFL teams to form the NFL's American Football Conference. The remaining 13 NFL teams became the National Football Conference. Another result of the merger was the creation of the Super Bowl to determine the "world champion" of pro football.

In the 1970s and '80s, the NFL solidified its dominance as America's top spectator sport and its important role in American culture. The Super Bowl became an unofficial national holiday and the top-rated TV program most years. Monday Night Football, which first aired in 1970 brought in high ratings by mixing sports and entertainment. Rules changes in the late '70s ensured a fast-paced game with lots of passing to attract the casual fan.

The founding of the United States Football League in the early '80s was the biggest challenge to the NFL in the post-merger era. The USFL was a well-financed competitor with big-name players and a national television contract. However, the USFL failed to make money and folded after three years.

In recent years, the NFL has expanded into new markets and ventures. In 1993, the league formed the World League of American Football, (now NFL Europe), a developmental league now with teams in Germany and the Netherlands. The league played a regular-season NFL game in Mexico City in 2005 and intends to play more such games in other countries. In 2003, The NFL lauched its own cable-television channel, the NFL Network.

Video games

Electronic Arts publishes an NFL video game for current video game consoles and for PCs each year, called Madden NFL, being named after former coach and current football commentator John Madden. Prior to the 2005-2006 football season, other NFL games were produced by competing video game publishers, such as Sega and Midway Games. However, in December 2004, Electronic Arts signed a five-year exclusive agreement with the NFL, meaning only Electronic Arts will publish games featuring NFL team and player names.

Commissioners and presidents

1. President Jim Thorpe (1920)
2. President Joseph Carr (1921-1939)
3. President Carl Storck (1939-1941)
4. Commissioner Elmer Layden (1941-1946)
5. Commissioner Bert Bell (1946-1959)
6. Interim President Austin Gunsel (1959-1960, following death of Bell)
7. Commissioner Alvin "Pete" Rozelle (1960-1989)
8. Commissioner Paul Tagliabue (1989-present)

League offices

• Canton, Ohio (1920-1921)
• Columbus, Ohio (1921-1941)
• Chicago, Illinois (1941-1946)
• Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (1946-1960)
• New York, New York (1960-present)

Players

• List of American football players
• Current NFL players

Rules named after players

The following is a partial list of rules that were enacted largely based on a single player's exploits on the field.

• the Bronko Nagurski Rule -- forward passing made legal from anywhere behind the line of scrimmage. Enacted in 1933. Prior to this rule change a player had to be five yards behind the line of scrimmage to throw a forward pass.
• the Deacon Jones Rule -- no head-slapping. Enacted in 1977.
• the Deion Sanders rule -- Player salary rule which correlates a contract's signing bonus with its yearly salary. Enacted after Deion Sanders signed with the Dallas Cowboys in 1995 for a minimum salary and a $13 million signing bonus. (There is also a college football rule with this nickname.)
• the Emmitt Smith Rule -- no taking your helmet off on the field of play. Enacted in 1997.
• the Erik Williams rule -- no hands to the facemask by offensive linemen.
• the Fran Tarkenton rule -- a line judge was added as the sixth official. Enacted in 1965.
• the Ken Stabler rule -- on fourth down or any down in the final two-minutes of play, if a player fumbles, only the fumbling player can recover and/or advance the ball. Enacted in 1979.
• the Lester Hayes rule -- no Stickumв„ў allowed. Enacted in 1981.
• the Lou Groza rule -- no artificial medium to assist in the execution of a kick. Enacted in 1956.
• the Mel Renfro rule -- allows a "double touch" by the offense. Enacted in 1978.
• the Michael Irvin rule -- no taunting. Another rule, resulting in offensive pass interference, prohibiting WRs to push off CBs, is also often called "the Michael Irvin rule."
• the Bert Emanuel rule -- the ball can touch the ground during a completed pass as long as the receiver maintains control of the ball.
• the Terrell Owens rule -- no "foreign objects" on a player's uniform (enacted in response to the 2002 "Sharpieв„ў incident").
• the Peyton Manning rule -- Defensive backs can only make contact with receivers within five yards of the line of scrimmage.
• the Roy Williams rule -- no horse-collar tackles. Enacted in 2005.

See the external Professional Football Researchers Association for more "player named" rules, and background information on how these rules came about.

Awards

• Vince Lombardi Trophy
• Lamar Hunt Trophy
• George S. Halas Trophy
• Most Valuable Player
• Coach of the Year
• Offensive Player of the Year
• Defensive Player of the Year
• Offensive Rookie of the Year
• Defensive Rookie of the Year
• Super Bowl MVP
• NFL Comeback Player of the Year
• Walter Payton Man of the Year Award

Footnotes

1. ^  NFL scheduling formula at NFL.com

See also

• Glossary of American football
• List of NFL seasons
• NFL Europe
• NFL Lore
• NFL Nicknames
• List of Professional Football Drafts
• American Football League
• Defunct NFL teams
• Pro Bowl
• Super Bowl
• Pro Football Hall of Fame
• NFL Individual Records
• NFL Team-Oriented Records
• Professional Football Championship Games
• Personal Seat License
• List of leagues of American football
• NFL Annual Rushing Leaders
• List of National Football League franchise post-season droughts
• Significant rivalries in the NFL
• Madden NFL series
• NFL Street series
• NFL Blitz
• List of NFL tied games (since 1974)

References

• Official NFL website
• Official Super Bowl website
• NFL History - Champion and Award Lists
• "NFL Scores Nearly $18 Billion in TV Rights", by Stefan Fatsis and Kyle Pope, 14 January 1998, The Wall Street Journal (p. B1) [2]
• NFL Record and Fact Book (ISBN 193299436X)
• Total Football: The Official Encyclopedia of the National Football League (ISBN 0062701746)
• http://www.pro-football-reference.com - Large online database of NFL data and statistics
• The NFL History Network - includes a large database of historic NFL box scores
• NFL's Economic Model Shows Signs of Strain
• Professional Football Researchers Association - detailed descriptions of why many of the rules named after players were enacted.

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