NFL Football History
The National Football League or better known as the NFL is the largest professional American Football league. The league originally was formed in 1920 and was known as the American Professional Football Association which was then changed to the American Professional Football League a year later. Its name changed for the last time to its existing name a year after that. The league was created with a mere 11 members but has evolved to 32 teams divided into 2 conferences of 16 teams each. This is turn has resulted in a flood of NFL merchandise being made available such as mini NFL helmets. The long history of the NFL has thus resulted in some amusing and interesting NFL trivia.
NFL Popularity
American Football has been the most popular sport in America since 1965. The NFL has the highest per-game attendance of any domestic professional sports league in the world, attracting over 67,000 spectators per game for both of its two most recently completed seasons, 2006 and 2007. Unfortunately, the NFL's overall attendance is only an estimated 20% of that of Major League Baseball, due to MLB's 162 game schedule.
In a sports poll done in 2008, the NFL was the most favored sport of almost as many people (30 percent) as the combined total of the next four professional sports - baseball (15 percent), auto racing (10 %), hockey (5 %) and men's pro basketball (4 percent). Moreover, Football's American TV viewership figures have now surpassed those of other sports. In addition, independent studies have revealed that the average global viewership is just over 100 million, with many of whom of whom being U.S. viewers.
The NFL Logo
The old NFL logo which consisted of 25 stars was used between 1970 and 2008. It has since been replaced with a new logo, which contains 4 stars, for the 2008 season.
The Super Bowl Trophy
The trophy a team is awarded for winning the Super Bowl is known as the Vince Lombardi Trophy; Lombardi successfully the Packers to many NFL Championships in the 1960s.
NFL Players
Oddly, former Charger Defensive Lineman Ernie Ladd also had a career as a professional wrestler.
NFL Teams
The Green Bay Packers are not just the lone NFL team that is publicly owned by the community and fans. It is the only professional sports team in the United States with such an ownership arrangement. The Packers won the first two Super Bowls ever played, though at the time they were not yet known as Super Bowls. The Packers is the oldest team name that is still in use in the National Football League.
The Indianapolis Colts were the first NFL team to have cheerleaders. The Colts are the very first team ever to start consecutive seasons with 9-0 records. In 1981 the Colts set a modern record for fewest punts returned in a single season with just 12.
At one time, the New England Patriots were the lone team in the league who had an image of a football as part of their National Football League team helmet symbol.