NATIONAL FOOTBALL LEAGUE By: Marcus Williams Marcus Williams 1

HOW IT ALL STARTED  NFL Born  The NFL was born during a beer-fueled, late-night meeting held in August 1920 inside the Hupmobile auto showroom in Canton, Ohio  1920’s new teams came and went the league fluctuated in size from as many as 22 to as few as ten franchises.  The NFL is a rapid changing league from rules to teams to logos. 2

THE MERGER  AFL-NFL Merger of 1970  Bud Adams founder of AFL  NFL founded in 1920  Founders of the NFL George Halas · Jim Thorpe · Leo Lyons · Carl Storck · Art Ranney · Ralph Hay · Doc Young · Stan Cofall · Jimmy O'Donnell · Frank Nied  AFL owner and commissioner of the time Al Davis did not want an AFL-NFL merger, thought AFL would prosper Marcus Williams 3

EARLY STRUGGLES 4 The NFL barely survived World War Two, which carried away most of its players and fans to serve on the battlefields of Europe and the Pacific. Several teams survived only by temporarily merging with their rivals; for example, the remnants of the Philadelphia Eagles and Pittsburgh Steelers joined forces to play the 1943 season as the Phil-Pitt Steagles. NFL Commissioner Bert Bell—an old-timer who had been involved in running the league since 1933—died of a heart attack suffered in the final minute of an intense Steelers-Eagles game in Philadelphia.

Marcus Williams 5 NEW COMMISSIONER 1.Early the next year, after 23 rounds of disputed voting by the league's owners, a bright young Los Angeles Rams executive named Pete Rozelle was elected the new Commissioner. Rozelle would serve in the position for nearly thirty years, overseeing the NFL's rise to the pinnacle of the American sports business. 2.Rozelle quickly followed up by negotiating the NFL's first league- wide TV deal in The CBS network paid $4.65 million a year for the right to broadcast NFL games through the 1962 and '63 seasons. 3.The NFL has never looked back. Over the years, the value of the league's television contracts has grown exponentially; the current six-year deals with NBC, CBS, FOX, and ESPN, which are locked in through 2011, will pay the NFL's 32 teams a staggering total of more than $12.7 billion.

PROFITABILITY The National Football League is today the most profitable and valuable economic force in sports The league receives more than $2 billion a year from its television contracts alone and rakes in billions more from sales of tickets, advertising, and merchandise A hard salary cap on player contracts, which fixes spending on players' salaries at 59.5% of gross revenues, all but guarantees profitability for even the worst NFL teams while allowing the players to enjoy an average salary of more than $2.1 million a year Marcus Williams 6

7 PLAYER SALARY Average salary The average salary is 2.1 million. Each NFL team has 53 total players. There are 32 NFL teams for a total of 1,696 players. That's almost four times the number of players in pro football than in the NBA NFL teams only play a fraction of the number of games each of the other sports leagues play per year thus less opportunities for income. Highest Paid 1.Aaron Rodgers 22.2 Million per year 2.Russell Wilson 21.19Million 3.Ben Roethlisberger Million

Marcus Williams 8 THE SEASON AND POSTSEASON The NFL Season The NFL season is 17 Weeks long with one bye week. Each team will play there division rivals 2 times a year consuming 6 of there games. The teams will then play 2 divisions of 4 teams such as the AFC West, and NFC East The last 2 games are determined on your record you will play the teams with the closest record to yours The Post Season The first round is the wild card round with 2 teams from each division who had the highest records but didn't win the division and they will play teams of same division to advance to the divisional round. The winner of the divisional round will advance to the conference championship. The winners will then play in the super bowl 2 weeks after with a pro bowl in between for the best players to show off their skills.

Marcus Williams 9 FUN FACTS  Super Bowl trophy valued over $25,000.  If you signed up for the Green Bay Packers season ticket waiting list today, you’d have to wait almost 1,000 years to get your tickets.  It takes about 600 cows to make one full season’s worth of NFL footballs.  Though football games usually last around 3 hours, the ball is typically in play for only 11 minutes. Around 56% of the game on TV is devoted to replays.  On Super Bowl Sunday, pizza delivery drivers get into more accidents than any other day of the year.

Marcus Williams 10 Chase, C. (2014, November 25). usatoday.com. Retrieved from USATodaySports.com: super-bowl-patriots-joe-gibbs-oj-simpson Dorish, J. (2015, January 30). General sports. Retrieved from Examiner.com: nfl-mlb-and-nhl-for-2015 Team, S. e. (2011, November 11). NFL History. Retrieved from shmoop.com: