The National Football League (NFL) is one of the most profitable and popular sports leagues worldwide. American Football is a massive part of US culture, and many people who enjoy American culture love the sport too. How did the league grow into the behemoth that it is today, though?
The beginnings of the league, like most sports, are impressively humble. The sport has been a continental enjoyment since the late 1800s, but it was not until the 1920s that the NFL was formed. What started in Canton, Ohio grew into one of the biggest sports empires in the world.
Not only is it among the highest-earning sports leagues around, but it is also comfortably among the most popular. At first, though, the league struggled – the lack of organization meant that it was, structurally, a complete mess. There were many teams but no meaningful schedule, and no player contracts. Players move around all the time and it meant that there was no fluency or structure. Jim Thorpe was a leading light in turning the sport from a disorganized rabble into what it eventually became.
The rise of the NFL rules
Thorpe and others began to build a clear schedule and some guidelines for the sport. They set up things like salary caps, championship games, and regional and state teams, and banned the ability for players to move from one team to the other i.e. ‘poaching’ – they also meant that professional teams could not take players who were still at college.
The first part of this was known as the American Professional Football Conference or APFC. This saw five teams join up more or less right away, and over time other teams were eager to join this organized sports league. It took several years, but this was the true beginning of what has become the modern NFL.
It started slow, it took time, it took effort, and mistakes were made. Without the likes of Jim Thorpe, though, we might never have had the NFL. And without the NFL, who knows how the US sports landscape would look?