By Stephen Turk

After the 1965, only five years into the AFL’s existence, the NFL realized that they had a competent competitor in the AFL.  The animosity amongst the leagues centered around some fairly simple concepts, talent and money.

With nary a friendly agreement between the leagues, rosters were often raided.  The AFL at this time was be headed up by bullish Raiders owner Al Davis (a man still making headlines today), and there really was nothing off limits.

The AFL was able to establish itself rather quickly.  Player contracts weren’t at the level they are today, so owners could compete in drafting college talent, the AFL had a television deal, so people were watching, and the interest in football around the country was only growing.  Dave Steidel chronicles in his Remember the AFL that it all started when the Giants signed away kicker Pete Gogolak from the Bills.  Al Davis responded by promising big money to NFL players coming up on the ends of their contracts.

This money race, promising to the players, but down right frightening to the owners, proved to be worse for the even more tight-fisted NFL owners.  And so for 18 million dollars, the AFL was allowed to playing in the NFL, in what Steidel characterizes as more of a truce than a true merger.

The plan was multi-tiered.  Starting with the 1966 season, there would be a championship game between the winners of each league.  The following season would feature a common draft, and the teams would play each other in the preseason.  Finally, the true end of the AFL would come in 1970, when the AFL television contract was up, and the teams would then begin to play each other in the regular season.

The implications of all this are far-reaching.  First off, that championship game would soon be known as the Super Bowl, today the highest watched television event and the unequivocal benchmark for sport viewership success (not to mention the millions of dollars charged for 30 seconds of advertising).  There was also the consolidation of football’s power as a media entity.  As I talked about in earlier postings, football and television need each other.  What  better way to make more money than to get ABC and NBC in a bidding war over broadcast rights?

A common draft and a cease in contract baiting between leagues also kept the owners happy and kept the contracts reasonable (for a time anyway).  Again, power was consolidated, and competition was effectively wiped out.  The AFL brought along their assets like the aerial game, snazzy uniforms with player’s names on the back, and expanded markets.  The once “Almost Football League” New York Jets beat the heavily favored Baltimore Colts of the NFL in Super Bowl III and that was enough for people to take the league seriously leading up to the full merger.  The two leagues were renamed the AFC and the NFC, and played under the umbrella NFL.  The years have since been very kind to the NFL, with further expansion teams and reorganizations of the conferences.

 And so here we are today.  If the 58 Championship showed the potential appeal of pro football, certainly the merger shored it up.  There is a lot to like about the AFL, and a lot the NFL owes to its annexed league.

For season by season details into the AFL, check out Remember the AFL by Dave Steidel.  There’s a lot of great information there that I wouldn’t have learned otherwise.