A Unique Pairing: Part I
By Stephen Turk
I recently picked up Remember the AFL by Dave Steidel, and I haveto say it’s pretty fascinating. The idea that an upstart league could not only survive in the same waters as the powerhouse, but take only six years to force a merger, is something that’s as impressive to me as it is foreign. I’ve seen expansions in the major sports, but I’ve never seen a merger.
But yet, what is wholly unimaginable to me happened in 1966 with the AFL and NFL merged. To put it in perspective, that would
be like if the NFL joined up with the ill-fated XFL, something which certainly did not happen. In fact, I don’t believe that a merger like the one between the NFL and AFL could ever happen again; the circumstances were just too singular.
The American Football League was the child of Lamar Hunt, a young, eccentric Texas millionaire oilman who was denied a request to purchase an expansion NFL team. In rare “fine, I’ll do it myself” moment that actually worked out, Hunt gathered interested parties, including fellow Texas oilman/NFL shutout Bud Adams, and created his own league.
As an aside, it strikes me odd that the NFL would be that close-minded. True, the NFL had been around for forty years and may have felt some entitlement, but it had hardly been forty years of runaway success, their rise to national prominence had only truly started a few years earlier. But, that was the choice they made, and it really proved to be the wrong one.
The original franchises were in Dallas, Houston, Boston, New York, Buffalo, Denver, Oakland, and Los Angeles. The LA Chargers moved to San Diego in 1961, and the league later expanded to include Cincinnati and Miami, while Dallas moved to Kansas City.
The AFLs biggest advantage came from innovation and doing things that the NFL wasn’t exactly willing to do. Inspired by the success of the thrilling ’58 championship, Hunt had the league pursue television coverage, which they got initially from ABC. The league picked up west coast franchises, which provided the happy coincidence of spreading support for the sport and the creation of the four o’clock game. Fans could watch their local game, then switch on over to the west coast game.
Going along with this television vibe, the AFL was about spectacle. From their decidedly different 
uniforms, to their reliance on the pass, viewers tuning in were certain to be watching some excitement. The league invented the two-point conversion, talk about drama! Of course, that’s not to say everything was aces from the outset. Owners were pretty cheap, and talent was pretty slim. They had to make do with NFL castoffs, tired vets, and unproven talent. Their scouting wasn’t very well put together, and while the LA Chargers had some revolutionary looking uniforms, the Denver Broncos looked terrible in those early days and certainly contributed to the lesser-league mentality.
Nonetheless, on September 9th 1960 the AFL began. By 1970, the league would be dissolved and fully integrated into the NFL.
In part II we’ll look at how this merger went down.
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