Before and after The Green Bay Packers won Super Bowl XLV, you may have noticed how some in the media brought up the fact that The Packers have the most Championship Titles in NFL History. (Thirteen after they won SB XLV.)
This no doubt led to some people thinking "Wait a minute, I thought The Steelers had the most with six."
The way that The NFL markets the sport when it comes to Championships as if anything Pre-Super Bowl Era doesn't count or never even existed, It's understandable how many people believe that The Steelers have the most as all of theirs have been won during the Post Merger Super Bowl Era.
Most people also believe that The Super Bowl was always an NFL Sanctioned Game. This also is not true. In fact, it wasn't even officially called "Super Bowl" until the Third one between The New York Jets and The Baltimore Colts. Before this, it was officially called the "AFL-NFL Championship Game" as the first four games were in fact between The National Football League (NFL) Champions and the American Football League (AFL) Champions.
What we now call The Super Bowl was a creation caused by The competition between the NFL and AFL in the 1960's. Before The 1966 Season, the two leagues agreed to a merger by 1970 and they also agreed to have a season ending game between the two league champions. It was Dallas Texans/Kansas City Chiefs Owner and AFL Founder Lamar Hunt who came up with the name "Super Bowl" after seeing his daughter playing with a toy called a "Super Ball". Hunt wanted the name to have a "College Football Feel" to it like The Rose Bowl, Sugar Bowl, etc.
When the two leagues officially merged. (Actually, Merged into the NFL.) The NFL also took the name "Super Bowl" and Vince Lombardi Trophy and made it the NFL Championship Game. Therefore, it's now really just the NFL Championship Game (The first taking place in 1933.) with a different name and trophy. The merging of The AFL into the NFL also brought about the names AFC and NFC.
Also with the Merger, The Baltimore Colts, Cleveland Browns and Pittsburgh Steelers agreed to be the three Pre Merger NFL teams to go to the AFC so each conference would have 13 teams.
The AFL was founded in 1959 by Lamar Hunt and several other businessmen who either tried to get an expansion NFL Team or buy into already existing NFL Teams and were shut out. 1960 was their first season. These teams eventually became The...
Buffalo Bills
Boston/New England Patriots
Dallas Texans/Kansas City Chiefs
Denver Broncos
Los Angeles/San Diego Chargers
Houston Oilers/Tennessee Oilers/Tennessee Titans
New York Titans/Jets
Oakland/Los Angeles/Oakland Raiders*
The Miami Dolphins and Cincinnati Bengals came in a few years later as AFL Expansion Teams.
*What eventually became The Minnesota Vikings were persuaded by The NFL to leave the AFL Founding Group and start in 1961 as an NFL Team. They were replaced by The Oakland Raiders.
Before Lamar Hunt's AFL, there were past efforts to form Pro Football Leagues to compete with the NFL (Some of which were also called The American Football League.) but they were dismal failures. (...and at the time, Pro Football was behind Baseball and College Football in terms of National Popularity.) The only other league to have any kind of impact was the All-America Football Conference (AAFC) which played from 1946 to 1949 and produced the Cleveland Browns and San Francisco 49ers who were merged into the NFL for the 1950 Season. The Browns won all four AAFC Titles and went undefeated in the 1948 Season, 24 years before the 1972 Miami Dolphins did it in The NFL.
Next: How the first NFL Championship Game in 1933 came into being.
Thanks.
George.
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