American Football League (1926)
professional American football league that operated in 1926
The first American Football League (AFL), sometimes called AFL I, AFLG, or the Grange League, was a professional American football league that operated in 1926. It was the first major competitor to the National Football League (NFL). Founded by Charles "C.C." Pyle, with General Charles X. Zimmerman as vice president and starring Hall of Fame halfback Harold Edward "Red" Grange, the short-lived nine-team league struggled to attract fans and players from the more established – then six-year-old – NFL. While Pyle's and Grange's New York Yankees team and the already established Philadelphia Quakers became reliable draws, the lack of star power and the uncertain financial conditions of the other seven teams led to the league's dissolution after one season.
Origin
The controversial ending of the National Football League's 1925 season led to the founding of the first AFL by Red Grange's agent, C. C. Pyle. In an era in which no professional football team had a prearranged schedule (each team was responsible for booking its own games, with virtually no limitations as to the number of games), the Pottsville Maroons were hailed as the NFL champions by several newspapers after Pottsville defeated the Chicago Cardinals on December 6, even though there were still two weeks left in the season.
In order to attract another matchup against the Chicago Bears, Cardinals owner Chris O’Brien arranged for two more games: one against the Milwaukee Badgers the following Thursday, another against the Hammond Pros two days later, even though both teams had already disbanded for the season. Two shutouts (59–0 and 13–0) later, the Cardinals claimed the top spot with an 11–2–1 record. Simultaneous with the Cardinals–Pros game was an exhibition game between Pottsville and an all-star team consisting of former Notre Dame players at Shibe Park, near the home of the Frankford Yellow Jackets, who protested the invasion of territorial rights by the Maroons.
Despite an order from NFL commissioner Joe Carr to cancel the exhibition, the Maroons proceeded to defeat the Notre Dame all-stars 9–7, scoring a field goal in the last minute. Carr immediately canceled the Maroons' scheduled game against the Providence Steam Roller and suspended the franchise.
“American Football League (1926)” enters the record as professional American football league that operated in 1926. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what American, Football and League can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 10, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q4743809. VIAF identifies the subject as 131703570. The Library of Congress control number is no2004073602. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1926 and 1925.
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This entry incorporates text from “American Football League (1926)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.