5. Before 1933

Organized by C.C. Pyle and Red Grange in 1926, the first American Football League (AFL) played one season. Although the new league started with nine teams and its initial game played before 22,000 fans in Cleveland, Ohio, at the end of the season only four teams were still in existence. These included the Chicago Bulls, Los Angeles Wildcats, New York Yankees, and the league champion Philadelphia Quakers, each owned or subsidized by Pyle and Grange. Most AFL games were defensive affairs with only the Yankees and Cleveland Panthers averaging more than ten points per contest. While the Quakers and Yankees consistently played before crowds of at least 20,000 per game, other teams were not so fortunate. Competing against the NFL’s Brooklyn Lions, the Brooklyn Horsemen quit operating in November 1926 and merged with the Lions. As the AFL decreased in size during October and November, so did attendances in Philadelphia for the Quakers, the only team reported to earn a profit. Two weeks after clinching the championship, the Quakers played an exhibition game against the NFL’s seventh-place New York Giants in a driving snowstorm at the Polo Grounds. Only 5,000 fans witnessed the home team’s 31–0 whitewash of the AFL titlists. While the Yankees and Wildcats went on a barnstorming tour after the 1926 season, the other AFL teams folded their operations. For more information about the AFC in 1926, see such sources as Pay Dirt, 434–435 and King (1993).

At a special meeting in Cleveland on April 23, 1927, NFL President Joe Carr decided to secure the league’s future by eliminating the financially weaker teams and consolidating the quality players onto a limited number of more successful teams. The new-look NFL dropped 12 teams, and the center of gravity of the league left the Midwest and began to emerge in the large cities of the East. See the Official 2013 NFL Record and Fact Book (New York, NY: National Football League, 2013), 355.