NFL FOOTBALL BETTING

SPORT EVENTS

SPORT BETTING

The NFL

The National Football League is the largest professional football league in the United States and the largest American football league in the world.

The modern League boasts 32 teams that are in turn organized into two conferences: the American Football Conference and the National Football Conference. Each has four sub-divisions - the North, South, East, and West Divisions – with four teams each. The NFL’s regular season is organized with:

4 preseason games (or exhibitions)
A 17-week, 16-game regular season (allowing one bye week)
A 12-team playoff tournament in January that ends with the Super Bowl in early February

For more information on the NFL, please see one of the following:

NFL History

American football has its early roots in rugby and soccer. The first rules for the modern sport were written in 1879 during the Massasoit Convention.

American football grew increasingly popular during the late 19th century. There were no leagues yet, but with teams and professional players cropping up in many parts of the country, competition was fierce.

Early professional football faced a series of problems - including rising salaries and itinerant players, who could easily abandon teams for higher pay – which eventually induced several teams to consider starting a league. In 1920, ten teams from four different states banded together to form the American Professional Football Association. Another four teams joined the league that year, and in 1921, the Association claimed 22 teams.

The Green Bay Packers were among these original teams.

In 1922, the Association changed its name permanently to the National Football League, a title it maintains in the present. A few years later, five new franchises were added to the League, including the New York Giants, the Detroit Panthers, the Providence Steam Roller, the Canton Bulldogs, and the Potsville Maroons, the most successful independent pro football team at the time.

It was in 1925 when pro football began to grab the nation’s attention. On Thanksgiving Day in 1925, a crowd of 36,000 gathered to watch Harold (Red) Grange with the Chicago Bears play against the Chicago Cardinals. Grange was a crowd-pleaser, and his games against the New York Giants and the Los Angeles Tigers drew over 70,000 people each.

The following decades would see the game grow into the national pastime it is today.

In 1933, the NFL made a significant series of changes to the game, such that the professional game began to differ from the college game. In the same year, the NFL was split into two divisions, with the winners meeting in an annual championship in July. In 1935, the NFL adopted a proposal to begin a college draft, which would be instituted the next year.

Then, in 1959, the NFL faced its first real League challenge. Another league, called the American Football League, was formed. In the following years, the two leagues engaged in a bitter rivalry. The AFL attempted to file an antitrust suit against the NFL, but after the court ruled against the AFL, the rivalry took a different direction. After years of contention, the two agreed to a merger, and in 1967, played their first unified championship game: the Super Bowl.

In 1977, the NFL began changing its rules, allowing for a fast-paced, high-scoring game that attracted millions of fans. The NFL only increased in popularity in the following decades, gathering millions of viewers in each game. The Super Bowl is now one of the nation’s top-rated television programs.

For a list of Super Bowl Champions, click here.