September 17, 2025 • 9 mins
Join us on Daily Sports History as we explore the origins of the American Professional Football Association, which later became the NFL, in 1920. Learn how a small group of teams came together to create what would grow into the most popular sport in America. Discover the key players, early challenges, and the foundation that shaped professional football as we know it today.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
On September seventeenth, nineteen twenty, a group of football teams
get together in former league, naming it the American Professional
Football Association, focusing mainly with teams in the Midwest and Northeast.
With eleven founding members and American sports icon Jim Thorpe
elected president, this was the beginning of what would become
(00:24):
what we now know as the NFL. Today, we're going
to dive into the history of how the NFL started
with this one league back in the nineteen twenties, over
one hundred years ago on Daily Sports History. Welcome to
(00:45):
Daily Sports History. I'm Ethan Reese, and I'm going to
help guide you as you learn and relive sports history
to daily grow your sports knowledge. And today's trivia question
is what too original teams that played in the nineteen
twenty American Professional Football Association are still in the NFL today.
(01:09):
Now professional football actually goes back until night goes back
to Gwinn, Pudge, Heflinger, and Ben Sports not only each
received money to play for different football teams, making them
the first professional football athletes, a new concept at the time,
and over the years, as football continued to grow in popularity,
so did the possibility of a football league outside of
(01:31):
college because at this point in the early nineteen hundreds,
college was the mainstay for football. Everyone that was anything
in football was a college player, and after that many
of them went to go live regular lives, or become
Olympians or try for other different sports, and some sports
leagues did pop up. In nineteen oh two, there was
(01:52):
a New York based World Series of Pro Football tournament
that disbanded after a couple of years. They didn't get
the interest they wanted as college football was the key
at the time. Then there was an Ohio league that
popped up and they were able to get athletes such
as Jim Thorpe to try out, but again it would
fizzle out, especially during World War One when a lot
(02:12):
of these players that would be playing in these leagues
went to war. But after World War Two is when
football really started to grow at the professional level. And
then in August of nineteen twenty at a car dealership
in Canton, Ohio, the league was formed known as the
American Professional Football Conference and initially just consisted of teams
in Ohio. So there's the Akron Pros, the Columbus Panhandlers,
(02:36):
the Dayton Triangles and the Toledo Maroons. But less than
a month later, they held another conference on September seventeenth,
and we renamed it the American Professional Football Association, and
they added some other teams from New York such as
Buffalo and Rochester and even Detroit and and Hammond, Indiana,
which is just a suburb of Chicago. So that first
(02:57):
season they had the Akron Pros, the Buffalo All Americas,
the Canton Bulldogs, the Chicago Cardinals, the Chicago Tigers, the
Cleveland Tigers, the Columbus Panhandlers, the Dayton Triangles, the Decatur Stanley's,
the Detroit Harolds, the Hammond Pros, the Munsie Flyers, the
Rochester Jefferson's, and the Rock Island Independence for a total
(03:19):
of fourteen teams that would end up playing. But a
lot of these teams moved and transformed into other teams
throughout the years. So at this meeting they introduced a
salary cap for teams to keep teams with richer owners
from paying more than smaller teams, and they could not
signed college players. They had to be a graduate or
not in college at all, and they could not sign
(03:42):
players under contract with another team and their idea was
college football was so popular at the time that these
players needed a place to go after college to show
their skill to get even better, because as we know now,
your prime in your athletic career is in your late
twenties and early thirties, not when you're twenty two or eighteen.
(04:04):
So you get better play the more you do it.
And so after all the teams were conducted, they actually
elected Jim Thorpe as the president of the league, pretty
much the commissioner today, although Jim Thorpe actually coached the
Canton Bulldogs as well, But at the time they didn't
worry about conflict of interests and each team created their
own dynamic schedule, meaning there was no minimum or maximum
(04:27):
games they needed to play, and at the end of
the year, each team would vote to determine the winner
of the league instead of having a playoff or a
championship game. So that first season in nineteen twenty was rocky.
But on September twenty sixth was when the very first
game was held, where the Rock Island Independence beat the
Saint Paul Idyls forty eight to zero. Now this was
(04:49):
just the first game featuring one of the teams as
you noticed, the Saint Paul Idyls were not in the APFA. Now,
the first official game featuring two teams happened on a
two third where the Dayton Triangles, who will beat you
with their geometry, beat the Columbus Panhandlers who were begging
for some points fourteen to zero. Yes, I'm making fun
(05:09):
of these names, as they are hilarious to think about today.
I'm just imagining the fans in the stands would be
very different than what we have in Greater Nation or
with the Packers g SAIDs, which is already a little
bit ridiculous. But that was just the first game. Is
there were six other games featuring APFA teams that same day. Now,
some of these were playing other teams in the league.
(05:31):
Some of these were playing other teams we've never heard of.
And that's really what it was. It is more of
a collective than a league. You didn't have to play
a restrictive schedule. It was a lot like college, where
you know, a college team can play whoever they want.
It's kind of what it was like. A lot of
these teams played other teams in their local area or
nearby because they didn't really want to travel too far,
(05:52):
as a lot of these people were factory workers, miners,
all these blue collar jobs they had outside of this
because they were not getting paid very much, and they
would play out the year all the way till all
the way through December, playing a total of thirteen weeks
and by the time by the time the league was done.
By the time the year was over, the team at
the top of the standings was the Akron Pros, who
(06:14):
went eight zero and three and beat six opponents in
the American Professional Football Association. And because of this, the
Akron Pros were voted the championships of the leagues and
given the Brunswick Bulk Calender Cup, which was a silver
trophy that was sponsored by the Bulkwin Bulk Calendar Company,
(06:34):
which is still in existence today is now known as
the Burstwick Company and is an SMP Top four hundred company. Now,
this was some controversy as the Dakota Stanleys who went
ten one to two and the Buffalo On Americans who
went nine to one and one had more wins, so
they should have been the winners, but they could not
make the change and instead of each player getting rings,
(06:55):
they actually got a little fob, a little key chain
type thing, a golden cheek keach that said nineteen twenty
World Champ with the first initial and their last name
on it. And what's interesting is Akron actually had a
non modern perfect season, as they did have ties, but
they didn't lose a game. And this has only happened
four other times in NFL history, with the nineteen twenty
(07:16):
two and twenty three Campton Bulldogs, the nineteen twenty nine
Green Bay Packers, in the nineteen seventy two Miami Dolphins,
and since then, there have been ten players that played
in the original nineteen twenty season that had been inducted
into the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Now of that
first season, only two teams remain in the NFL today,
(07:39):
and as the Decatur Stanleys, who moved around and became
the Chicago Bears, and the Chicago Cardinals who are now
the Arizona Cardinals now. In June nineteen twenty two, the
APFA changed its name to the National Football League and
continued to grow. As teams continue to change throughout the years,
(08:02):
some teams left, new teams were added, and it seemed
like every year they got a little bit bigger and
a little bit bigger and to what we know today
as the National Football League, one of the most profitable
sports league in the world, and what we love every
Sunday to watch. Thank you for listening to today's Daily
(08:23):
Sports History. If you like this, please make sure you're
subscribed wherever you're listening. That way, you don't miss a
single episode and you can come back tomorrow for more
Daily Sports History and the answer to today's triba question
what to Original teams that played in the nineteen twenty
American Professional Football Association are still in the NFL today.
(08:48):
The Decatur Stanley's which became the Chicago Bears, and the
Chicago Cardinals, who became the Arizona Cardinals. The Painted and
ten Painted Painted
On September seventeenth, nineteen twenty, a group of football teams
get together in former league, naming it the American Professional
Football Association, focusing mainly with teams in the Midwest and Northeast.
With eleven founding members and American sports icon Jim Thorpe
elected president, this was the beginning of what would become
(00:24):
what we now know as the NFL. Today, we're going
to dive into the history of how the NFL started
with this one league back in the nineteen twenties, over
one hundred years ago on Daily Sports History. Welcome to
(00:45):
Daily Sports History. I'm Ethan Reese, and I'm going to
help guide you as you learn and relive sports history
to daily grow your sports knowledge. And today's trivia question
is what too original teams that played in the nineteen
twenty American Professional Football Association are still in the NFL today.
(01:09):
Now professional football actually goes back until night goes back
to Gwinn, Pudge, Heflinger, and Ben Sports not only each
received money to play for different football teams, making them
the first professional football athletes, a new concept at the time,
and over the years, as football continued to grow in popularity,
so did the possibility of a football league outside of
(01:31):
college because at this point in the early nineteen hundreds,
college was the mainstay for football. Everyone that was anything
in football was a college player, and after that many
of them went to go live regular lives, or become
Olympians or try for other different sports, and some sports
leagues did pop up. In nineteen oh two, there was
(01:52):
a New York based World Series of Pro Football tournament
that disbanded after a couple of years. They didn't get
the interest they wanted as college football was the key
at the time. Then there was an Ohio league that
popped up and they were able to get athletes such
as Jim Thorpe to try out, but again it would
fizzle out, especially during World War One when a lot
(02:12):
of these players that would be playing in these leagues
went to war. But after World War Two is when
football really started to grow at the professional level. And
then in August of nineteen twenty at a car dealership
in Canton, Ohio, the league was formed known as the
American Professional Football Conference and initially just consisted of teams
in Ohio. So there's the Akron Pros, the Columbus Panhandlers,
(02:36):
the Dayton Triangles and the Toledo Maroons. But less than
a month later, they held another conference on September seventeenth,
and we renamed it the American Professional Football Association, and
they added some other teams from New York such as
Buffalo and Rochester and even Detroit and and Hammond, Indiana,
which is just a suburb of Chicago. So that first
(02:57):
season they had the Akron Pros, the Buffalo All Americas,
the Canton Bulldogs, the Chicago Cardinals, the Chicago Tigers, the
Cleveland Tigers, the Columbus Panhandlers, the Dayton Triangles, the Decatur Stanley's,
the Detroit Harolds, the Hammond Pros, the Munsie Flyers, the
Rochester Jefferson's, and the Rock Island Independence for a total
(03:19):
of fourteen teams that would end up playing. But a
lot of these teams moved and transformed into other teams
throughout the years. So at this meeting they introduced a
salary cap for teams to keep teams with richer owners
from paying more than smaller teams, and they could not
signed college players. They had to be a graduate or
not in college at all, and they could not sign
(03:42):
players under contract with another team and their idea was
college football was so popular at the time that these
players needed a place to go after college to show
their skill to get even better, because as we know now,
your prime in your athletic career is in your late
twenties and early thirties, not when you're twenty two or eighteen.
(04:04):
So you get better play the more you do it.
And so after all the teams were conducted, they actually
elected Jim Thorpe as the president of the league, pretty
much the commissioner today, although Jim Thorpe actually coached the
Canton Bulldogs as well, But at the time they didn't
worry about conflict of interests and each team created their
own dynamic schedule, meaning there was no minimum or maximum
(04:27):
games they needed to play, and at the end of
the year, each team would vote to determine the winner
of the league instead of having a playoff or a
championship game. So that first season in nineteen twenty was rocky.
But on September twenty sixth was when the very first
game was held, where the Rock Island Independence beat the
Saint Paul Idyls forty eight to zero. Now this was
(04:49):
just the first game featuring one of the teams as
you noticed, the Saint Paul Idyls were not in the APFA. Now,
the first official game featuring two teams happened on a
two third where the Dayton Triangles, who will beat you
with their geometry, beat the Columbus Panhandlers who were begging
for some points fourteen to zero. Yes, I'm making fun
(05:09):
of these names, as they are hilarious to think about today.
I'm just imagining the fans in the stands would be
very different than what we have in Greater Nation or
with the Packers g SAIDs, which is already a little
bit ridiculous. But that was just the first game. Is
there were six other games featuring APFA teams that same day. Now,
some of these were playing other teams in the league.
(05:31):
Some of these were playing other teams we've never heard of.
And that's really what it was. It is more of
a collective than a league. You didn't have to play
a restrictive schedule. It was a lot like college, where
you know, a college team can play whoever they want.
It's kind of what it was like. A lot of
these teams played other teams in their local area or
nearby because they didn't really want to travel too far,
(05:52):
as a lot of these people were factory workers, miners,
all these blue collar jobs they had outside of this
because they were not getting paid very much, and they
would play out the year all the way till all
the way through December, playing a total of thirteen weeks
and by the time by the time the league was done.
By the time the year was over, the team at
the top of the standings was the Akron Pros, who
(06:14):
went eight zero and three and beat six opponents in
the American Professional Football Association. And because of this, the
Akron Pros were voted the championships of the leagues and
given the Brunswick Bulk Calender Cup, which was a silver
trophy that was sponsored by the Bulkwin Bulk Calendar Company,
(06:34):
which is still in existence today is now known as
the Burstwick Company and is an SMP Top four hundred company. Now,
this was some controversy as the Dakota Stanleys who went
ten one to two and the Buffalo On Americans who
went nine to one and one had more wins, so
they should have been the winners, but they could not
make the change and instead of each player getting rings,
(06:55):
they actually got a little fob, a little key chain
type thing, a golden cheek keach that said nineteen twenty
World Champ with the first initial and their last name
on it. And what's interesting is Akron actually had a
non modern perfect season, as they did have ties, but
they didn't lose a game. And this has only happened
four other times in NFL history, with the nineteen twenty
(07:16):
two and twenty three Campton Bulldogs, the nineteen twenty nine
Green Bay Packers, in the nineteen seventy two Miami Dolphins,
and since then, there have been ten players that played
in the original nineteen twenty season that had been inducted
into the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Now of that
first season, only two teams remain in the NFL today,
(07:39):
and as the Decatur Stanleys, who moved around and became
the Chicago Bears, and the Chicago Cardinals who are now
the Arizona Cardinals now. In June nineteen twenty two, the
APFA changed its name to the National Football League and
continued to grow. As teams continue to change throughout the years,
(08:02):
some teams left, new teams were added, and it seemed
like every year they got a little bit bigger and
a little bit bigger and to what we know today
as the National Football League, one of the most profitable
sports league in the world, and what we love every
Sunday to watch. Thank you for listening to today's Daily
(08:23):
Sports History. If you like this, please make sure you're
subscribed wherever you're listening. That way, you don't miss a
single episode and you can come back tomorrow for more
Daily Sports History and the answer to today's triba question
what to Original teams that played in the nineteen twenty
American Professional Football Association are still in the NFL today.
(08:48):
The Decatur Stanley's which became the Chicago Bears, and the
Chicago Cardinals, who became the Arizona Cardinals. The Painted and
ten Painted Painted
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