national football league
Posted by admin | Posted in Baseball | Posted on 08-07-2009-05-2008
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In order to promote football as a professional American game and to regulate teams, the owners of 11 football teams across the USA formed a professional football association in 1920. This association would later become known as the National Football League (NFL). The original name of the association was the American Professional Football Association, which later was changed to the American Football League in 1921 and finally to the NFL in 1922.
The National Football League is divided into two conferences, the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National Football conference (NFC). These two conferences are further divided into four smaller divisions, with four teams each. The primary objective of the NFL is to promote the game, set the regular season schedule of competitors and to host a playoff game, the world championship, known as the Super Bowl.
Each team is on a 17-week schedule, where they will play 16 games against teams in their conference each week and have one week off. The regular season normally begins on the first Thursday after Labor Day (September 1) and will end in late December or early January. At the conclusion of the regular season, the six top teams from each conference (AFC and NFC) will play in a single elimination tournament, known as the playoffs. The 2 winning teams of the playoff games will graduate to the Super Bowl.
In addition to the schedules and the administration of professional football, the National Football League also promotes and owns all rights to the Super Bowl, including picking the host stadium for the annual event. Any city with a franchised team can make a bid to the national football league for their city to host an upcoming super bowl, by submitting a proposal to the NFL.
In addition to the many guidelines reqired by the National Football League, the stadium’s seating capacity is an important consideration. This is the reason many cities have built or rebuilt their stadiums in recent years. Another consideration is the impact the super Bowl will have on the area. One such case was the Super Bowl XXXIX held at the new Jacksonville Stadium in 2005. The unprecedented amount of people using the public restrooms resulted in difficulties with the local wastewater treatment plant to accommodate the unexpected rise in facilities.
Nevertheless, The National Football League, as a governing body, has been instrumental in bringing Football into the home of millions of Americans as well as making it as popular as the great American pastime of Baseball.
