national football league
Posted by admin | Posted in Baseball | Posted on 08-07-2009-05-2008
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In 1920, eleven football teams across the United States came together to form a football association in an effort to streamline the game, the rules and further the sport as a great American pastime. This association would later become known as the National Football League (NFL). Originally, it was named the American Professional Football Association, later becoming the American Professional Football League in 1921 and finally settling on its current name 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.
The National Football League sets a seventeen-week schedule in which each team will play 16 games, with 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. When the regular schedule is completed, the top 6 teams from each conference will face off in the playoff tournaments to determine the top two teams. The 2 winning teams of the playoff games will graduate to the Super Bowl.
The National Football League is the exclusive owner of all rights to the Super Bowl and sets rules and guidelines for merchandising, ticketing and any related business, including selecting the stadium where the Super Bowl will be held each year. 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.
The National Football League has strict requirements for Host cities, one of which is the seating capacity of the stadium. Recently, many cities with a football team have built new stadiums with larger capacities to meet this important NFL requirement. Another important requirement is the impact a super bowl might have on the local infrastructure. For example, when Jacksonville hosted their first Super Bowl in 2005 (Super Bowl XXXIX), they had several problems that put a strain on local resources, one of which was the enormous amount of people using the public bathrooms that caused an unanticipated strain on the local wastewater plant.
Although occassionally such problems may arise, the National Football League has been the driving force behind making football a great American pastime in the same respect as America’s other favorite sport of Baseball.
