Intro

The sport of football was played as early as the 1800s, but in 1892 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania professional football was created. This happened when the Yale football star William Heffelfinger was paid $500 to play in a single game for the Allegheny Athletic Association on November 12th. This small action had a much bigger effect than anyone could have imagined. For the next three decades, pro football struggled along, played primarily in small towns throughout western Pennsylvania and the Midwest. 

Birth of the National Leagues

The NFL was created first in the 1920s. The league did better than anyone had imagined. During an NFL championship game between the Baltimore Colts and the Giants in 1958, they had 45 million views. After that game, the league was established as a source of entertainment and had everyone wanting to buy a team. But instead of accepting the new owners the NFL rudely turned away a lot of the businessmen.

The bad treatment from the NFL led by Lamar Hunt a wealthy oil tycoon had an idea. He decided to recruit seven businessmen from cities that needed their own professional football teams. That league was called the AFL(American Football League).

After the AFL and the NFL were started they spent many years fighting over players. The leagues had an unspoken agreement that one league would not sign another team's player. This agreement was broken when a team from both leagues signed Pete Gogolak. This disagreement about who would get Gogolak ended in the discussion of a merger. After the merger, a new NFL was created and under the NFL were the AFC and NFC.

Superbowl 

The NFC started out as the winning league and beat the AFC in the next two Super Bowls. This information may be surprising because in today's league the AFC has more of the better teams. This is true because in the last four out of five years an AFC team has won the super bowl.

The NFL Today

Today the NFL has expanded and has a total of 32 teams in the league. The NFC and the AFC are now split with each having four sections. The NFC and AFC each have a West, East, South, and North. 

Sources

“AFC vs NFC.” AFC vs NFC - Difference and Comparison | Diffen, www.diffen.com/difference/American_Football_Conference_vs_National_Football_Conference

“NFL and AFL Announce Merger.” History.com, A&E Television Networks, www.history.com/this-day-in-history/nfl-and-afl-announce-merger.