American Football League (1940)
It was created when three teams, the original Cincinnati Bengals, the Columbus Bullies, and the Milwaukee Chiefs, were lured away from the minor-league American Professional Football Association and joined three new franchises in Boston, Buffalo, and New York City in a new league.Its establishment resulted in the dissolution of the American Professional Football Association, which had just announced its intentions to compete with the NFL as a major league organization.In the spring of 1940, the former American Professional Football Association announced intentions of turning itself into a major league with the addition of a Milwaukee team for the upcoming season, over the protests of the Green Bay Packers.After the Kenosha Cardinals and St. Louis Gunners applied to join the new league (and were subsequently rejected), the APFA went out of business.[4] After a 30-hour-long meeting of the owners (and other representatives) of the six invited teams in Buffalo's Hotel Lafayette, the bylaws and officials of the new league were determined.While Bill Edwards did not take over the league as previously announced (that job eventually went to former Ohio State University publicity director William D. Griffith),[3] the 1940 season began with six teams owned by people who were, for the most part, in better financial standing than their NFL counterparts.Although the AFL lost the Boston Bears franchise prior to the beginning of the 1941 season, its owners were optimistic about the league's long-term future.All the plans for 1942 came to a sudden stop upon the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and the start of World War II on December 7, 1941.