The nations growing appetite for more football

Bob Moore

"Inside the Stacks: Exploring important documents in Chiefs history" is a series of columns based on never-before-seen documents and correspondence from the Lamar Hunt archives, including many from the founding and early days of the American Football League, the merger with the National Football League, and other historic moments up until the time of Hunt's death.

The major reason Lamar Hunt was so bold as to create a new professional football league was the National Football League had no plans for expansion.

Hunt's repeated attempts, beginning in the 1950s, to either buy an existing franchise or to start a new one in Dallas were rejected by the NFL's leadership and, indeed, the league's expansion committee never met to discuss any such idea until Hunt formed the American Football League.

The AFL began play with eight teams divided into two divisions and had some obvious advantages over the more established NFL, particularly as it had to do with the drafting of college players.

With fewer teams, the AFL had its pick of the best players in its draft if teams were willing to compete with the NFL to pay them. The eight AFL teams also shared a larger piece of the television pool given the NFL had to share among 14 franchises beginning in 1961. Finally, new AFL stadiums in New York, Houston and Oakland were to be constructed in a marked contrast to the NFL, whose teams often played in aging baseball stadiums.

Hunt's fear, however, was that the NFL could expand again as it did in 1960 to meet his AFL threat, and possibly capture new markets in Atlanta, New Orleans and Miami, becoming a full 16-team league split into four 4-team divisions.

This growth would overshadow the eight-team AFL and would also strengthen the NFL's recruiting in the South. By 1965, 40 percent of pro football's players came from south of the Mason-Dixon line. This would further strengthen the NFL's television ratings in that part of the country.

What was Hunt's strategy as he contemplated how to meet the possible moves by the NFL?

• AFL expansion by as many as eight teams with the most logical sites to be Atlanta, New Orleans, Miami, Chicago, Milwaukee, Los Angeles, Philadelphia and either Seattle, Cincinnati, Detroit or Cleveland.

• Expand over a four-year period, adding two teams per year. Add Atlanta, New Orleans or Miami first to preempt any NFL move. Or, add all eight teams in one year and allow these teams to compete among themselves for four or five years to build up their strength to compete with the existing AFL teams. He saw this latter option as very awkward and detrimental since it cut into the supply of player talent and television revenue for established AFL franchises.

• Eliminate any possibility of a third fall league, which he believed was a remote threat.

Plans for an AFL expansion carried some risks. Primarily, such a move would seemingly terminate any possibility of a merger with the NFL.

Hunt noted in a letter to new commissioner Al Davis that he had "gotten a couple of peace feelers from the NFL since you came in," but doubted "that they will lead anywhere."

San Diego Chargers owner, Barron Hilton, suggested expansion to Miami and the importance of waiting on a tenth team until the NFL can "examine once again the obvious merit of getting together [with the AFL in a merger]."

AFL expansion did come with new franchises in Miami in 1966 and Cincinnati in 1968. What also came in short order was a merger agreement with the NFL announced in June of 1966.

SOURCES:"AFL Expansion," Cabinet 16, Drawer D. "Memorandum for Expansion Committee Meeting," April 15, 1965. Lamar Hunt to Commissioner Al Davis, May 11, 1966.