100 years of NFL history in under four minutes

NFL explained

The NFL is the premier professional American football league, founded in 1920 in Canton, Ohio. It consists of 32 teams playing an 18-week regular season from September to January, culminating in the Super Bowl championship in February. The NFL has grown into the world's most valuable sports league, generating nearly $20B in revenue in 2023, and with teams valued at $163B combined. Learn its history here.

1440: The National Football League

Explore the best resources we found on the NFL

The NFL is so successful because it is perfectly suited for television

The predictable weekly cadence of football games ritualizes the experience of watching together, and their relative scarcity makes every game meaningful. With the stop-and-go play of the sport, there are predictable, repeating stoppages to allow broadcasters to sell lots of advertising inventory. The league sits in the sweet spot compared to MLB (many games) and NBA and soccer (continuous play with fewer ads). This Acquired episode distills fascinating insights into the NFL's business and history.

The greatest games in NFL history

Do you remember “The Catch”? What about the “Immaculate Reception”? Did you watch when Elway finally got his ring? Take a trip down memory lane with this Bleacher Report list of the 50 greatest games in NFL history. Explore classic NFL moments dating back to the NFL’s early days in the 1930s and '40s to the present day.

Watch a comprehensive history of the Super Bowl

This video traces the Super Bowl's history from its origins through major games, ads, and cultural moments, offering a comprehensive overview of how the event evolved. Note that the video covers through the 2020 season.

Pete Rozelle made football an American obsession

There have been eight NFL commissioners in the league’s 100-plus year history, but none of them changed the league quite like Pete Rozelle. This 1984 New York Times Magazine profile looks back at the substantial changes Rozelle brought to the league since he took the job in 1960, as well as the challenges he faced while in office.

Rivalry between the AFL and NFL led to a merger—and the creation of the Super Bowl

Competition between the American Football League and the National Football League led to a 1966 merger agreement, with the Super Bowl created as a championship game to determine league supremacy before the two leagues were fully integrated.

Fantasy football is now a $10B industry

Curious about how fantasy football grew into a global empire? This video breaks down how a losing Oakland Raiders team led to the first form of fantasy football, long before the internet and smartphones made it a worldwide phenomenon.

The NFL held its first draft of college players in 1936

The NFL draft is a three-day spectacle with wall-to-wall media coverage and months of speculation about who will go to number one. But it wasn't always like that. The early days of the draft were done on a chalkboard and created a need for professional scouting departments.

The Super Bowl is the National Football League’s championship game

Played annually in early February between the league’s two conference champions, the game was created as part of the 1966 merger between the American Football League and the National Football League. It has become the most-watched sporting event in the US each year.

Every NFL team's top 10 plays of all time

In more than a century of football, there have been a tremendous number of awe-inspiring, defy-the-odds, and borderline miracle plays. This 90-minute compilation from the NFL pulls together the top 10 plays for each time from their franchise history.

Watch the evolution of the NFL Draft

The NFL Draft evolved from a small group of team representatives huddled in a Philadelphia hotel ballroom in 1936 into a three-day primetime spectacle that regularly draws over 500,000 fans and 13 million TV viewers. Explore how it became the event it is today.

As fantasy football grew more popular, the NFL began adapting

By the late 1990s, CBS, ESPN, and Yahoo had all launched their fantasy platforms, allowing the game to grow even more popular. By 2009, the NFL took note and began offering coverage that explicitly focused on fantasy metrics, including “RedZone,” a popular Sunday show that allows viewers to tune into the most crucial moments from around the league—or across their fantasy rosters.

The NFL is the most valuable sports league in the world.

The 100 most significant sports moments between 2000 and 2025

This list ranks the 100 most significant sports moments of the first 25 years of the 21st century. The editors compiled the collection based on a list of factors, including the "collective joy" factor, whether it made you curse in disbelief, and how much it transcended the sport and entered the broader culture. The top moment: The improbable "helmet catch" during the Super Bowl in 2008.

The NFL makes most of its money through media licensing deals

The NFL, which reportedly earned more than $20B in 2023, generates its revenue through several key streams. The largest comes from media licensing deals, where networks and streaming platforms pay billions for the rights to broadcast games. Corporate sponsorships are another major contributor.

A 1973 ad is credited with accelerating the Super Bowl advertising craze

The Super Bowl’s history as an advertising phenomenon began in earnest during the 1970s. In 1973, for instance, Joe Namath and Farrah Fawcett starred in Noxzema’s “Cream Your Face” ad, which Smithsonian Magazine says helped establish the game “as an event for advertisers.” Read this article to learn more about how the Super Bowl became advertising’s, well, Super Bowl.

Thanksgiving's connection to football began in 1876

It all started with a match between Princeton and Yale in 1876, attended by fewer than 1,000 fans. That competition spawned an annual tradition attracting millions of viewers across college and professional teams.

Hear how the Super Bowl went from a risky experiment to America's unofficial holiday

In this podcast episode, former Emmy award-winning ESPN producer Dennis Deninger traces the Super Bowl's unlikely rise from the AFL-NFL merger era to a national spectacle, explaining how it reshaped advertising, gambling, television, and American culture.

See the evolution of Super Bowl logos and how the NFL refined its visual identity over time

Tracing Super Bowl logos from early, varied designs to today’s standardized look shows how the NFL adapted to shifting design trends, television demands, and brand strategy.

Cricket used to be America's pastime

Before baseball, American football, basketball, or hockey ever organized in the US, there was one sport which could be found up and down the East Coast: cricket. The second-most popular sport in the world, cricket is mostly ignored by Americans, despite its prevalence in early American history. Learn more about the forgotten role cricket played in the US with this article.

The biggest controversies of the NFL

Some of the biggest controversies in NFL history didn’t just spark debate—they changed the game. From Spygate and Deflategate to concussion research and the league's ambivalent stance on it, these moments led to new rules, safety measures, and major policy shifts. Explore how each scandal shaped the league and its future.

Television transformed college football into a national spectacle

The rise of televised games in the mid-20th century expanded college football’s reach far beyond campus stadiums—turning regional rivalries into national events, boosting revenue, and cementing the sport as a Saturday tradition across the country.

National Hockey League, explained

Founded in 1917, the NHL started with four Canadian teams and now spans 32 franchises across North America. Its iconic Stanley Cup, first awarded in 1893, remains a unique prize, with winners' names hand-engraved each year. The league generates billions in annual revenue, aided by key expansions, lucrative TV deals, and global fan engagement. While player safety and labor disputes have posed challenges, the NHL remains a cornerstone of professional sports, offering an 82-game season culminating in the fiercely contested Stanley Cup Final.

The Super Bowl is televised in over 180 countries in nearly 25 languages

First aired in 1967 on two US networks, the Super Bowl became a global broadcast in 1982, drawing about 4.5 million viewers in England, and is now televised in more than 180 countries in roughly 25 languages.

Pepsi dominates the list of the highest-rated Super Bowl commercials in history

The Super Bowl features the two best NFL teams, playing American football at the highest level. While the games may be forgotten by fans whose team didn’t make it, no one forgets the commercials.

Super Bowl LIX in 2025 made TV history with over 127 million viewers

Nielsen reported Super Bowl LIX drew an estimated 127.7 million viewers, the largest audience in Super Bowl history, with peak viewership near 138 million. This resource also includes viewership figures for every Super Bowl dating back to Super Bowl I.

By the 1980s, fantasy football was a national activity

The Greater Oakland Professional Pigskin Prognosticators League was a private league, but by the end of the ‘60s, a bar in Oakland opened the first public fantasy football league. Over the next few decades, the game grew more popular, as evidenced by this how-to article from a 1980 issue of “Inside Sports.”

An estimated 49 million people played fantasy football in 2022

The number, estimated by the Fantasy Sports and Gaming Association, has grown exponentially since the start of the century. While fantasy sports in general are popular, football is the most popular, with an estimated 79% of fantasy participants playing fantasy football.

The NBA, explained

From humble beginnings in 1891, basketball transformed into the global juggernaut we know today. The NBA, established in 1949 and later revitalized by Commissioner David Stern in the 1980s, became a model for sports branding, player marketing, and international expansion.

A 1930s card game birthed modern fantasy sports

"National Pastime" used the statistics of real Major League Baseball players to determine a winner, creating the template for the modern fantasy sports model.

One fantasy football league has been running for over four decades

The Fantasy Football League began in 1980, before fantasy football was available online. The group, which began in Northern California, originally used a touchdown-only format because it was easier to score in the preinternet era.

A children's toy inspired the name ‘Super Bowl’

The name “Super Bowl” was coined by AFL founder Lamar Hunt, who casually suggested it in 1966—riffing on his child’s Super Ball toy—after alternatives such as “The Big One” and “AFL-NFL World Championship Game” proved clunky and forgettable. The name was officially adopted for the third championship.

Legal gambling on Super Bowl 60 is expected to reach $1.76B

Legal Super Bowl wagering has grown sharply over the past decade as US states legalized sports betting. In 2018, sports betting was only legal in Nevada and accounted for $158.5M.

Walter Camp shaped the rules that transformed football into the modern game

Known as the “Father of American Football,” Walter Camp introduced key innovations in the 1880s—such as the line of scrimmage, the system of downs, and the snap—that distinguished football from rugby and defined its modern structure.

Watch a clip from the 1980 NFL Draft, the first to be broadcast on ESPN

ESPN broadcast the 1980 NFL Draft from the New York Sheraton Hotel's grand ballroom. This decision transformed the Draft from a closed, industry-only event into the nationally televised spectacle it is today, drawing over 13 million viewers annually.

Major League Baseball, explained

Major League Baseball is America’s oldest professional sports league. Alongside triumphs, the league has faced scandals, including drug abuse and steroid use, shaping its path over the decades. Today, MLB embraces new rules, international talent, and a growing connection to legalized sports betting.

Ed Sabol's vision of NFL Films impacted how sports were filmed

When the NFL put out a bid to film the 1962 NFL Championship Game, Ed Sabol promised NFL Commissioner Pete Rozelle his higher price tag would be worth it. Sabol’s style of fixed high shots, close-ups of players, and fans in the stands revolutionized how sporting events are filmed, influenced moviemakers like Ron Howard, and gave birth to NFL Films.

Understanding the basics of football

While American football may be entertaining, for fans who never played the game it can be confusing. Why do teams choose to run, pass, line up in certain defenses, run people in motion, call audibles at the line—or do any of the many other things that happen on the field?

Americans spent nearly $150B in sports-related bets in 2024

These bets ranged from who would win the World Series to what color clothes famous celebrities would wear to the Super Bowl. Experts believe the industry will continue to grow.

The long history of alcohol and sports

Spectators have long enjoyed alcohol at sporting events, dating back at least to ancient Rome. This article unpacks how companies leveraged this history to make beer a central part of sporting events and masculine culture.

Walter Camp revolutionized American Football

When Walter Camp was introduced to the game of football in the late 1800s, the rules weren’t set, the field wasn’t uniform, and the game was brutal. Camp joined early rules committees and was instrumental in shaping the modern game. Read this deep dive into Camp’s early life and influences, and find out how he established the line of scrimmage and the series of downs.

A part-owner of the Oakland Raiders spearheaded the first fantasy football league.

See a ranking of the most iconic Super Bowl advertisements ever aired

The list highlights ads that reshaped Super Bowl advertising, including Snickers' Betty White spot, Budweiser's endlessly quoted "Whassup," and Wendy's "Where's the beef," showing how commercials became as memorable as the game itself.

The inventor of fantasy football first experimented with two other sports

In the mid-1950s, Wilfred “Bill” Winkenbach, a part-owner of the Oakland Raiders, concocted two fantasy sports games: one for Major League Baseball and one for the Professional Golfers’ Association. In 1962, he invented fantasy football alongside two writers from the Oakland Tribune.

The World Football League, the most disastrous sports league ever

In the mid-1970s, a group of investors attempted to compete with the dominant National Football League. This short video highlights the league's intriguing innovations and speedy downfall. The investors dubbed their project the World Football...

There are 32 teams in the NFL

Click a team's name to see their current record and opponent for the day; read the latest news, including injuries; view the remaining schedule; find out where the team is in the standings; discover the current roster; explore all player and team stats; and watch the latest video highlights.

Michael Jackson's halftime show created the modern Super Bowl spectacle

In 1993, Michael Jackson's Super Bowl halftime performance prompted the NFL to extend the break and reimagine it as a must-watch event. It is widely regarded as the first modern halftime show built around a global superstar.

See some of college football's most iconic gameday traditions.

Tom Brady has played in and won the most Super Bowls of any NFL player

Appearing in 10 Super Bowls and winning seven—both NFL records—Tom Brady captured championships with two different teams, an unmatched résumé that has led many to regard the former sixth-round pick as the greatest player in league history.