The National Football League or better known as the NFL is the largest professional American Football league. The league originally was formed in 1920 and was known as the American Professional Football Association which was then changed to the American Professional Football League a year after. Its name changed yet again to its present name a year after that. The league began with a mere 11 members but has increased to 32 teams divided into 2 conferences of 16 teams each. This is turn has resulted in a flood of NFL merchandise being made available such as mini NFL helmets. The long history of the NFL has thus resulted in very interesting NFL trivia.
NFL popularity
American Football has had the privilege of being the most popular sport in America since 1965. The NFL has the largest per-game attendance of any domestic professional sports league on earth, attracting over 67,000 spectators per game for every one of its two most recently completed seasons, 2006 and 2007. Unfortunately, the National Football League's overall attendance is only an estimated 20% of that of Major League Baseball, due to MLB's much longer schedule.
In a sports poll undertaken in 2008, the NFL was the most favored sport of nearly as many supporters (30 %) as the combined numbers of the next four professional sports - baseball (15 %), auto racing (10 %), hockey (5 percent) and men's pro basketball (4 percent). In addition, Football's American TV viewership figures now surpass those of other sports. Moreover, independent studies have revealed that the average global viewership is just over 100 million, with many of whom of whom being U.S. viewers.
The NFL logo
The old NFL logo with 25 stars was used between 1970 and 2008. It was replaced with a new logo, which consists of 4 stars, for the 2008 season.
The Super Bowl Trophy
The trophy a team is given for winning the Super Bowl is the Vince Lombardi Trophy; Lombardi coached the Packers to many NFL Championships in the 1960s.
NFL Players
Interestingly enough, former Charger Defensive Lineman Ernie Ladd also managed a career as a professional wrestler.
NFL Teams
The Green Bay Packers
are not merely the solitary NFL team that is publicly owned by the community and fans. It is the only professional sports team in the United States with such a unique ownership arrangement. The Packers won the first two Super Bowls ever played, though at the time they were not referred to as Super Bowls. The Packers is the oldest team name that is currently in use in the National Football League.
The Indianapolis Colts were the inaugural NFL team to have cheerleaders. The Colts are the very first team ever to start successive seasons with 9-0 records. In 1981 the Colts set a modern record for fewest punts returned in a single season with a measly 12.
Once, the New England Patriots were the sole team in the league who had an image of a football as part of their NFL team helmet logo.
