AFA: American Football Association

[Yeahsayyeah]

I love, how the Milwaukee Badgers wear the new German national team skirts, but reverse home- and away-skirts. ;-)

[Gass3268]

Chapter 8: Merger To Save The Game

Professional Football in the United States was in the middle of a boom at the end of the 1920’s. Clubs in both of the major leagues were breaking profit records every season and the play on the pitch was improving at a rapid pace. It appeared that nothing could slow the growth that the sport was experiencing. Unfortunately, the events after October 29th, 1929 did just that.

Football in the United States was not immediately harmed by the economic crisis and the 1929-1930 season was one of the best in the sports history. Yet the next offseason is when things started to go south. Both the Pawtucket Rangers and the 9 time champion West Hudson AA were both financially insolvent and forced to fold. The New Bedford Whalers and the Fall River Marksmen found themselves struggling for attendance and so they chose to merger for the 1930-1931 season.  During the middle of the 1930-1931 season the Football League Of American (FLA) took a massive hit as Ben Millers, East St. Louis SC, Innisfails and Naval Reserve were forced to fold at various points during the year. The city and surrounding area simply could not support 5 clubs. Yet with the sport struggling in the ancestral home of the game in the United States, it appeared that professional football could be on its way out.   

During this turmoil, President Cahill decided that it was time for him to retire as the head of the American Football Association (AFA). Commissioner Andrew Brown of the National Association Football League (NAFBL) also came to the same conclusion and also retired. Commissioner Robert Miller of the Football League of America (NFA) was chosen to be the new President of the AFA. Jim Thorpe was elected by the owners to become the second Commissioner of the NAFBL. This meant he head to step down as manager of New York FC after leading the club to their 5th title in 9 years in the 1930-1931 season.  In the NFA, Cincinnati Kicks Manager and part owner Joseph Carr was appointed as the new commissioner. Carr was a Columbus, Ohio native who tried to get a club in Columbus during the growth of the NFA in the 1920s. Robert Miller did not feel that Columbus was a location worthy of a club, but he suggested that Carr set up a team in Cincinnati.   

With new leaders at the helm of the sport, they held an emergency meeting in June of 1931 in New York City between the three of them and many influential team owners. This included Charles Stoneham of New York FC and George Halas of the Chicago Bears. They realized they needed to do something to increase revenue. They came up with multiple ideas that radically changed the sport. First they came to the conclusion that a merger between the two leagues would be in the best interest of keeping the sport organized and preventing some of the unnecessary competition that took place during the 1920’s. How exactly the merger would be executed did cause some debate between the three men.

President Miller and Charles Stoneham wanted a promotion and regulation system similar to the leagues in Europe. Thorpe, Carr and a majority of the owners in attendance felt that this system was too foreign to America and would bring about too high of travel costs. Carr also rightly stated that a club forced through regulation in the middle of their current Depression would go under. Carr and Thorpe had the idea of modeling the new merged league after Major League Baseball. You would still have two separate leagues, but with centralized leadership over the two leagues in the form of a President. This President would be chosen by a vote of the commissioners of the two leagues and the AFA President. This new organization would be called Major League Football (MLF). The plan was supported by almost all of the owners in attendance. Miller, realizing that his desires for a regulation system would not work in the Untied States, endorsed this proposal.

To the average fan it would appear as though nothing had changed with the sport of football. This is until the end of the season when the champions of the two leagues would play each for the right to be called the undisputable American champion. It was Miller who formalized the details of this World Series of Football. First he knew that FIFA would never approve of them calling this championship a Word Series. So instead, Robert Miller came up with the name of the United States Football Championship Series (USFCS). He also determined that the series would be a best of 3 games. The team with the largest point lead in their respective league would host the first game and if necessary the third game. If the point lead was the same, goal differential would be used as a tiebreaker. If there still was a tie, there would be a coin flip. The first USFCS would take place in the upcoming season.

Many other reforms and suggestions were made during this week long meeting. Both leagues would be officially implementing a reserve clause similar to what the MLB had for decades. This meant that after a player’s contract expired, the rights to the player were still owned by the team for one year unless released or declared a free agent by the club. This would help cut down on both leagues poaching players from rival clubs both in the United States and Europe, which was becoming an increasing issue.  Also it would allow them to cut down on player salary without the fear of getting poached by another club for more money.

Another reform was owners were encouraged to put games on the radio. Some experiments showed that it could actually increase interest and attendance at games. Also there was the ability to receive advertisement money. However many owners, especially Charles Stoneham, were against the idea of giving away their product for free on the radio. The USFCS would be on the radio as the rights to the series were owned by MLF. It would take the remainder the decade, but by 1940 all clubs had their games on the radio.

Another addition was an all-star game would be played at the midway point of the season. Teams would be voted on by players, managers, owners, media and fans. They were hoping this would be another move that could help make them some money. The first game would be played in January and would be played in warm weather cities in Arizona, California, Florida and Texas. There was hope that this would also help further spread the game in the South and West.       

The final reforms that were discussed had to do with bringing greater uniformity to the two leagues. The goal was for the two leagues to have the same number of teams.  Seeing the success of the New Bedford Whalers and Fall River Marksmen merging, Miller and Carr announced that they had begun the process of organizing a merger of the recently folded St. Louis teams. The new club would be called St. Louis United. The NAFBL allowed for the Cleveland Comets to move the FLA and the Comets owner was persuaded in favor of the league switch. The idea of a local Cleveland with Western Reserve derby meant big dollars. Miller also got the two leagues to agree to not expand into the other leagues territory. This brought the FLA to 16 teams and the NAFBL was at 20 teams, so the FLA was also charged with adding 4 more clubs to their league when it became economically feasible. Jim Thorpe also announced that the NAFBL would be shortening their name to National Football League (NFL) for simplicity sake. 

As the owners and league management officials left New York, many were still nervous about the future of their sport. It ended up that Robert Miller, Jim Thorpe, Joseph Carr and the attending owners were visionaries that knew what needed to be done in order to bring excitement back to the sport and solve their financial issues. The three of them would be viewed by sports historians as saviors of Football in the United States.   

NAFBL/NFL Champions
1927-1928: Bronx United
1928-1929: Philadelphia City
1929-1930: Baltimore Lords SC
1930-1931: New York FC

FLA Champions
1927-1928: Chicago Bears
1928-1929: SV Milwaukee Badgers
1929-1930: SV Milwaukee Badgers
1930-1931: Chicago Bears