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The American Football League, of 1960 to 1969, was the only pro football league to ever successfully compete with the NFL. On this map, I have shown the oldest team emblems I could find, in all their primitive glory. The helmets on the bottom left show each AFL franchise’s major helmet design changes, up to the present time.
When the AFL merged with the NFL, prior to the 1970 season, 3 NFL franchises joined the 10 AFL franchises to form the American Football Conference. (The Baltimore Colts, the Cleveland Browns, and the Pittsburgh Steelers were the 3). **{Click here, for Wikipedia’s entry on the AFL (1960-’69).} The other 13 NFL franchises became the National Football Conference. [The NFC and the AFC, of course, would continue to send their champions each season to compete in the Super Bowl (which up until then had been officially called the AFL-NFL World Championship, even though the media had called it the Super Bowl, from the start). That competition had begun in the 1967 season, but AFL and NFL teams did not play each other during the regular season, from 1967-'69.] **{Click here to see the summary of the first NFL season that included AFL teams (1970).}
Thanks to the Society for Sports Uniforms Research (http://www.ssur.org). Thanks to the Helmets, Helmets, Helmets website (http://www.misterhabs.com). Thanks to Logoserver (http://www.logoserver.com).