19201776 Club
Four pro football clubs meet in a Canton car showroom and agree to stop raiding each other's rosters
The Akron Pros, Canton Bulldogs, Cleveland Indians, and Dayton Triangles lay the first plank of what becomes the NFL.
Professional football in 1920 had no rules stopping teams from poaching each other's players, and no shared schedule. On August 20, 1920, representatives of the Akron Pros, Canton Bulldogs, Cleveland Indians, and Dayton Triangles gathered at the Jordan and Hupmobile auto showroom in Canton, Ohio, and formed the American Professional Football Conference. Their stated goal, printed in the Canton Evening Repository, was to raise the standard of the game, end bidding wars for players, and coordinate schedules. It was a small meeting in a car dealership, and it was the first step toward the NFL…
