National Football League

Today the National Football League or otherwise known as the "NFL" is the top level professional football league in the Unites States. The league was named the National Football League in 1922, but was first the eleven team American Professional Football Association in 1920. Right now, the league has 32 teams from the U.S. There are two conferences into which the league is evenly divided. One is the American Football Conference (AFC) and the other is the National Football Conference (NFC). Additionally each league has 4 regional conferences which are made up of the North, South, East, and West which collectively make up a 16 team conference.

An unincorporated 501(c)(6) association, a federal nonprofit designation, the NFL is composed of 32 teams. The regular season consists of a 17-week schedule wherein each team plays 16 games with one bye week. The season begins the Thursday after Labor Day (first Thursday of the first full week of September) with games played every week until the end of December or the beginning of January. The NFL playoffs start after the completion of the regular season; 6 teams from each conference (at least one from each division) go to the 12-team single-elimination contests which end up with the championship game called the Super Bowl. The location of this game, which is typically the home venue for an NFL team, is pre-determined.

Of all sports leagues worldwide, the NFL boasts the largest attendance per game, with an average of 66,960 fans attending each game in 2010–11. The NFL may not be affected by labor battles as often as other major US professional sports leagues, but they have experienced some major problems, like the player's strikes of 1982 and 1987 the 2011 NFL lockout. You can also check out our page on NFL Betting Lines to get in on the action of this years NFL season.