Association of Professional Football Leagues
The Association of Professional Football Leagues was a compact formed in 1946 among the National Football League and three minor leagues of professional American football: the American Association (which subsequently changed its name to the American Football League), the Dixie League, and the Pacific Coast Professional Football League. While the NFL had an informal farm system in the pre-World War II AA, this was the first time in which it had a working arrangement with multiple leagues whose local popularity rivaled that of the major league. The agreement lasted less than two years, its termination triggered by the folding of the Dixie League after one of its members jumped to the American Football League one week into the 1947 season. Background In the years immediately before the beginning of US involvement in World War II, the local popularity of the Dixie League, the American Association, and the Pacific Coast Professional Football League rivaled that of the NFL (which, in 1940–1941, was battling with an upstart "major league," the third American Football League, which had been raiding the rosters of NFL teams to stock its own), and the NFL had working arrangements with five of the six teams in the AA. The PCPFL benefited from the absence of the NFL west of the Mississippi River and fierce rivalries in the Los Angeles area; similarly, the Dixie League had its strength of support in Virginia and North Carolina (half of the teams were based in the Hampton Roads area), away from the presence of the NFL. Prior to the 1941 season, the NFL proposed a nationwide “Commissioner of Football” that would govern all major and minor professional football leagues in the United States, similar in scope to the authority wielded by the Commissioner of Baseball, and hired Elmer Layden in that capacity. Then-president Carl Storck was to remain president of the NFL itself, but because he believed the requirements of the position were too vague (and because of declining health), he resigned, and Layden took up both duties, which have been united ever since. In the wake of the attack on Pearl Harbor, every American professional league was at a crossroads as the American entry into World War II meant that the number of men available to play football would be greatly diminished. The NFL and PCPFL opted to continue; the AA and Dixie League suspended operations after planning to continue play after the end of the war (the third AFL made a similar decision, but did not return). Formation In September 1945, Harry Howren, owner of the Norfolk Shamrocks of the Dixie League, revealed in an announcement that not only was the league reorganizing for the 1946 season, but it was also planning to attend a meeting with the AA (which was also reorganizing under a new name, the American Football League) and the PCPFL. Howren also stated, "We want full recognition by the National Football League and its assistance in its protection of players." In the meantime, the NFL's former