The United States Football League had two types of drafts as their main sources for player recruitment: the collegiate draft and the territorial draft. The collegiate draft resembled its NFL counterpart , in which teams were given a position in the drafting order, based on their win and loss record for the previous year.
181-610: This process was adopted from the National Football League , so that the USFL teams could have an equal opportunity to sign eligible players from college. The draft started in the inaugural season of 1983 with 24 rounds (288 selections) also each team could select 26 players in a territorial draft (312 total) and was held over a two day period at the beginning of January (4 and 5). In 1984 to accommodate six new expansion franchises, these teams were given an additional selection at
362-684: A conspiracy to violate antitrust law , by granting DirecTV exclusive rights to sell the Sunday Ticket product, thereby restricting competition and forcing viewers to pay super competitive prices to view out-of-market games. On June 27, 2024, a jury in Los Angeles found that the NFL had violated antitrust law in setting the price of the Sunday ticket package and ordered a penalty totaling more than $ 4.7 billion. With triple damages allowed under federal antitrust laws,
543-615: A merger on June 8, 1966, to take full effect in 1970. In the meantime, the leagues would hold a common draft and championship game. The game, the Super Bowl , was held four times before the merger, with the NFL winning Super Bowl I and Super Bowl II , and the AFL winning Super Bowl III and Super Bowl IV . After the league merged, it was reorganized into two conferences: the National Football Conference (NFC), consisting of most of
724-542: A play-in game – the MLB Wild Card Game – the winner of which would then advance to the Division Series and play the team with the best record. The two teams with the best records outside of the division champions advanced to the wild card game. The two wild card teams could come out of the same division so there was no guarantee a team that came in second place in their division would make the playoffs. The system
905-608: A blizzard; in 2012, when the Kickoff game was moved from Thursday to Wednesday to avoid conflict with the Democratic National Convention ; and in 2020, when a game was postponed from Sunday to Tuesday due to players testing positive for COVID-19 . NFL regular season match-ups are determined according to a scheduling formula. Within a division, all four teams play 14 out of their 17 games against common opponents or each other– two games (home and away) are played against
1086-478: A club's franchise or any other action, he deems necessary. The commissioner can also issue sanctions up to and including a lifetime ban from the league if an individual connected to the NFL has bet on games or failed to notify the league of conspiracies or plans to bet on or fix games. The current Commissioner of the National Football League is Roger Goodell, who was elected in 2006 after Paul Tagliabue ,
1267-407: A club's season being canceled, a restocking draft would be held. Neither of these protocols has ever had to be implemented. Free agents in the National Football League are divided into restricted free agents , who have three accrued seasons and whose current contract has expired, and unrestricted free agents , who have four or more accrued seasons and whose contract has expired. An accrued season
1448-481: A contract (for example the player signed with the NFL ), the club kept the player's rights, which would make him unavailable to play for any team in the USFL . The USFL also practiced an annual territorial draft , in which teams from the league would have "protected" colleges from their respective states, from which they could select a number of players without them being subjected to the regular collegiate craft. This process
1629-594: A different football code than the American game, the CFL established a niche market in Canada and still survives as an independent league. A new professional league, the fourth American Football League (AFL), began to play in 1960. The upstart AFL began to challenge the established NFL in popularity, gaining lucrative television contracts and engaging in a bidding war with the NFL for free agents and draft picks. The two leagues announced
1810-422: A fall schedule that same year. Teams could select players from a list of college seniors or juniors. The order of selection was determined based on the team's win and loss record from the previous year. After a selection, the franchise had the unilateral right to negotiate a contract with that player or the ability to trade that player to another team. If for any reason, the franchise was unsuccessful in negotiating
1991-618: A final size of ten teams in two divisions, continued to restrict its postseason to division winners until the 1969 season, the AFL's last as a separate league. The change came largely in response to criticism from NFL loyalists following the New York Jets ' upset win in Super Bowl III , who argued that the Jets had an "unfair" advantage since, having won the Eastern Division outright, they were
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#17328581918912172-594: A fourth placed Eastern team was in mathematical contention for a Western cross-over berth late in the season. Cross-over teams have advanced as far as the Eastern Final, but as of 2023 have never advanced to the Grey Cup game. There is no provision for a fifth placed team in one division to cross over in place of the other division's runner-up, even if it has a better record; in 2018 the Edmonton Eskimos finished fifth in
2353-452: A lower pick than any team that did not make the divisional round. The Super Bowl champion always drafts last, and the losing team from the Super Bowl always drafts next-to-last. All potential draftees must be at least three years removed from high school in order to be eligible for the draft. Underclassmen that have met that criterion to be eligible for the draft must write an application to
2534-419: A minority of preseason games are distributed among the league's national television partners. Through the 2014 season, the NFL had a blackout policy in which games were 'blacked out' on local television in the home team's area if the home stadium was not sold out. Clubs could elect to set this requirement at only 85%, but they would have to give more ticket revenue to the visiting team; teams could also request
2715-702: A number of awards for its players and coaches at its annual NFL Honors presentation. The most prestigious award is the AP Most Valuable Player (MVP) award. Other major awards include the AP Offensive Player of the Year , AP Defensive Player of the Year , AP Comeback Player of the Year , and the AP Offensive and Defensive Rookie of the Year awards. Another prestigious award is the Walter Payton Man of
2896-520: A play-in game. As of the 2020–21 NBA season , the number of teams that qualified for the playoffs expanded to ten teams per conference and the NBA play-in tournament was adopted in its current format, which is similar to the first two rounds of the Page–McIntyre system for a four-team playoff. The #9 seed hosts the #10 seed in an elimination game. The #7 seed hosts the #8 seed in the double-chance game, with
3077-401: A player at the discretion of the organizers. All ATP and WTA tournaments have a few spots set aside for wildcards in both the main draw, and the qualifying draw, for players who otherwise would not have made either of these draws with their professional ranking. They are usually awarded to players from the home and/or sponsoring country (sometimes after a tournament where the winner is awarded
3258-434: A playoff berth. In 1981, even the fifth place Western team's record of 6–10 was good enough for outright possession of sixth place overall. In 1986, the playoff format was changed. The new format the fourth place team in one division to qualify if it finished with an outright better record than the third place team in the other division. The Eastern owners agreed in exchange for expanding the schedule to 18 games, and also with
3439-524: A playoff bid, the number of wild card teams from each conference dropped from three to two. The playoffs expanded again in 2020, adding two more wild card teams to bring the total to 14 playoff teams. The NFL consists of 32 clubs divided into two conferences of 16 teams each. Each conference is divided into four divisions of four clubs each. During the regular season, each team is allowed a maximum of 55 players on its roster; only 48 of these may be active (eligible to play) on game days. Each team can also have
3620-551: A prelim-round byes. The playoffs had expanded to nine teams per conference. Curling Canada introduced wild card teams starting with the 2018 Scotties Tournament of Hearts and 2018 Tim Hortons Brier . The change was made as part of a wider set of changes which expanded the tournaments to 17 teams and eliminated the unpopular pre-qualifying tournaments. From 2018, the round robin stage of the Tournament of Hearts and Brier will consist of two seeded "pools" of eight teams as opposed to
3801-695: A record 167 million people that watched Super Bowl XLVIII , the conclusion to the 2013 season. In addition to radio networks run by each NFL team, select NFL games are broadcast nationally by Westwood One (known as Dial Global for the 2012 season). These games are broadcast on over 500 networks, giving all NFL markets access to each primetime game. The NFL's deal with Westwood One was extended in 2012 and continued through 2017. Other NFL games are nationally distributed by Compass Media Networks and Sports USA Radio Network under contracts with individual teams. Some broadcasting innovations have either been introduced or popularized during NFL telecasts. Among them,
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#17328581918913982-472: A runner-up eventually won the league title. The NFL kept this principle in place by stipulating that a wild card team could never face its own division champion in the divisional round. Following the implementation of the AFL–NFL merger prior to the 1970 season, from 1970 to 1974 the NFL used a rotation to determine which teams hosted playoff games, and which teams played which other teams. From 1975 to 1977,
4163-407: A season, the result of the second game determined the title (the source of the 1921 controversy). This method had been used since the league's creation in 1920, but no situation had been encountered where two teams were tied for first. The league quickly determined that a playoff game between Chicago and Portsmouth was needed to decide the league's champion. The teams were originally scheduled to play
4344-542: A simulcast with ESPN. Amazon , through their Prime Video streaming service, is the exclusive carrier of the Thursday Night Football package. NFL Network, a U.S. pay cable channel owned by the league itself, broadcasts select games under the NFL Network Exclusive Game Series banner. Games under this banner usually consist of NFL International Series games and select Saturday games. In 2023,
4525-405: A sixteen-player practice squad separate from its main roster. Each NFL club is granted a franchise, the league's authorization for the team to operate in its home city. This franchise covers 'Home Territory' (the 75 miles surrounding the city limits, or, if the team is within 100 miles of another league city, half the distance between the two cities) and 'Home Marketing Area' (Home Territory plus
4706-546: A specific exemption from the NFL for the game. The vast majority of NFL games were not blacked out; only 6% of games were blacked out during the 2011 season , and only two games were blacked out in 2013 and none in 2014 . The NFL announced in March 2015 that it would suspend its blackout policy for at least the 2015 season . According to Nielsen , the NFL regular season since 2012 was watched by at least 200 million individuals, accounting for 80% of all television households in
4887-525: A stipulation that the qualifying fourth-place team would stay in its own division for the playoffs. As a result, the change introduced the possibility of a four team bracket in one division and a two-game total point series in the other (the two game total point format was nothing new in Canadian football – it was commonly used until the early 1970s). It also introduced the possibility of the first place teams losing their traditional byes based on results elsewhere in
5068-471: A team that finishes last would play two other last-place teams in the conference. The final game is an inter-conference based on a rotating cycle and determined by previous season's standings. In total, each team plays 17 games and has one bye week, where it does not play a game. Although a team's home and away opponents are known by the end of the previous year's regular season, the exact dates and times for NFL games are not determined until much later because
5249-550: A team tied for first overall in the league to miss the playoffs (this happened once, in 1967, when the Baltimore Colts missed the postseason despite a .917 winning percentage after losing a tiebreaker to the Los Angeles Rams ). The AFL's 1969 playoffs were criticized by NFL purists for breaking with longstanding tradition, also, due to the fact that they allowed runners-up to qualify no matter how much disparity existed between
5430-547: A total of 32 are given. Clubs are required to make their selection within a certain period of time, the exact time depending on which round the pick is made in. If they fail to do so on time, the clubs behind them can begin to select their players in order, but they do not lose the pick outright. This happened in the 2003 draft , when the Minnesota Vikings failed to make their selection on time. The Jacksonville Jaguars and Carolina Panthers were able to make their picks before
5611-494: A two-conference system from 1933 to 1966 , where the champions of each conference would meet in the NFL Championship Game . If two teams tied for the conference lead, they would meet in a one-game playoff to determine the conference champion. In 1967 , the NFL expanded from 15 teams to 16 teams. Instead of just evening out the conferences by adding the expansion New Orleans Saints to the seven-member Western Conference,
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5792-420: A wild card playoff format is used, the number of teams in a division that qualify is not fixed; a set number of teams from each division automatically qualify(ies), but (an) additional team(s) also qualify(ies), based either on league record or conference record. In Major League Baseball (MLB), the wild card teams are the three teams in each of the two leagues ( American and National ) that have qualified for
5973-530: A wild card team, the 1969 Kansas City Chiefs were the first non-division winner to win the Super Bowl . They finished second in the Western Division of the American Football League , and in that season, the last before the merger, the AFL went from having its two division winners meeting for the league title to adding a second round in which the second place team in each division qualified for
6154-489: Is also among the most-watched sporting events in the world, with the individual games accounting for many of the most watched television programs in American history and all occupying the top five of Nielsen 's all-time most-watched U.S. television broadcasts by 2015. The NFL is headquartered in Midtown Manhattan . The Green Bay Packers hold the most combined NFL championships with thirteen, winning nine titles before
6335-427: Is defined as "six or more regular-season games on a club's active/inactive, reserved/injured or reserve/physically unable to perform lists". Restricted free agents are allowed to negotiate with other clubs besides their former club, but the former club has the right to match any offer. If they choose not to, they are compensated with draft picks. Unrestricted free agents are free to sign with any club, and no compensation
6516-448: Is earned by the 32 clubs and is taxable there. This will remain the case even when the league office and Management Council file returns as taxable entities, and the change in filing status will make no material difference to our business." As a result, the league office might owe around US$ 10 million in income taxes, but it is no longer required to disclose the salaries of its executive officers. The league has three defined officers:
6697-543: Is elected by an affirmative vote of three-fourths or 10 of the conference members. The commissioner appoints the secretary and treasurer and has broad authority in disputes between clubs, players, coaches, and employees. He is the "principal executive officer " of the NFL and also has authority in hiring league employees, negotiating television contracts, disciplining individuals that own part or all of an NFL team, clubs, or employed individuals of an NFL club if they have violated league by-laws or committed "conduct detrimental to
6878-456: Is no tie-breaker advantage at all to finishing in any divisional rank lower than first – meaning (for example) that while a division winner will automatically win a tie-breaker over another division's runner-up, a division runner-up will not automatically win a tie-breaker over teams finishing third, fourth or fifth in other divisions. The new format means it is possible for an especially weak division to send no teams (not even its champion) to
7059-463: Is owed if they sign with a different club. Clubs are given one franchise tag to offer to any unrestricted free agent. The franchise tag is a one-year deal that pays the player 120% of his previous contract or no less than the average of the five highest-paid players at his position, whichever is greater. There are two types of franchise tags: exclusive tags, which do not allow the player to negotiate with other clubs, and non-exclusive tags, which allow
7240-474: Is required to schedule three preseason games. NFC teams must play at least two of these at home in odd numbered years and AFC teams must play at least two at home in even numbered years. However, the teams involved in the Hall of Fame game, as well as any team that played in an American Bowl game, play four preseason games. Preseason games are exhibition matches and do not count towards regular-season totals. Because
7421-430: The 2013 BWF World Championships . In North American professional sports leagues, "wild card" refers to a team that qualifies for the championship playoffs without winning their specific conference or division outright. The number of wild card teams varies. In most cases, the rules of the league call for the wild card team to survive an extra round or to play the majority of their postseason games away from home. Although
USFL draft - Misplaced Pages Continue
7602-762: The Akron Pros , Canton Bulldogs , Cleveland Indians , and Dayton Triangles at the Jordan and Hupmobile auto showroom in Canton, Ohio . This meeting resulted in the formation of the American Professional Football Conference (APFC), a group who, according to the Canton Evening Repository , intended to "raise the standard of professional football in every way possible, to eliminate bidding for players between rival clubs and to secure cooperation in
7783-551: The American Football League 's 1969 playoffs (qualifying the top two finishers from each division), the National Basketball Association 's 1967-through-1970 playoffs (top four finishers from each division) and 1971–1972 playoffs (top two finishers in each division), and the National Hockey League 's 1968–1974 and 1982–1993 playoffs (top four finishers from each division) are not true wild card formats. When
7964-609: The American Professional Football Association (APFA) . The league elected Jim Thorpe as its first president, and consisted of 14 teams (the Buffalo All-Americans , Chicago Tigers , Columbus Panhandles and Detroit Heralds joined the league during the year). The Massillon Tigers from Massillon, Ohio was also at the September 17 meeting, but did not field a team in 1920. Only two of these teams,
8145-625: The Brunswick-Balke Collender Cup , was donated to the NFL (then APFA) in 1920 by the Brunswick-Balke Collender Corporation . The trophy, the appearance of which is only known by its description as a "silver loving cup", was intended to be a traveling trophy and not to become permanent until a team had won at least three titles. The league awarded it to the Akron Pros, champions of the inaugural 1920 season; however,
8326-533: The Conference finals and Stanley Cup Finals . The NHL's current format is similar in some respects to the "cross-over rule" used by the Canadian Football League since 1997 in that it the format emphasizes intra-divisional ranking and brackets in the playoff structure and yet allows two teams from one division to qualify for the playoffs at the expense of the two teams finishing with worse records and in
8507-463: The Houston Texans began play as an expansion team . Other drafts held by the league include an allocation draft in 1950 to allocate players from several teams that played in the dissolved All-America Football Conference and a supplemental draft in 1984 to give NFL teams the rights to players who had been eligible for the main draft but had not been drafted because they had signed contracts with
8688-496: The Internal Revenue Code provides an exemption from federal income taxation for "Business leagues, chambers of commerce, real-estate boards, boards of trade, or professional football leagues (whether or not administering a pension fund for football players), not organized for profit and no part of the net earnings of which inures to the benefit of any private shareholder or individual." In contrast, each individual team, with
8869-724: The Los Angeles Rams who came from a 1936 iteration of the American Football League, and the Cleveland Browns and San Francisco 49ers , both from the AAFC. By the 1950s, the NFL had an effective monopoly on professional football in the United States; its only competition in North America was the professional Canadian football circuit, which formally became the Canadian Football League (CFL) in 1958. With Canadian football being
9050-487: The National Football Conference (NFC). The NFL is one of the major professional sports leagues in the United States and Canada and the highest professional level of American football in the world. Each NFL season begins annually with a three-week preseason in August, followed by the 18-week regular season , which runs from early September to early January, with each team playing 17 games and having one bye week . Following
9231-426: The National Football Conference (NFC). The decision to make the conferences equal in size meant they could not feasibly align into anything except three divisions of four or five teams in each conference. This led to a debate as to how the postseason of the merged league should be structured. Both the NFL and AFL playoff formats of 1969 had attracted fierce critics. The NFL format was criticized for its ability to cause
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#17328581918919412-640: The Rock Island Independents defeated the non-league St. Paul Ideals 48–0 at Douglas Park . On October 3, 1920, the first full week of league play occurred. The following season resulted in the Chicago Staleys controversially winning the title over the Buffalo All-Americans. On June 24, 1922, the APFA changed its name to the National Football League (NFL). In 1932 , the season ended with
9593-665: The Skycam camera system was used for the first time in a live telecast, at a 1984 preseason NFL game in San Diego between the Chargers and 49ers , and televised by CBS. Commentator John Madden famously used a telestrator during games between the early 1980s to the mid-2000s, boosting the device's popularity. Each April (excluding 2014 when it took place in May), the NFL holds a draft of college players. The draft consists of seven rounds, with each of
9774-622: The Super Bowl ; the closest that came to happening was in the 2010–11 playoffs , when the Green Bay Packers and New York Jets went on Cinderella runs after finishing as the second wild card team in each of their conferences (the NFC and AFC, respectively); the Packers won the NFC Championship Game and went on to win the Super Bowl, while the Jets' Cinderella story ended with a one-score loss to
9955-523: The United States Football League or Canadian Football League . Like the other major sports leagues in the United States , the NFL maintains protocol for a disaster draft . In the event of a 'near disaster' (less than 15 players killed or disabled) that caused the club to lose a quarterback, they could draft one from a team with at least three quarterbacks. In the event of a 'disaster' (15 or more players killed or disabled) that results in
10136-581: The Winnipeg Blue Bombers (the West's easternmost team) to the Eastern Division. This balanced the divisions both in numbers as well as, to a considerable extent, in playing caliber, and the reduction in teams also caused the schedule to be changed to emphasize more divisional games. As a result, the three top finishers of the two divisions finishers always had the six best league records from 1987 up until
10317-587: The postseason despite failing to win their division . Those teams in each league possess the three best winning percentages in their league after the three division winners . The wild card was first instituted in MLB in 1994, with one wild card team per league advancing to the Division Series in the postseason to face a division winner. In 2012, the system was modified to add a second wild card team per league and pit each league's wild card teams against each other in
10498-421: The "Championship Pool." Unlike most tournaments which use a similar format, teams carry over their entire round robin records from the preliminary stage as opposed to only those results against teams that also qualify. This ensures that each Championship Pool team still plays eleven games that count for the purposes of determining playoff qualification. The format is designed to ensure that a competitive team fills
10679-402: The "wild card" was not initially referred to as such and was instead referred as the "Best Second-Place Team" (or sometimes simply as the "Fourth Qualifier"). The media, however, began referring to the qualifying teams as "wild cards". Eventually, the NFL officially adopted the term. For the 1969 AFL playoffs , a "crossover" format was used such that the division winners played the runners up in
10860-446: The #1 seeded team by giving it the most winnable matchups in the first two rounds, although this is not always the case in event of an upset because the NBA never re-seed teams following the first round. For instance, if the #6 seed upsets the #3 seed and the higher seed wins the remaining first round matchups within the conference, the #1 seed would face the #4 seed, while the #2 seed would face
11041-499: The #2 seed played the #3 seed. However, the rule that teams from the same division could not play each other in the divisional round continued, so if the #1 seed and the winner of the #4 vs #5 wild card game were in the same division, then the #1 seed played the #3 seed, while the #2 seed played the #4 vs #5 winner. To address the oddity of one wild card team per conference hosting a playoff game (albeit in an earlier round) while one division winner per conference did not automatically have
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#173285819189111222-409: The #4 & #5, and #3 & #6 seeds) in each conference played the #1 seed, and the next-lowest played the #2 seed in the conference semifinals. In 2019, the playoffs were expanded to the top seven teams in each conference, with only the conference regular season champion receiving a first-round bye. 2023 and hereafter sees only the eighth seed hosting the ninth-seed while the top seven seeds earned
11403-480: The #5 through #8 seeds. This change was made to ensure that the two best teams in each conference cannot meet until the conference final, and also (allegedly) to try and eliminate incentives for a playoff-bound team to deliberately lose games at the end of the regular season in order to "choose" a higher-seeded team that has won fewer games (and, due to the unique home-court rules of the NBA, possibly gain home-court advantage for that series). The notion of "wild cards"
11584-476: The #6 seed in the conference semifinals. For the 2020 NBA playoffs , playoff qualification was complicated by the COVID-19 pandemic , as not all teams had played the same number of games at the time of the mid-season suspension of play . When play resumed as part of the NBA's bubble , teams already eliminated from contention did not resume, while teams not eliminated played eight games to determine final seeding. If
11765-478: The #8 and #9 seeds in either conference finished within four games of each other, the two seeds would play each other in a play-in game. If the #8 seed won the game, it would advance to the playoffs. If the #9 seed won, a second game would be played. Only if the #9 seed won the second game would it advance to the playoffs. This play-in occurred on the Western Conference, where #8 seed Portland beat #9 Memphis in
11946-424: The 32 clubs getting one pick in each round. The draft order for non-playoff teams is determined by regular-season record; among playoff teams, teams are first ranked by the furthest round of the playoffs they reached, and then are ranked by regular-season record. For example, any team that reached the divisional round will be given a higher pick than any team that reached the conference championships, but will be given
12127-448: The AFC package, and Fox carries afternoon games from the NFC package. These afternoon games are not carried on all affiliates, as multiple games are being played at once; each network affiliate is assigned one game per time slot, according to a complicated set of rules. Since 2011, the league has reserved the right to give Sunday games that, under the contract, would normally air on one network to
12308-476: The CFL the NHL does not require the second wild card qualifier to have an outright better record than a superior-ranked team in the other division – in the event of such a tie at the end of the NHL season standard tie-breaking procedures are used to determine playoff qualification. From 1999 until 2013 , three division champions within each conference were given the #1–3 seeds based on their regular-season records. Among
12489-470: The Championship Game. Since 2020 , it has been possible for a wild card team to host a Divisional Round playoff game. This requires that all three wild card teams (seeded 5–7) win their wild card games on the road since teams are re-seeded. The matchups in the divisional round would be: The 1980 Raiders, 2005 Steelers, and 1992 Bills tied for first in their division but lost a tiebreaker. While not
12670-528: The Chicago Bears ( 6–1–6 ) and the Portsmouth Spartans ( 6–1–4 ) tied for first in the league standings. At the time, teams were ranked on a single table and the team with the highest winning percentage (not including ties, which were not counted towards the standings) at the end of the season was declared the champion; the only tiebreaker was that in the event of a tie if two teams played twice in
12851-469: The Chiefs are not included in the above list, but are recognized as the first team to win the Super Bowl without winning a division title. Although the National Basketball Association (NBA) includes wild card teams in their playoff structures, the term "wild card" is seldom used; instead, each playoff team is most commonly denoted by its seeding position within the conference. Before the 2006–07 NBA season ,
13032-646: The Decatur Staleys (now the Chicago Bears) and the Chicago Cardinals (now the Arizona Cardinals), remain in the NFL. Although the league did not maintain official standings for its 1920 inaugural season and teams played schedules that included non-league opponents, the APFA awarded the Akron Pros the championship by virtue of their 8–0–3 record. The first event occurred on September 26, 1920, when
13213-489: The Green Bay Packers to victories in the first two Super Bowls. Unlike the previous trophies, a new Vince Lombardi Trophy is issued to each year's champion, who maintains permanent control of it. Lombardi Trophies are made by Tiffany & Co. out of sterling silver and are worth anywhere from US$ 25,000 to US$ 300,000. Additionally, each player on the winning team as well as coaches and personnel are awarded Super Bowl rings to commemorate their victory. The winning team chooses
13394-425: The NBA playoffs, although as of the start of the 2022–23 season this has not yet occurred. In the NBA, the winner of the #1 vs. #8 series goes on to face the winner of the #5 vs. #4 series, while the winner of the #2 vs. #7 series faces the winner of the #6 vs. #3 series. The winner of the #1 vs. #8 series will usually play against a wild card team in the conference semifinals; this is arranged deliberately to reward
13575-437: The NBA seeded its teams with the division winners automatically receiving seeds 1–3. Until 2015, the NBA seeded the three division winners and the wild card team with the best record by regular-season record. This meant that the wild card with the best record got a seed as high as #2 (if that team is in the same division as the team with the best record in the conference); however, the next four wild card teams were still limited to
13756-457: The NBA. In the NHL, the highest-remaining seed of the first round played the lowest-remaining seed of the first round in the next round of the playoffs. For example, if the #1, #4, #6, and #7 seeds win their respective first round series, then the second round of the playoffs matched the #1 seed (highest) versus the #7 seed (lowest), and the #4 seed (2nd highest) versus the #6 seed (second lowest). Home ice advantage in each NHL playoff series prior to
13937-603: The NFC receive the George Halas Trophy , named after Chicago Bears founder George Halas , who is also considered one of the co-founders of the NFL. The AFC champions receive the Lamar Hunt Trophy , named after Lamar Hunt , the founder of the Kansas City Chiefs and the principal founder of the American Football League. Players on the winning team also receive a conference championship ring. The NFL recognizes
14118-554: The NFL announced the NFL Source initiative, aimed at increasing the number of minority- and women-owned businesses that work with the league throughout the year. NFL Source will be mandatory for teams that host major events, such as the Super Bowl and the NFL Draft, and their organizing committees, but will be optional for other contracts at the team level. The NFL will partner with the U.S. Black Chambers, Inc to help local businesses across
14299-402: The NFL by January 15 renouncing their remaining college eligibility. Clubs can trade away picks for future draft picks, but cannot trade the rights to players they have selected in previous drafts. Aside from the seven picks each club gets, compensatory draft picks are given to teams that have lost more compensatory free agents than they have gained. These are spread out from rounds 3 to 7, and
14480-516: The NFL cannot hold games on those days until the Friday before the third Saturday in December. While Saturday games late in the season are common, the league rarely holds Friday games, the most recent one being on Christmas Day in 2020. NFL games are rarely scheduled for Tuesday or Wednesday, and those days have only been used three times since 1948: in 2010, when a Sunday game was rescheduled to Tuesday due to
14661-455: The NFL could ultimately be liable for $ 14.39 billion. The league said it would ask the judge to set the verdict aside then appeal the verdict if needed. From 1920 to 1934, the NFL did not have a set number of games for teams to play, instead setting a minimum. The league mandated a twelve-game regular season for each team beginning in 1935 , later shortening this to eleven games in 1937 and ten games in 1943 , mainly due to World War II. After
14842-503: The NFL occupied the top three rates for a 30-second advertisement: $ 882,079 for Sunday Night Football , $ 562,524 for Monday Night Football , and $ 440,523 for Thursday Night Football . The league, in recent years, has expanded their televised broadcasts to over-the-top streaming services. Since 2022, Amazon holds the exclusive rights to broadcast the Thursday Night Football package. Prior to then, Amazon streamed games from
15023-587: The NFL realigned the conferences and split each into two four-team divisions. The four division champions would meet in the NFL playoffs , a two-round playoff. The NFL also operated the Playoff Bowl (officially the Bert Bell Benefit Bowl) from 1960 to 1969. Effectively, a third-place game , pitting the two conference runners-up against each other, the league considers Playoff Bowls to have been exhibitions rather than playoff games. The league discontinued
15204-405: The National Football League for the 1922 season . After initially determining champions through end-of-season standings, a playoff system was implemented in 1933 that culminated with the NFL Championship Game until 1966. Following an agreement to merge the NFL with the rival American Football League (AFL), the Super Bowl was first held in 1967 to determine a champion between the best teams from
15385-479: The Playoff Bowl in 1970 due to its perception as a game for losers. Following the addition of the former AFL teams into the NFL in 1970 , the NFL split into two conferences with three divisions each. The expanded league, now with twenty-six teams, would also feature an expanded eight-team playoff, the participants being the three division champions from each conference as well as one 'wild card' team (the team with
15566-512: The Stanley Cup Finals was granted by the higher seed, even if the "wild card" team had a better regular season record. For the Finals, the team with the better record will receive home ice advantage. Major League Soccer (MLS) used a wild card format starting in its 2011 playoffs . The top three teams from each of its two conferences automatically qualified for the conference semifinals, while
15747-648: The Steelers in the AFC Championship Game. From 2002 to 2019, the only way a wild card team could host a playoff game within their respective conference ( Super Bowls are considered neutral site games regardless of home venue) would be for both wild card teams to reach the Conference Championship Game by each winning two road playoff games: The No. 5 seeded wild card would host the No. 6 seeded wild card in
15928-638: The Super Bowl era and four Super Bowls afterwards. Since the creation of the Super Bowl, the New England Patriots and Pittsburgh Steelers are tied for the most Super Bowl victories at six each. The reigning league champions are the Kansas City Chiefs , who defeated the San Francisco 49ers by a score of 25–22 in Super Bowl LVIII . On August 20, 1920, a meeting was held by representatives of
16109-501: The Top 50 most valuable sports teams in the world; and 16 of the NFL's owners are listed on the Forbes 400 , the most of any sports league or organization. At the corporate level, the National Football League considers itself a trade association made up of and financed by its 32 member teams. Up until 2015, the league was an unincorporated nonprofit 501(c)(6) association. Section 501(c)(6) of
16290-513: The United States and 69% of all potential viewers in the United States. NFL regular season games accounted for 31 out of the top 32 most-watched programs in the fall season and an NFL game ranked as the most-watched television show in all 17 weeks of the regular season. At the local level, NFL games were the highest-ranked shows in NFL markets 92% of the time. Super Bowls account for the 22 most-watched programs (based on total audience) in US history, including
16471-471: The Vikings were able to use theirs. Selected players are only allowed to negotiate contracts with the team that picked them, but if they choose not to sign they become eligible for the next year's draft. Under the current collective bargaining contract, all contracts to drafted players must be four-year deals with a club option for a fifth. Contracts themselves are limited to a certain amount of money, depending on
16652-460: The West with a 9–9 record and missed the playoffs while the Hamilton Tiger-Cats finished 8–10 and qualified as Eastern runners-up. Thus, it is theoretically possible (but it has not yet occurred) that all four Eastern Division teams could reach the playoffs, but not for all five Western Division teams. In professional tennis tournaments, a wildcard refers to a tournament entry awarded to
16833-923: The Year Award , which recognizes a player's off-field work in addition to his on-field performance. The NFL Coach of the Year award is the highest coaching award. The NFL also gives out weekly awards such as the FedEx Air & Ground NFL Players of the Week and the Pepsi MAX NFL Rookie of the Week awards. In the United States, the National Football League is televised on eight networks across seven media partners: ESPN / ABC , CBS , Fox , NBC , Prime Video , Netflix , and NFL Network . The league offers its media rights in packages of games to prospective media partners. The packages can vary depending on conference, broadcast time slot, or both. CBS televises afternoon games from
17014-406: The beginning of his tenure to 17 million by the end of his tenure, and 400 million global viewers watched 1989's Super Bowl XXIII . The NFL established NFL Properties in 1963. The league's licensing wing, NFL Properties, earns the league billions of dollars annually; Rozelle's tenure also marked the creation of NFL Charities and a national partnership with United Way . Paul Tagliabue
17195-410: The best overall record, with tiebreakers in the event of two or more teams having the same record). These teams are seeded according to overall record and tiebreakers, with the division champions always ranking higher than the wild card teams. The top team (seeded one) from each conference are awarded a bye week, while the remaining six teams (seeded 2–7) from each conference compete in the first round of
17376-416: The best records among the remaining teams in the conference. These teams are referred to as the wild cards. In the first round, the division champions play the wild cards, while the second and third placed teams in each division play each other; therefore the bracket is fixed, like the NBA. Home-ice advantage is given to the higher seed in the first two rounds, with the better regular season record being used in
17557-403: The best regular-season record is awarded a first-round bye and granted automatic berth in the "Divisional Round". The four division champions are seeded from #1 through #4, while the three wild card teams are seeded #5 to #7; within these separations, seeding is by regular-season record. In the "wild card Round", the #7 team plays the #2 team, #6 plays #3, and #5 plays #4. In the "Divisional Round",
17738-492: The best win percentage that did not win its division) from each conference. In 1978, the league added a second wild card team from each conference, bringing the total number of playoff teams to ten, and a further two wild card teams were added in 1990 to bring the total to twelve. When the NFL expanded to 32 teams in 2002 , the league realigned, changing the division structure from three divisions in each conference to four divisions in each conference. As each division champion gets
17919-417: The broadcasts on ESPN or ABC. ESPN also holds exclusive rights to stream one Sunday morning international game on ESPN+. Beginning in 2024, Netflix holds the global streaming rights for at least one Christmas Day game every season as part of a three-year deal. The Super Bowl television rights are rotated on a four-year basis between CBS, Fox, NBC, and ESPN/ABC. The NFL's most recent contract negotiation for
18100-407: The championship. Fan interest in the de facto championship game led the NFL, beginning in 1933 , to split into two divisions with a championship game to be played between the division champions. The 1934 season also marked the first of twelve seasons in which African Americans were absent from the league . The de facto ban was rescinded in 1946 , following public pressure and coinciding with
18281-414: The commissioner, secretary, and treasurer. Each conference has one defined officer, the president, which is essentially an honorary position with few powers and mostly ceremonial duties, including awarding the conference championship trophy. The commissioner is elected by the affirmative vote of two-thirds or eighteen (whichever is greater) of the members of the league, while the president of each conference
18462-462: The company that makes the rings; each ring design varies, with the NFL mandating certain ring specifications (which have a degree of room for deviation), in addition to requiring the Super Bowl logo be on at least one side of the ring. The losing team are also awarded rings, which must be no more than half as valuable as the winners' rings, but those are almost never worn. The conference champions receive trophies for their achievement. The champions of
18643-478: The conclusion of the regular season, seven teams from each conference, including four division winners and three wild card teams, advance to the playoffs , a single-elimination tournament , which culminates in the Super Bowl , played in early February between the winners of the AFC and NFC championship games. The NFL was formed in 1920 as the American Professional Football Association ( APFA ) before renaming itself
18824-463: The country obtain the certifications necessary to do business with the league in furtherance of its efforts to increase partnerships with certified and underrepresented businesses that are 51% owned and operated or led by a veteran, woman, minority, person with disabilities or LGBTQ+. In 2015, a class-action lawsuit was filed on behalf of NFL Sunday Ticket subscribers, alleging that the NFL, its member teams, its broadcast partners, and DirecTV engaged in
19005-642: The current league champion, the league issued a smaller replica trophy to each champion, who would maintain permanent control over it. The current location of the Ed Thorp Memorial Trophy, long thought to be lost, is believed to be possessed by the Green Bay Packers Hall of Fame . The current trophy of the NFL is the Vince Lombardi Trophy . The Super Bowl trophy was officially renamed in 1970 after Vince Lombardi , who as head coach led
19186-415: The divisional playoffs featured the #1 seed hosting the "wild card" team, and the #2 seed hosting the #3 seed unless the #1 seed and wild card team were divisional rivals; in that case, the #1 seed hosted the #3 seed and the #2 seed hosted the wild card team. The "wild card" team in each conference was the team with the best record in its conference excluding the #1–3 seeds. The number of wild card qualifiers
19367-630: The divisions, the AFL playoff structure could allow a mediocre team to qualify – this did occur when the Houston Oilers , a .500 team, finished second in the Eastern Division – the Oilers were throttled in the playoffs 56–7 by the Western champion Oakland Raiders . Despite Kansas City's upset wins over the Raiders and Minnesota Vikings , some purists argued for the tradition of having only division champions contest
19548-455: The end of some of the rounds. The open draft had 19 rounds. The 1984 draft was held January 4-5. The draft was reduced to 12 rounds in 1985 , which in turn reduced the number of days to one. For the 1984 and the 1985 seasons, the collegiate draft was given the official name: "United States Football League Player Selection Meeting". In 1986, the USFL moved its draft to May with the plan move to
19729-407: The exact draft pick the player was selected with. Players who were draft eligible but not picked in the draft are free to sign with any club. The NFL operates several other drafts in addition to the NFL draft. The league holds a supplemental draft annually. Clubs submit emails to the league stating the player they wish to select and the round they will do so, and the team with the highest bid wins
19910-417: The exact rules among the leagues differ, they all generally agree that the wild card team (or teams, as in MLB, NFL, and NHL) are the ones with the best records among the teams that did not win their divisions; these teams usually finish as the runner-up to their division winners. The term "wild card" does not apply to postseason formats where a set number of teams per division qualify. Former examples include:
20091-518: The exception of the non-profit Green Bay Packers , is subject to tax because they make a profit. In 2015, the NFL gave up its tax-exempt status following public criticism; in a letter to the club owners, Commissioner Roger Goodell labeled it a "distraction", saying "the effects of the tax-exempt status of the league office have been mischaracterized repeatedly in recent years… Every dollar of income generated through television rights fees, licensing agreements, sponsorships, ticket sales, and other means
20272-433: The expanded round robin schedule, the playoffs will revert to the old three team, two game format thus eliminating the page playoff and quarter-final round. Beginning in 2024 wild card teams are no longer designated "Wild Cards" in the draw or standings and have the right to represent their member associations on the same basis as the team advancing from playdowns. While the Canadian Football League does not officially use
20453-522: The formation of schedules". A second meeting was held on September 17, 1920, with representatives from teams within four states: Akron, Canton, Cleveland, and Dayton from Ohio; the Hammond Pros and Muncie Flyers from Indiana; the Rochester Jeffersons from New York; and the Rock Island Independents , Decatur Staleys , and Racine (Chicago) Cardinals from Illinois. The league was renamed to
20634-467: The four remaining teams with the highest point totals in league play, without regard to conference, earned "wild cards" into the playoffs. The wild card matches were single games, with the #7 seed hosting the #10 seed and the #8 seed hosting the #9 seed. The lowest surviving seed then played the Supporters' Shield winner (i.e., the team with the highest point total), while the other surviving wild card played
20815-425: The game was moved to the week before. Because of this, players from the teams participating in the Super Bowl are exempt from participating in the game. The Pro Bowl is not considered as competitive as a regular-season game because the biggest concern of teams is to avoid injuries to the players. The National Football League has used three different trophies to honor its champion over its existence. The first trophy,
20996-467: The group, nearly 50 more potential schedules were developed to try to ensure that the chosen schedule would be the best possible one. Following the conclusion of the regular season, the NFL Playoffs, a 14-team single-elimination tournament, is then held. Seven teams are selected from each conference: the winners of each of the four divisions as well as three wild card teams (the three remaining teams with
21177-532: The higher remaining seed hosting the lower remaining seed. The AFC and NFC champions then compete in the Super Bowl to determine the league champion. The only other postseason event hosted by the NFL is the Pro Bowl , the league's all-star game . Since 2009, the Pro Bowl has been held the week before the Super Bowl ; in previous years, the game was held the week following the Super Bowl, but in an effort to boost ratings,
21358-469: The league has to account for, among other things, the Major League Baseball postseason and local events that could pose a scheduling conflict with NFL games. During the 2010 season, over 500,000 potential schedules were created by computers, 5,000 of which were considered "playable schedules" and were reviewed by the NFL's scheduling team. After arriving at what they felt was the best schedule out of
21539-401: The league. This occurred in 1986, when the 11–7 Calgary Stampeders qualified in place of the 4–14 Montreal Alouettes . The Alouettes folded before the start of the following season. Although it is highly questionable whether a 1986 playoff appearance would have saved the floundering Montreal franchise, the CFL quickly re-instated the traditional playoff format for the 1987 season. It also moved
21720-475: The lowest-remaining seed plays the #1 seeded team, while the other two wild card winners face-off against each other, with the higher seed hosting. The higher-seeded teams have home-field advantage in both rounds and the "Conference Championships". The NFL was the first sports league to use the wild card format. The decision to implement a wild card coincided with the completion of the AFL-NFL merger in 1970. Prior to
21901-412: The main draw, which expanded to pools of nine teams each. Additional wild card berths are granted if the defending champion does not play and/or a member association does not enter a team (this occurred, for example, in the 2024 Scotties Tournament of Hearts when Nunavut withdrew) As a result, teams that advance to the championship pool will play twelve round robin games instead of eleven. To accommodate
22082-682: The major ones such as Wimbledon ). Tennis players may even ask for a wildcard and get one if they want to enter a tournament on short notice. For Summer Olympic Games , some National Olympic Committees , whose nations are underrepresented after qualifications, may be granted wild card quotas, which are termed Universality Places , in some eligible sports. In Olympic and World Championship competitions in track and field and swimming , however, nations are automatically allowed to enter two competitors, so these instances are technically not wildcards. In some other Olympic sports, such as judo, archery, and badminton, wildcards are in use, and they are granted by
22263-512: The media rights deal was announced on March 18, 2021, to take effect beginning in the 2023 season. The deal renewed previous rights agreements made by the NFL and each of its network partners to air their respective game packages, while awarding Amazon the Thursday Night Football package. ESPN/ABC is set to return to the Super Bowl broadcast rotation and will broadcast the Super Bowl on U.S. television in 2027, 21 years after airing its last Super Bowl, Super Bowl XL . Digital and streaming distribution
22444-518: The merger, the right to compete in the postseason for the NFL title was restricted to division/conference champions. Until 1967, a tiebreaker game was played to resolve a deadlock for first place in either of the two conferences. When the league expanded to 16 teams, it realigned into four divisions and expanded the playoffs to two rounds. Tiebreaker games were eliminated in favor of the use of performance-based criteria to determine division champions. The rival American Football League (AFL), which reached
22625-530: The new six expansion franchises. In the 1985 USFL territorial draft , it was raised to six schools per team (25 selections), which was speculated in the media as a way to allow the New Jersey Generals to sign quarterback Doug Flutie . The territorial selections were conducted by the teams, who communicated their choices to the league's office in writing. Once "drafted", a player's USFL rights belonged to that club, and were ineligible from selection in
22806-503: The nine teams played each opponent once at home and once on the road), this disparity (made even worse by the fact the West had one more team than the East) was fully exposed in the standings – in each of the first three seasons of the new format, the fourth place team missed the playoffs with records as good as 9–7 in the West, while in the East records as bad as 3–13 were good enough for third place and
22987-423: The number of wild card qualifiers was reduced to two per conference. In 2020 , the playoffs returned to three wild cards per conference, or 14 teams total. The term "Wild Card Round" continues to be used for the opening round of the playoffs, even though this round has involved both division winners and wild card teams since 1990. As of the 2021–22 playoffs , there has never been a meeting of two wild card teams in
23168-406: The old format consisting a single group of twelve teams. This allows the main tournament to include "Team Canada" (either the defending champions or, when the champions decline to or are unable to defend their title, the runners-up) and teams representing all fourteen constituent associations representing the ten provinces and three territories plus Northern Ontario . The remaining two participants in
23349-431: The old-line NFL owners, who still expected their teams to dominate the merged league for at least the first half of the 1970s, thought a repeat of the 1967 Colts-Rams fiasco would be very likely under the new alignment combined with a six team format. Furthermore, the modern principle that home field advantage and byes should be awarded to the teams with the best records had still not yet been firmly established – tradition at
23530-523: The only pro team with a bye in the divisional round (the Western Division title having been determined by a traditional tiebreaker, played the same weekend as the NFL's divisional round, between the Kansas City Chiefs and the Oakland Raiders ). The AFL later agreed to expanded their playoffs to include division runners-up and implemented tiebreakers, thus in 1969 the runners-up played the winners of
23711-427: The opposite division. This was done in part because division rivals had already played each other twice in the regular season and also in part because the AFL did not want the playoff games to be confused as "division championship games" – by keeping division rivals separate in the opening playoff round, the league left fans in no doubt that the regular season division winners were the only true division champions, even if
23892-534: The opposite divisions for the right to contest the AFL Championship Game. The Chiefs, despite being AFL West runners-up, nevertheless won the last Super Bowl prior to the merger. In 1970, the merged league realigned into two conferences of thirteen teams each, with three "old-line" NFL teams joining the AFL teams in the American Football Conference (AFC), and the remaining NFL teams forming
24073-529: The organizers. Other events have fixed rules. Some North American professional sports leagues compare the records of teams which did not qualify directly by winning a division or conference . In international sports, the term is perhaps best known in reference to two sporting traditions: team wildcards distributed among countries at the Olympic Games and individual wildcards given to some tennis players at every professional tournament (both smaller events and
24254-462: The other network (known as "flexible scheduling"). The only way to legally watch a regionally televised game not being carried on the local network affiliates is to purchase NFL Sunday Ticket, the league's out-of-market sports package , which is available through YouTube TV starting with the 2023 season. The league also provides NFL RedZone , an omnibus telecast that cuts to the most relevant plays in each game, live as they happen. In addition to
24435-495: The other three teams in the division, while one game is held against all the members of a division from the NFC and a division from the AFC as determined by a rotating cycle (three years for the conference the team is in, and four years in the conference they are not in). Two of the other games are intraconference games, determined by the standings of the previous year – for example, if a team finishes first in its division, it will play two other first-place teams in its conference, while
24616-455: The player to negotiate with other clubs but gives his former club the right to match any offer and two first-round draft picks if they decline to match it. Wild card (sports) A wild card (also wildcard or wild-card and also known as an at-large berth or at-large bid ) is a tournament or playoff berth awarded to a team or individual that does not qualify through an automatic bid. In some events, wildcards are chosen freely by
24797-503: The playoff game, officially a regular-season game that would count towards the regular season standings, at Wrigley Field in Chicago, but a combination of heavy snow and extreme cold forced the game to be moved indoors to Chicago Stadium , which did not have a regulation-size football field. Playing with altered rules to accommodate the smaller playing field, the Bears won the game 9–0 and thus won
24978-405: The playoffs to continue. Had they prevailed, the post-merger NFL playoffs would have consisted of six teams and might have eventually evolved to closely resemble the playoffs of the modern Canadian Football League , with the regular season champion of each conference earning the right to host the championship game against the winner of a game between the champions of the other two divisions. However,
25159-592: The playoffs, the Wild Card round, with the 2-seed competing against the 7-seed, the 3-seed competing against the 6-seed and the 4-seed competing against the 5-seed. The winners of the Wild Card round advance to the Divisional Round, which matches the lower seeded team against the 1-seed and the two remaining teams against each other. The winners of those games then compete in the Conference Championships, with
25340-578: The post-season. These teams played cross-division in the semifinal round. Thus the Chiefs, who finished second in the West, defeated the East Division champion New York Jets in the AFL semifinals and then defeated the West Division champion Oakland Raiders to advance to Super Bowl IV , where they beat the Minnesota Vikings . Because the term "wild card" was not instituted until the following year,
25521-414: The pre-merger NFL teams, and the American Football Conference (AFC), consisting of all of the AFL teams as well as three pre-merger NFL teams. Today, the NFL is the most popular sports league in North America – with much of the league's growth and popularity attributable to former Commissioner Pete Rozelle , who led the league from 1960 to 1989. Overall annual attendance increased from 3 million at
25702-435: The preseason does not count towards standings, teams generally do not focus on winning games; instead, they are used by coaches to evaluate their teams and by players to show their performance, both to their current team and to other teams if they get cut. The quality of preseason games has been criticized by some fans, who dislike having to pay full price for exhibition games, as well as by some players and coaches, who dislike
25883-461: The previous commissioner, retired. The NFL season format consists of a three-week preseason , an 18-week regular season (each team plays 17 games), and a 14-team single-elimination playoff culminating in the Super Bowl, the league's championship game. The NFL preseason begins with the Pro Football Hall of Fame Game , played at Tom Benson Hall of Fame Stadium in Canton . Each NFL team
26064-425: The previous year's tournament or their respective provincial or territorial championship. The top ranked of these two teams receives the hammer (last rock) to start the game. The CTRS standings are also used to determine the seeding of all teams in the main tournament, with one important caveat – for the purposes of seeding the round robin pools and so as to allow the main round robin schedule to be drawn up prior to
26245-545: The regional games, the league also has packages of telecasts, mostly in prime time, that are carried nationwide. NBC broadcasts the primetime Sunday Night Football package, which includes the Thursday NFL Kickoff game that starts the regular season and a primetime Thanksgiving Day game . ESPN is the main broadcaster of the Monday Night Football package with ABC airing select games either exclusively or as
26426-405: The regular college draft. The league's office in turn would send out these lists to all teams, prohibiting them from drafting these players in the regular USFL collegiate draft . National Football League The National Football League ( NFL ) is a professional American football league that consists of 32 teams, divided equally between the American Football Conference (AFC) and
26607-431: The remaining teams within each conference, five additional teams with the best records are awarded seeds #4 through #8. The division champions (first-third seeds) and the non-division winning team with the best record (fourth seed) were given home ice advantage in the opening playoff series, in which they face the eighth-seeded through fifth-seeded teams, respectively. However, the playoff format differed slightly from that of
26788-545: The removal of a similar ban in Major League Baseball . The NFL was always the largest professional football league in the United States; it nevertheless faced numerous rival professional leagues through the 1930s and 1940s. Rival leagues included at least three separate American Football Leagues and the All-America Football Conference (AAFC), on top of various regional leagues of varying caliber. Three NFL teams trace their histories to these rival leagues;
26969-449: The respective sport federations. On rare occasions, a competitor who had gained entry by wildcard succeeds in winning a medal or the championship. For example, Kye Sun-Hui won gold in judo at the 1996 Summer Olympics , Ding Junhui won the 2005 China Open snooker championship, Goran Ivanišević won the 2001 Wimbledon Championships , Kim Clijsters won the 2009 US Open , and Lin Dan won
27150-456: The rest of the state the club operates in, as well as the area the team operates its training camp in for the duration of the camp). Each NFL member has the exclusive right to host professional football games inside its Home Territory and the exclusive right to advertise, promote, and host events in its Home Marketing Area. There are a couple of exceptions to this rule, mostly relating to teams with close proximity to each other: teams that operate in
27331-416: The right to host a playoff game, the playoffs were expanded again to three wild cards per conference in 1990 (for 12 teams total) with the lowest-ranked divisional winner losing its bye but gaining the right to host a playoff game. Following the addition of the Houston Texans in 2002, the league added a fourth division to each conference. The league decided not to change the number of playoff teams, and thus
27512-420: The rights to that player. The exact order is determined by a lottery held before the draft, and a successful bid for a player will result in the team forfeiting the rights to its pick in the equivalent round of the next NFL draft. Players are only eligible for the supplemental draft after being granted a petition for special eligibility. The league holds expansion drafts , the most recent happening in 2002 when
27693-495: The risk of injury the games have, while others have felt the preseason is a necessary part of the NFL season. Currently, the 14 opponents each team faces over the 17-game regular season schedule are set using a predetermined formula: The league runs an 18-week, 272-game regular season. Since 2021, the season has begun the week after Labor Day (the first Monday in September) and concluded the week after New Year. The opening game of
27874-470: The same city (e.g. New York City and Los Angeles) or the same state (e.g. California , Florida , and Texas ) share the rights to the city's Home Territory and the state's Home Marketing Area, respectively. According to Forbes , the Dallas Cowboys , at approximately US$ 8 billion, are the most valuable NFL franchise and the most valuable sports team in the world. 26 of the 32 NFL teams rank among
28055-438: The same divisional ranks in another division. The main difference is that the CFL only allows the lowest ranked playoff qualifying team from a division to cross over into the other division's playoffs, whereas in the NHL it is possible for either wild card team to "cross over" to the other division, or even (in cases where four teams qualify from each division) for the wild card teams to swap divisional playoff brackets. Also, unlike
28236-520: The same package as part of a tri-cast model that saw games aired on broadcast television (initially through CBS and NBC, then later with Fox), cable television (through NFL Network), and digital streaming (through Prime Video). Amazon has also streamed games for free on Twitch since 2018. CBS streams its AFC package games on Paramount+ as a simulcast with its CBS broadcasts. NBC streams Sunday Night Football and select exclusive games on Peacock . ESPN streams its games on ESPN+ in simulcast with
28417-441: The schedule will give half the teams nine games as the home team, while half the teams have only eight home games. To minimize the perceived benefit on competition of having more home games, the extra home game will be rotated between the two conferences each year. This is because playoff berths are allocated at the conference level, so all teams within the conference will have played the same number of home games. The NFL operated in
28598-549: The season is normally a home game on a Thursday for the league's defending champion. Most NFL games are played on Sundays, with a Monday night game typically held at least once a week and Thursday night games occurring on most weeks as well. NFL games are not normally played on Fridays or Saturdays until late in the regular season, as federal law prohibits professional football leagues from competing with college or high school football. Because high school and college teams typically play games on Friday and Saturday, respectively,
28779-424: The sport safer, mainly through fining or suspending players who break rules. These actions are among many the NFL is taking to reduce concussions and improve player safety. Prior to 2021, the NFL had utilized race-based adjustments of dementia claims in the $ 1 billion settlement of concussion claims, which had been criticized by critics before the NFL decided to end what was called "race-norming". On May 21, 2024,
28960-484: The start of the league's U.S. expansion experiment , which started in the 1993. The current rule was adopted after the league re-activated the Alouettes and reverted to an all-Canadian alignment in 1996. It allows the fourth place team of one division to "cross over" and take the place of the third place team in the other divisional bracket, provided the fourth place team has more points (i.e. an outright better record) than
29141-561: The term "wild card" to denote any playoff qualifier, its crossover rule acts similar to a wild card in many respects. Calls to change the CFL's playoff format came about soon after the CFL finished its evolution from two regional conferences, which were originally the Interprovincial Rugby Football Union in the East and the Western Interprovincial Football Union in the West. Although the CFL
29322-459: The third place team. Since the cross over team enters as the third place team, it never receives home field advantage in the playoffs, even if its record is better than that of one or both of the qualifying teams in the other division. As of 2023, all teams to qualify under this rule have crossed over from the Western Division to the Eastern bracket, although there have been a handful of occasions where
29503-404: The time dictated that home field advantage rotate between divisions and/or conferences regardless of record. In any event, most owners in both conferences wanted to keep the even four-team playoff field in each conference. This was established by having the three division champions in each conference joined by the best second-place finisher in the conference. As with much of the NFL's nomenclature,
29684-473: The top seed in the other conference. The playoff format was revamped for the 2012 season, with all seeding done entirely in-conference, therefore eliminating any true wild card qualifiers. From 2012 to 2018, the top six teams from each conference qualified for the playoffs, with the #1 & #2 seeds in each conference automatically qualifying for the conference semifinals, and seeds #3–6 in each conference being wild cards. The lowest-seeded winner (played between
29865-483: The tournament are the wild cards, which compete in an MLB-style play-in game prior to the main tournament to determine the sixteenth team in the main tournament. Just as is the case with MLB division titles, the format is designed to give teams an incentive to win their provincial championships. The wild cards are the top two teams in the Canadian Team Ranking System (CTRS) standings that did not win either
30046-425: The tournament. As is the case with Team Canada, the wild card retains that designation even if the team that is representing the same province or territory as the wild card team is eliminated prior to the wild card team. With the introduction of pools, the round robin portion of the Tournament of Hearts and Brier now consists of two stages. The top four teams in each pool qualify for the second stage, formally known as
30227-466: The trophy was discontinued and its current whereabouts are unknown. A second trophy, the Ed Thorp Memorial Trophy , was issued by the NFL from 1934 to 1967. The trophy's namesake, Ed Thorp, was a referee in the league and a friend to many early league owners; upon his death in 1934, the league created the trophy to honor him. In addition to the main trophy, which would be in the possession of
30408-426: The two leagues and has remained as the final game of each NFL season since the merger was completed in 1970. The NFL is the wealthiest professional sports league in the world by revenue and the sports league with the most valuable teams. The NFL also has the highest average attendance (67,591) of any professional sports league in the world and is the most popular sports league in the United States. The Super Bowl
30589-492: The war ended, the number of games returned to eleven games in 1946 , and later back to twelve in 1947. The NFL went to a 14-game schedule in 1961 , which it retained until switching to a 16-game schedule in 1978 . In March 2021, the NFL officially adopted a 17-game schedule after gaining the agreement of the National Football League Players Association (NFLPA). Having an odd number of games in
30770-479: The welfare of the League or professional football". The commissioner can, in the event of misconduct by a party associated with the league, suspend individuals, hand down a fine of up to US$ 500,000, cancel contracts with the league, and award or strip teams of draft picks. In extreme cases, the commissioner can offer recommendations to the NFL's executive committee, up to and including the "cancellation or forfeiture" of
30951-402: The wild card game, the ranking of the top wild card team is the ranking that is used for seeding purposes regardless of who wins the game. Whereas teams in the Tournament of Hearts and Brier are traditionally referred to by their respective province or territory (other than Northern Ontario and Team Canada), the team that wins the wild card game is referred to as the "wild card" for the duration of
31132-541: The wild card slot – due to the significant disparity in playing caliber between the top teams of Canada's fourteen member associations, it is widely expected that the wild card will consistently come from one of the provinces with the toughest fields in the playdowns, and that it will consistently be a championship contending team. The format was changed for the 2021 curling season due to the COVID-19 pandemic . For at least that year, tournaments will expand to eighteen teams each. Three wild card teams will gain direct entry into
31313-437: The wildcard), promising young players, players that are likely to draw a large crowd, or have won the tournament earlier or players who were once ranked higher and are attempting a comeback (for instance, following a long-term injury). High-ranked players can also ask for a wildcard if they want to enter a non-mandatory tournament after the normal entry deadline; for example, because they lost early in another tournament. This means
31494-450: The winner advancing as the #7 seed. The loser of this game then hosts the winner of the elimination game between the 9th and 10th place teams to determine the #8 seed. The NBA's regular playoff format then proceeds as normal. In the National Hockey League (NHL), the first, second, and third place teams in each division qualify for the playoffs automatically, and two additional teams, regardless of divisional alignment, also qualify by having
31675-438: Was changed in 2022 to add a third wild card team from each league, along with replacing the play-in game with two three-game series in each league. In the National Football League (NFL), since 2020 , each of the two conferences sends three wild card teams along with four division champions to its postseason. The first round of the playoffs is called the "wild card round". In this round, each conference's division champion with
31856-452: Was conceived by USFL founder David Dixon , in order to keep geographic interest in the franchises. With the territorial draft, local college or professional football players , would end up playing for the state's USFL team. It started with each team being assigned a five-college pool that were deemed to be in the team's region, from which it selected 26 players. In the 1984 USFL territorial draft , each team had 20 selections to accommodate
32037-424: Was elected as commissioner to succeed Rozelle; his 17-year tenure, which ended in 2006, was marked by large increases in television contracts and the addition of four expansion teams, as well as the introduction of league initiatives to increase the number of minorities in league and team management roles. The league's current Commissioner, Roger Goodell , has focused on reducing the number of illegal hits and making
32218-404: Was essentially abolished in the 2015–16 NBA season , as changes made prior to the season meant the top eight teams in each conference qualified regardless of divisional rank, with the seeded teams ranked by percentage. The only particular advantage to winning a division now was that a divisional title served as the first tiebreaker for qualification seeding purposes. Unlike some other leagues, there
32399-732: Was expanded to allow CBS, NBC, and ESPN/ABC to stream games on their respective over-the-top streaming services. For each of the packages the respective network partners currently hold, ESPN/ABC is paying US$ 2.7 billion a year; CBS, Fox, and NBC are each paying more than US$ 2 billion a year; and Amazon is paying US$ 1 billion a year. The current deal runs through the 2033 season. The league also has deals with Spanish-language broadcasters NBC Universo , Fox Deportes , and ESPN Deportes , which air Spanish language dubs of their respective English-language sister networks' games. The league's contracts do not cover preseason games, which individual teams are free to sell to local stations directly;
32580-414: Was expanded to two per conference in 1978 – the divisional winners were granted a bye week while the wild card teams, seeded #4 and #5, played each other in a "wild card game" with the #4 seed having home field advantage. Since there were two wild card games, one per conference, the phrase "wild card round" came into use. During this time, the #1 seed hosted the winner of the #4 vs #5 wild card game, while
32761-402: Was officially founded in 1958, its constituent sections did not fully merge until 1981. At the time, it was agreed that three teams from each division would qualify, regardless of overall league standings. This quickly proved controversial, as a wide disparity in playing caliber had emerged between the East and West divisions. Since the league had also implemented a fully balanced schedule (each of
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