American Football League - Fictional History

LEAGUE NARROWS DOWN EXPANSION CITIES The first two teams that will be joining for the 1961 season seem to be all but guaranteed to be Los Angeles and San Francisco. The owners met with a handful of prospective ownership groups over the past year, and managed to narrow down the groups to a single owner from Los Angeles and two potential owners from San Francisco. The Los Angeles owner impressed the AFL owners, as hotel chain heir Barron Forbes made his case for ownership and won over all of the AFL owners. On the other hand, the AFL owners had to choose between two prospective bids for San Francisco. The first group was expected, as the duo that tried to buy the Knights this past offseason, former ACAA councilman and lawyer Allen Penoyer and lumber magnate Ernest Barlowe, got another, slightly more favorable chance to prove why they deserved a team. The other bid was a complete surprise: Victor Culpeper, a minority owner of the PAFC’s Kansas City Cowboys. Culpeper had wanted to bring a ...

MATCH FIXING SCANDAL ROCKS PAFC As the rift between the AFL and PAFC continues to grow, one of the most glaring differences that have emerged has been player pay. If you were riding the bench from team to team, then the pay was almost as much as a semi-pro player. But if you played for a team like Chicago or Indianapolis that had the money and competed for titles year in and year out, then you’d be paid comparably to a player in the AFL. This massive disparity in pay left a majority of PAFC players to either test their luck elsewhere or protest the league to increase their wages. President Bradshaw was not keen on increasing the minimum pay for players, as the league’s finances at this point were cutting it close to bankruptcy. Unbeknownst to Bradshaw, a few players reached out to their fellow players in the AFL to unionize, forming a football player’s union to advocate for fair wages. The league looked like it was on even more uneven ground and ready to fold at any point at its curren...

Another relatively mild December day caused River Field to be the most packed it has ever been. The 29,500 seat stadium was somehow able to cram in just about 32,000, and tensions were still tense between fans after the end of last year’s championship game. Some even had to be removed from the stadium after getting into a scuffle before the game even began. The Federals were still upset about the result of the previous meeting, while the Rivermen still held the high ground and were determined to keep it. Q1 The Rivermen would win the coin toss, and chose to receive the kickoff for the first half to get the upper hand on their rival. They would start by methodically working their way downfield, trading handoffs between RB’s Perry Ferguson and Billy Garcia. QB Lester Parker mixed in a few passes to get the drive within the twenty. Parker looked back on a first and ten and threw over the middle to hit one of his WR’s, but instead LB Howard Treadaway put himself in the way for the intercep...

West Division Final: St Louis Stallions @ Cincinnati Rivermen The Stallions had not only achieved making the playoffs in their first season, but in their first playoff game they managed to take down the Hogs in somewhat convincing fashion. Their next obstacle might be an even more daunting task, now having to face the new power in the West in Cincinnati. The Rivermen were eager to defend their title, and winning against the upstart Stallions will guarantee they plan another game at home for the championship. The grounds crew had cleared some snow that had fallen in the earlier hours of the day, leaving the field conditions less than ideal at kickoff. Q1 The Stallions would win the coin toss and choose to get a head start against one of the best teams in the league. They relied on RB Kevin Knox to inch his way down field, which was easier said than done. St Louis QB O.J. DeMille had to step in to bail out his team, hitting WR Anthony Wheatland for a solid first down and finding TE Scott...