[1] In 1937, the Los Angeles Bulldogs, the first professional football team to play its home games on the West Coast, also became the first professional football team to win a league championship with a perfect record (no losses, no ties) – 11 years before the Cleveland Browns (AAFC) and 35 years before the Miami Dolphins (NFL) accomplished the same feat.
[1] The brainchild of former New York Giants personnel director Harry March, plans for the formation of the second American Football League were announced on November 12, 1935.
While first-season AFL champion Boston did not plunder the roster of the struggling Redskins team, the New York Yankees and Pittsburgh Americans had no such qualms with their crosstown rivals, the Giants and the Pirates.
When the NFL announced that it was willing to expand, Marshman applied for a franchise in the more-established league (along with representatives from Houston and Los Angeles).
As a result, the Rams left the AFL for 1937 season, to be replaced by the group from Los Angeles whose NFL application was turned down.
The existence of the Braves was doomed from lack of fan support while losing every game at Municipal Stadium (Don Irwin and end Red Badgro were the head coaches).
At the lone home game in Red Wing Stadium (November 1, 1936) the second half was delayed 40 minutes by Braves players demanding back pay.
When the league folded at the end of the year, the Bengals continued as an independent team for 1938, joined the short-lived minor American Professional Football Association for 1939, and became a charter member of the third AFL in 1940.
[7] After being turned down for the NFL for the 1937 season, the Bulldogs joined the AFL and became the first professional football team to play its home games on the West Coast.
Los Angeles did not lose or tie a game in its one season with the AFL, the first professional football team to win its league title with a perfect record.
Out-of-town newspapers rarely covered the league's activities, and when they did, the coverage was usually a bare-bones mention of the scores inserted as page filler.
While the Bulldogs had attendance figures comparable to that of the 1936 Shamrocks and Yankees (about 14,000 per home game), the former eastern powers lost their draw.
Shamrocks owner Bill Scully noted that the team lost $37,000 in 1937; the rest of the league (excluding Los Angeles) fared worse.
The Los Angeles Bulldogs returned to the independent circuit in 1938, as did the Cincinnati Bengals, which joined the fledgling minor league, the American Professional Football Association, in 1939 and became a charter member of the third AFL in 1940.