In reality, most teams often found ways around that, and acquired the best players with the promise of jobs and trophies or watches to play against top regional clubs and colleges.
[28] At the same time, the Massillon Tigers, the Columbus Panhandles, and the Canton Bulldogs, all from Ohio, started attracting much of the top professional football talent in the United States of America: Harry McChesney, Bob Shiring, the Nesser brothers, Blondy Wallace, Cub Buck, and later Jim Thorpe, and gave rise to the Ohio League.
The rise in level of play resulted in barnstorming tours between the circuits, which laid the foundations for the first truly national major league: the American Professional Football Association in 1920, which later became the NFL.
The league was formed by the strongest independent teams in the region, including the Memphis Tigers, who claimed the national pro championship in 1929, after beating the NFL champion Green Bay Packers.
The AA was formed by the nucleus of independent teams that played in the New York and New Jersey circuits, and was led by president Joe Rosentover.
The league became home to the top African American football talents in the country, including Kenny Washington, Woody Strode, Ozzie Simmons, Mel Reid, and briefly Jackie Robinson during the NFL enforced color barrier.
The Northeast Atlantic Coast Football League (ACFL) formed in 1962 and was run by Joe Rosentover, former president of the 1930s AA.
The association also included the non-paying semi-pro New England Football Conference,[42][43] and appointed UFL commissioner George T. Gareff as the CEO.
[44] The association represented teams in fifty cities spanning twenty-one U.S. states plus Quebec, and scheduled exhibition games between leagues,[45] but disbanded after two years without making any strides.
The second, the Continental Football League (CoFL), which ran from 1965 to 1971, was probably the biggest in the era, and attracted three teams from the ACFL: the Hartford Charter Oaks, the Newark Bears, and the Norfolk Neptunes.
[47] In 1969, the CoFL announced the all eight teams from TFL were being added to its ranks as a separate division, and were scheduled to play mostly against each other, along with a few inter-league contests.
[49][50] The ACFL also produced some significant talent, such as Pro Bowler Marvin Hubbard, first female professional football player Patricia Palinkas, who was placeholder for her husband Stephen, and cult figure King Corcoran.
During its existence, the SFL hovered between a minor league and semi-pro, as some of its players, most notably Joe Klecko,[52] were never paid, and others received only fifty dollars per game.
[53][54][51] One other minor league attempt in the 1970s was the American Football Association (AFA), which operated from 1977 to 1983, was less successful, as it struggled to acquire recognizable players and failed to secure a TV deal.
[57] From 1980 through 1985, the association sponsored an annual post-season championship tournament for minor league teams, with an attempt to establish a minor-league system.
In 1981 the association reached an agreement with the NFL to hold a special national all-star game for minor leaguers, the day before the Super Bowl, with scouts in attendance.
[63] Other notable players include Dante Hall, David Akers, James Harrison, Adam Vinatieri, and William Perry.
[69] The second, the Spring Football League, was founded by several ex-NFL players: Bo Jackson, Drew Pearson, Eric Dickerson, and Tony Dorsett.
[71] Although 14 million viewers tuned in for the first game, the Nielsen ratings later plummeted and triggered NBC to pulled out of its broadcast contract, and the league folded after one season.
[81] The UFL was fairly successful, attracting big crowds in Omaha, Sacramento, and Hartford and airing all league games on Versus, HDnet, and over the Internet, and had plans to expand.
The FXFL attracted the final NFL roster cuts, for the purpose of keeping them "in football shape, physically and mentally".
The league was on hiatus in 2021 and 2022, after it filed for bankruptcy and put up for sale by McMahon and was later sold to Dany Garcia, Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson and RedBird Capital,[87] and began its second season on February 18, 2023.
The high cost of supporting an entire roster of professional players and stadium fees led to an indoor variation with the launch of the Arena Football League (AFL) in 1987.
The categories are more fluid than the outdoor variation, but usually determined by per-game salaries, geographic footprint and arena size: Semi-pro leagues have existed since the beginning of American football, but were far more common in the early and mid 20th century than they are today.
Instead, the level below the NFL tended to take the form of local, sometimes unofficial leagues matching teams from different neighborhoods or suburbs of big cities with little to no pay.
Notable semi-pro players include Johnny Unitas, who played quarterback, safety, and punter on a Pittsburgh suburb team called the Bloomfield Rams for six dollars per game before joining the Baltimore Colts;[139] Eric Swann, who played for the Bay State Titans in the Boston suburb of Lynn and was the first, and so far the only, player to be drafted into the NFL draft first round from a semi-pro organization; and Ray Seals, who did not play college football, but made his way to the NFL through the semi-pro rank Syracuse Express.
The Watertown Red & Black, a semi-professional team from Upstate New York, is the oldest existing football club, tracing its history to 1896.
[154] The prominent present-day leagues in the adult amateur/semi-pro US circuit are: * The NEFL is unique in the American sports landscape, allowing promotion and relegation among conferences.
The typical American import player contract includes a monthly salary, housing, insurance, transportation, round trip flights, meals, and possible performance bonuses.
KaVontae Turpin was the first ELF alum who played in the NFL, while Adedayo Odeleye and Marcel Dabo signed as practice squad players through the league's IPPP.