David Rosenthal

They're kind of struggling.

If the ownership group that owns them were to sell, maybe we would allow them to be moved.

But go talk to them.

they're willing to submit to this league first.

Mindset, because they know it's good for all of them, but that doesn't mean that they want to expand or change things.

Let's go.

So the story goes...

that one of the potential new professional football team investors, a gentleman named Lamar Hunt, who was a young heir to a very large Dallas, Texas oil fortune, kept trying to talk to Burt Bell, the NFL, do anything he could to get an expansion team or buy the Cardinals.

He just wants to own a football team.

Yep.

So he's flying back from seeing the Cardinals and having been rebuffed.

And he has a eureka moment on the plane.

He's been hearing that there are all these other people who want to buy the Cardinals too and get in line and this person in this city and that person in that city.

And Lamar says, wait a minute.

I don't need the NFL.

I don't need the Cardinals.

I've got a list of all these other wealthy people who also want to have professional football teams.

Why don't I call them and we'll start our own league.

By far.

So in August 1959, he and several other owners form the American Football League with six teams, soon to become eight, the Dallas Texans, Boston Patriots, Buffalo Bills, Houston Oilers, Miami Dolphins, New York Titans, soon to be changed to the New York Jets, the Denver Broncos, the LA Chargers, and the Oakland Raiders.