Where Did the NFL Start?
Long before billion-dollar stadiums, television contracts and Super Bowl commercials, professional football was a disorganized regional business. Teams operated independently, players routinely jumped from one club to another for better money, salaries were rising quickly, and some college players secretly appeared in professional games under assumed names. By 1920, team owners increasingly understood that the sport needed common rules if it was going to survive.
One of the people pushing hardest for organization was Ralph Hay, a 29-year-old automobile dealer who owned the Canton Bulldogs. Hay had purchased the team in 1918, and Canton was already one of professional football’s strongest clubs, with superstar Jim Thorpe helping draw crowds. Hay also happened to have something useful that most early football executives did not: a downtown place of business large enough to host a meeting. His Hupmobile automobile showroom in Canton became the unlikely setting for one of the most important gatherings in American sports history.
There was actually a preliminary meeting there on August 20, 1920, when representatives from Canton, Akron, Cleveland and Dayton created the American Professional Football Conference. The more consequential gathering came four weeks later. On September 17, owners and representatives from teams across four states returned to Canton and created a permanent organization called the American Professional Football Association.
The NFL Started Between the Cars
The September meeting took place in Hay’s Hupmobile showroom inside Canton’s Odd Fellows Building. Representatives came from teams including the Canton Bulldogs, Akron Pros, Cleveland Indians, Dayton Triangles, Hammond Pros, Muncie Flyers, Rochester Jeffersons, Rock Island Independents, Decatur Staleys and Racine Cardinals. The Massillon Tigers were discussed but withdrew rather than join.
The owners elected Sac and Fox Native American nation member Jim Thorpe as the organization’s first president, a deliberate choice because Thorpe was among the most famous athletes in America at the time. His name gave an otherwise shaky new league instant credibility. Cleveland’s Stanley Cofall became vice president. A $100 membership fee was established, apparently to make the association look more substantial, although the Pro Football Hall of Fame notes that no team actually paid it. Scheduling remained largely in the hands of individual clubs, which shows just how loosely organized the new league still was.
The whole thing attracted surprisingly little attention. The next day, the Canton Repository gave more prominent coverage to the Bulldogs signing tackle Pete Henry; news of the new professional football league appeared on page three. Nobody in Hay’s showroom could have known they were creating an organization that would eventually become one of the most powerful sports leagues in the world. The APFA did not even adopt the name National Football League until 1922.
An Automobile Dealership Became Part of Football History
The automotive setting is what makes the story especially memorable. In 1920, automobile dealerships were still relatively new fixtures in American cities, and Hay’s business was not simply a backdrop. His career selling cars and his ownership of the Bulldogs overlapped at exactly the moment professional football was trying to transform itself from a loose collection of local teams into a national business.
The original building is gone, but the location remains central to Canton’s identity. A historical marker identifies the site, and the Pro Football Hall of Fame stands in Canton largely because the league was founded there. The Hall also preserves the original September 17 meeting minutes, two yellowed pages documenting motions that must have seemed like routine business at the time.
Two of the franchises represented in that showroom still exist today. The Decatur Staleys became the Chicago Bears, while the Racine Cardinals evolved into today’s Arizona Cardinals. More than a century later, the NFL fills enormous stadiums and dominates American television every fall. It began with a group of owners gathering after hours inside a Hupmobile dealership.
