National Basketball Association
The National Basketball Association is a men's professional basketball league in North America. It is considered to be the premier men's professional basketball league in the world; the NBA is an active member of USA Basketball, recognized by FIBA as the national governing body for basketball in the United States. The NBA is one of the four major professional sports leagues in the United States and Canada. NBA players are the world's best paid athletes by average annual salary per player; the league was founded in New York City on June 1946, as the Basketball Association of America. The league adopted the name National Basketball Association on August 3, 1949, after merging with the competing National Basketball League; the league's several international as well as individual team offices are directed out of its head offices located in the Olympic Tower at 645 Fifth Avenue in Midtown Manhattan. NBA Entertainment and NBA TV studios are directed out of offices located in New Jersey; the Basketball Association of America was founded in 1946 by owners of the major ice hockey arenas in the Northeastern and Midwestern United States and Canada.
On November 1, 1946, in Toronto, Canada, the Toronto Huskies hosted the New York Knickerbockers at Maple Leaf Gardens, in a game the NBA now refers to as the first game played in NBA history. The first basket was made by Ossie Schectman of the Knickerbockers. Although there had been earlier attempts at professional basketball leagues, including the American Basketball League and the NBL, the BAA was the first league to attempt to play in large arenas in major cities. During its early years, the quality of play in the BAA was not better than in competing leagues or among leading independent clubs such as the Harlem Globetrotters. For instance, the 1948 ABL finalist Baltimore Bullets moved to the BAA and won that league's 1948 title, the 1948 NBL champion Minneapolis Lakers won the 1949 BAA title. Prior to the 1948–49 season, however, NBL teams from Fort Wayne, Indianapolis and Rochester jumped to the BAA, which established the BAA as the league of choice for collegians looking to turn professional.
On August 3, 1949, the remaining NBL teams–Syracuse, Tri-Cities, Sheboygan and Waterloo–merged into the BAA. In deference to the merger and to avoid possible legal complications, the league name was changed to the present National Basketball Association though the merged league retained the BAA's governing body, including Podoloff. To this day, the NBA claims the BAA's history as its own, it now reckons the arrival of the NBL teams as an expansion, not a merger, does not recognize NBL records and statistics. The new league had seventeen franchises located in a mix of large and small cities, as well as large arenas and smaller gymnasiums and armories. In 1950, the NBA consolidated to eleven franchises, a process that continued until 1953–54, when the league reached its smallest size of eight franchises: the New York Knicks, Boston Celtics, Philadelphia Warriors, Minneapolis Lakers, Rochester Royals, Fort Wayne Pistons, Tri-Cities Blackhawks, Syracuse Nationals, all of which remain in the league today.
The process of contraction saw. The Hawks shifted from the Tri-Cities to Milwaukee in 1951, to St. Louis in 1955; the Rochester Royals moved from Rochester, New York, to Cincinnati in 1957 and the Pistons relocated from Fort Wayne, Indiana, to Detroit in 1957. Japanese-American Wataru Misaka broke the NBA color barrier in the 1947–48 season when he played for the New York Knicks, he remained the only non-white player in league history prior to the first African-American, Harold Hunter, signing with the Washington Capitols in 1950. Hunter was cut from the team during training camp, but several African-American players did play in the league that year, including Chuck Cooper with the Celtics, Nathaniel "Sweetwater" Clifton with the Knicks, Earl Lloyd with the Washington Capitols. During this period, the Minneapolis Lakers, led by center George Mikan, won five NBA Championships and established themselves as the league's first dynasty. To encourage shooting and discourage stalling, the league introduced the 24-second shot clock in 1954.
If a team does not attempt to score a field goal within 24 seconds of obtaining the ball, play is stopped and the ball given to its opponent. In 1957, rookie center Bill Russell joined the Boston Celtics, which featured guard Bob Cousy and coach Red Auerbach, went on to lead the club to eleven NBA titles in thirteen seasons. Center Wilt Chamberlain entered the league with the Warriors in 1959 and became a dominant individual star of the 1960s, setting new single game records in scoring and rebounding. Russell's rivalry with Chamberlain became one of the greatest rivalries in the history of American team sports; the 1960s were dominated by the Celtics. Led by Russell, Bob Cousy and coach Red Auerbach, Boston won eight straight championships in the NBA from 1959 to 1966; this championship streak is the longest in NBA history. They did not win the title in 1966–67, but regained it in the 1967–68 season and repeated in 1969; the domination totaled nine of the ten championship banners of the 1960s.
Through this period, the NBA continued to evolve with the shift of the Minneapolis Lakers to Los Angeles, the Philadelphia Warriors to San Francisco, the Syracuse Nationals to Philadelphia to become the Philadelphia 76ers, the St. Louis Hawks moving to Atlanta, as well as the addition of its first expansion franchises; the Chicago Packers (now Wa
Alpha Phi Alpha
Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc. is the first African-American, intercollegiate Greek-lettered fraternity. It was a literary and social studies club organized in the 1905–1906 school year at Cornell University but evolved into a fraternity with a founding date of December 4, 1906, at Cornell, it employs an icon from the Great Sphinx of Giza, as its symbol. Its aims are "Manly Deeds and Love For All Mankind," and its motto is "First of All, Servants of All, We Shall Transcend All." Its archives are preserved at the Moorland-Spingarn Research Center. Chapters were chartered at Howard University and Virginia Union University in 1907; the fraternity has over 290,000 members and has been open to men of all races since 1945. There are more than 730 active chapters in the Americas, Europe, the Caribbean, Asia, it is the largest predominately African-American fraternity and one of the ten largest collegiate fraternities in the nation. Alpha Phi Alpha is a social organization with a service organization mission and provided leadership and service during the Great Depression, World Wars, Civil Rights Movement.
The fraternity addresses social issues such as apartheid, AIDS, urban housing, other economic and political issues of interest to people of color. National programs and initiatives of the fraternity include A Voteless People Is a Hopeless People, My Brother's Keeper, Go To High School, Go To College, Project Alpha, the World Policy Council, it conducts philanthropic programming initiatives with the March of Dimes, Head Start, the Boy Scouts of America, Big Brothers Big Sisters of America. Members of this fraternity include many historical civil rights leaders such as Martin Luther King Jr. NAACP founder W. E. B. Du Bois, John Mack and Dick Gregory. Other world renowned-members include political activist Cornel West, musicians Duke Ellington and Lionel Richie, NBA legend Walt Frazier, Jamaican Prime Minister Norman Manley, Olympic gold medalist Jesse Owens, Justice Thurgood Marshall and founder of Vista Equity Partners Robert F. Smith, United Nations Ambassador Andrew Young, Academy Award-winning director Barry Jenkins, six time MTV Video Music Awards - winning director/choreographer Frank Gatson Jr. hero of the Nashville Waffle House shooting, James Shaw Jr. and ESPN sportscasters Stuart Scott, Stan Verrett and Jay Harris.
Alpha Phi Alpha was directly responsible for the conception and construction of the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial next to the National Mall in Washington D. C. At the start of the 20th century, African-American students at American universities were excluded from fraternal organizations enjoyed by the predominantly white student population at non-black colleges. C. C. Poindexter organized a group of students for literary discussion and social functions at Cornell University; the group consisted of 15 students and included women. The initial study group consisted of 14 students; these students included four from Washington, D. C. – Robert Ogle, Fred Morgan Phillip, Fannie Holland, Flaxie Holcosbe. There were four men and a woman from New York State: George Kelley, Henry A. Callis, James Thomas, Gordon Jones, Paul Ray. From West Virginia came Mary Vassar. Vertner Tandy came from Kentucky, C. H. Chapman was from Florida; the group met every two weeks at 421 North Albany Street. Poindexter was stated to have a relationship with the other students of the group, more faculty to student than peer-to-peer, given that he was the secretary of a professor at Cornell.
In December 1905, Poindexter organized a meeting of students which included Murray, Phillips, Kelley, Callis and George Tompkins. Robert Ogle had seen an article in the Chicago Defender magazine about a Negro fraternity at Ohio State University called Pi Gamma Omicron, of which the university had no knowledge. Pi Gamma Omicron inspired Ogle to try to transform the literary society into a fraternity. There was disagreement about the group's purpose: some wanted a social and literary club where everyone could participate. Poindexter felt the group should serve the cultural and social needs of the black community and not be an elite secret society; the society decided to work to provide a literary, study and support group for all minority students who encountered social and academic racial prejudice. On October 23, 1906, George Kelley proposed that the organization be known by the Greek letters Alpha Phi Alpha, Robert Ogle proposed the colors black and old gold. Poindexter became the first President of Alpha Phi Alpha.
The divisive issue of whether the terms "club" or "fraternity" should be used was still debated. A vote again confirmed the name Alpha Phi Alpha with the colors of black; the initiation of new members Eugene Kinckle Jones, Lemuel Graves and Gordon Jones took place on October 30, 1906 at a Masonic Hall including James Morton was considered and selected, but at the time he was not registered at the university. Two founding members learned about fraternity rituals from other fraternal organizations: Henry A. Callis worked in the Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity House, Kelly worked at Beta Theta Pi fraternity house. Coincidentally, an article about a Negro fraternity Pi Gamma Omicron's ambitions to become a national fraternity was noted by a Beta Theta Pi correspondent at Ohio State University. Callis said that these fraternities, SAE and BTP, were the original source of the fraternity rituals; the other members of the group felt that Poindexter, as a graduate stude
2014 NFL season
The 2014 NFL season was the 95th season in the history of the National Football League. The season began on Thursday, September 4, 2014, with the annual kickoff game featuring the defending Super Bowl XLVIII champion Seattle Seahawks hosting the Green Bay Packers, which resulted with the Seahawks winning, 36-16; the season concluded with Super Bowl XLIX, the league's championship game, on Sunday, February 1, 2015, at University of Phoenix Stadium in Glendale, with the New England Patriots defeating the Seattle Seahawks, 28–24. The 2014 league year began at 4 pm EST on March 11, which marked the start of the league's free agency period; the per-team salary cap was set at a $10 million increase from the previous year. The so-called "legal tampering" period during which time agents representing prospective unrestricted free agent players were allowed to have contact with team representatives with the purpose of determining a player's market value and to begin contract negotiations, began at noon on March 8.
A total of 471 players were eligible for some form of free agency at the beginning of the free agency period. In addition, a number of paid players were released after the start of the league year to allow their teams to regain space under the salary cap. Among the high-profile players who changed teams via free agency were cornerbacks Darrelle Revis, Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie, Aqib Talib and Alterraun Verner. Four players were assigned the non-exclusive franchise tag by their teams, which ensured that the team would receive compensation were the player to sign a contract with another team; these players were defensive end Greg Hardy, tight end Jimmy Graham, placekicker Nick Folk and linebacker Brian Orakpo. Two other teams used the transition tag, which offers the player's current team a chance to match offers from other franchises and guarantees draft pick compensation if a tagged player signs elsewhere. Players given the transition tag were Jason Worilds and Alex Mack. Mack signed a five-year, $42 million offer sheet with the Jacksonville Jaguars which included $26 million in guaranteed money and a player option to void the contract after two seasons.
The Browns retained Mack who became the league's highest paid center. One restricted free agent switched teams in 2014: wide receiver Andrew Hawkins of the Bengals was signed by the Browns. Restricted free agents are players with three or fewer seasons in the league whose contracts have expired. Teams may tender contract offers which allow them to match offers from other teams and may trigger draft pick compensation to be received from the signing team. Hawkins was tendered at the minimum level, which means the Bengals would not receive any draft compensation; the Browns signed him to a $13.6 million, four-year offer. Saints safety Rafael Bush signed an offer from the Falcons, but the Saints retained Bush by matching the offer; the 2014 NFL Draft was held May 8 -- 2014, in New York City. The draft process began with the NFL Scouting Combine, where draft-eligible players were evaluated by team personnel, held in Indianapolis on February 19–25; the draft included a record number of 98 non-seniors.
The event was delayed two weeks compared to its traditional position on the NFL calendar in late April due to a scheduling conflict at Radio City Music Hall, the draft venue since 2006. In the draft, the Houston Texans made University of South Carolina defensive end, now outside linebacker Jadeveon Clowney the first overall selection. There was discussion leading up to the draft as to the future of the event in New York City, where it had been held since 1965. Given the increased interest in the draft over the past decade, there was a belief that the event may have outgrown Radio City Music Hall, the venue for the past nine drafts; the possibility of extending the draft to four days was being discussed. On October 2, 2014, Auditorium Theatre in Chicago was announced as the official site for the following year's draft. Training camps for the 2014 season were held in late July through August. Teams may start training camp no earlier than 15 days before the team's first scheduled preseason game.
Prior to the start of the regular season, each team played four preseason exhibition games. The preseason schedule got underway with the Pro Football Hall of Fame Game on Sunday evening, August 3; the Hall of Fame game is a traditional part of the annual Pro Football Hall of Fame induction weekend celebrating new Hall of Fame members. It was played at Fawcett Stadium, located adjacent to the Hall of Fame building in Canton, Ohio; the game, televised in the U. S. on NBC, featured the New York Giants and Buffalo Bills, with the Giants winning 17–13. Continuing the recent trend of scheduling teams that are associated with former players be
Notre Dame Fighting Irish football
The Notre Dame Fighting Irish football team is the intercollegiate football team representing the University of Notre Dame in Notre Dame, Indiana. The team is coached by Brian Kelly and plays its home games at the campus's Notre Dame Stadium, which has a capacity of 77,622. Notre Dame is one of six schools that competes as an Independent at the National Collegiate Athletic Association Football Bowl Subdivision level. Notre Dame is one of the most successful programs in college football; the school claims 11 national championships, but the NCAA recognizes the school with 13. Moreover, Notre Dame has 21 national championships recognized by all major selectors. Notre Dame and Ohio State share the record of seven Heisman Trophy winners, but Notre Dame leads Ohio State by the number of individual winners. Notre Dame has produced 101 consensus All-Americans, 34 unanimous All-Americans, 52 members of the College Football Hall of Fame, 13 members of the NFL Hall of Fame, all NCAA records. Notre Dame has had 495 players selected in the NFL Draft, second only to USC.
All Notre Dame home games have been televised by NBC since 1991, Notre Dame is the only school to have such a contract. It was the only independent program to be part of the Bowl Championship Series coalition and its guaranteed payout, it has one of the largest, most widespread fan bases in college football; these factors help make Notre Dame one of the most financially valuable football programs in the country, which allows the school to remain an independent. Football did not have an auspicious beginning at the University of Notre Dame. In their inaugural game on November 23, 1887, the Irish lost to Michigan by a score of 8–0, their first win came in the final game of the 1888 season when the Irish defeated Harvard Prep School of Chicago by a score of 20–0. At the end of the 1888 season they had a record of 1–3 with all three losses being at the hands of Michigan by a combined score of 43–9. Between 1887 and 1899 Notre Dame compiled a record of 31 wins, 15 losses, four ties against a diverse variety of opponents ranging from local high school teams to other universities.
In 1894, James L. Morison was hired as Notre Dame's first head football coach. Notre Dame took a significant step toward respectability and stability when they hired Morison, he wrote an acquaintance after his first day on the job: “I arrived here this morning and found about as green a set of football players that donned a uniform… They want to smoke, when I told them that they would have to run and get up some wind, they thought I was rubbing it in on them. "One big, strong cuss remarked. Well, maybe you think I didn’t give him hell! I bet you a hundred no one makes a remark like that again.” Morrison had been hired for $40 plus expenses for two weeks. In 1908, the win over Franklin saw end Fay Wood catch the first touchdown pass in Notre Dame history. Notre Dame continued its success near the turn of the century and achieved their first victory over Michigan in 1909 by the score of 11–3 after which Michigan refused to play Notre Dame again for 33 years. By the end of the 1912 season they had amassed a record of 108 wins, 31 losses, 13 ties.
Jesse Harper became head coach in 1913 and remained so until he retired in 1917. During his tenure the Irish began playing only intercollegiate games and posted a record of 34 wins, five losses, one tie; this period would mark the beginning of the rivalry with Army and the continuation of the rivalry with Michigan State. In 1913, Notre Dame burst into the national consciousness and helped to transform the collegiate game in a single contest. In an effort to gain respect for a regionally successful but small-time Midwestern football program, Harper scheduled games in his first season with national powerhouses Texas, Penn State, Army. On November 1, 1913, the Notre Dame squad stunned the Black Knights of the Hudson 35–13 in a game played at West Point. Led by quarterback Gus Dorais and end Knute Rockne—who was soon to be legendary coach—the Notre Dame team attacked the Cadets with an offense that featured both the expected powerful running game but long and accurate downfield forward passes from Dorais to Rockne.
This game has been miscredited as the invention of the forward pass. Prior to this contest, receivers would come to a full-stop and wait on the ball to come to them, but in this contest, Dorais threw to Rockne in stride, changing the forward pass from a seldom-used play into the dominant ball-moving strategy that it is today. Irish assistant Knute Rockne became head coach in 1918. Under Rockne, the Irish would post a record of 105 wins, 12 losses, five ties; the 105 wins account for 12.3% of all wins in Notre Dame football history. During his 13 years, the Irish won three national championships, had five undefeated seasons, won the Rose Bowl in 1925, produced players such as George Gipp and the "Four Horsemen". Knute Rockne has the highest winning percentage in NCAA Division I/FBS football history. Rockne's offenses employed the Notre Dame Box and his defenses ran a 7–2–2 scheme. Rockne posted a 3 -- 1 -- 2 record, he made his coaching debut on September 28, 1918, against Case Tech in Cleveland and earned a 26–6 victory.
Leonard Bahan, George Gipp, Curly Lambeau were in the backfield. With Gipp, Rockne had an ideal handler of the forward pass; the 1919 team had Rockne handle Gus Dorais handle the backfield. The team went undefeated and won t
Orlando Magic
The Orlando Magic is an American professional basketball team based in Orlando, Florida. The Magic compete in the National Basketball Association as a member of the league's Eastern Conference Southeast Division; the franchise was established in 1989 as an expansion franchise, such notable NBA stars as Shaquille O'Neal, Penny Hardaway, Patrick Ewing, Grant Hill, Tracy McGrady, Steve Francis, Dwight Howard, Vince Carter, Rashard Lewis, Dominique Wilkins, Hedo Türkoğlu have played for the club throughout its young history. As of 2017, the franchise has played in the NBA playoffs for half of its existence, twice went to the NBA Finals, in 1995 and 2009. Orlando has been the second most successful of the four expansion teams brought into the league in 1988 and 1989 in terms of winning percentage, only after the Miami Heat. In September 1985, Orlando businessman Jim L. Hewitt approached Philadelphia 76ers general manager Pat Williams as they met in Texas on his idea of bringing an NBA team to Orlando.
Intrigued by the project, Williams signed on as the front man of the investment group one year as he left the 76ers. On June 19, 1986, the two held a news conference to announce their intention of seeking an NBA franchise. At the same time Hewitt and Williams decided to hold a contest in the Orlando Sentinel newspaper to get names for their new franchise. Out of a total of 4,296 submitted entries, the names were subsequently narrowed to four, "Heat", "Tropics", "Juice", "Magic"; the last one, submitted by 11 people, was picked after Williams brought his 7-year-old daughter Karyn to visit in Orlando. On July 27, 1986, it was announced that the committee chose the Magic to be the new name of the Orlando franchise in the NBA; the name "Magic" alludes to the area's biggest tourist attraction and economic engine Walt Disney World, along with its Magic Kingdom. Hewitt added that "You look at all the aspects of Central Florida, you find it is an exciting place, a magical place."Many, including Williams himself at first, thought that Miami or Tampa were better locations in Florida for a franchise, given Orlando was a small town lacking a major airport and a suitable arena.
Hewitt brought investors such as real estate developer William DuPont, Orlando Renegades owner Don Dizney, Southern Fruit Citrus owners Jim and Steve Caruso, talked the Orlando city officials into approving an arena project. Meanwhile, Williams gave presentations to NBA commissioner David Stern and the owners of the other teams of the league that the town was viable; the Magic were one of the four new expansion franchises awarded by the NBA in 1987 along with the Charlotte Hornets, Miami Heat and Minnesota Timberwolves. The NBA was planning to expand by three teams, with one franchise going to Florida; the Magic became the first major-league professional sports franchise in the Orlando area, following an expansion fee of $32.5 million. The Magic hired Matt Guokas as the team's first coach, who helped the Magic select 12 players in the NBA Expansion Draft on June 15, 1989. On June 27, 1989, the Magic chose Nick Anderson with the 11th pick in the first round, who became the first draft pick of the franchise.
The first game played was an exhibition game on October 13, 1989 against the reigning champions Detroit Pistons, which the Magic won. Anderson was quoted as saying the atmosphere and the people watching the game was "like Game 7 of the NBA Finals". On November 4, 1989, the Magic played their first season game at the Orlando Arena against the visiting New Jersey Nets, who won 111–106 in a hard-fought game; the Magic's first victory came two days as the Magic defeated the New York Knicks 118–110. The inaugural team compiled a record of 18–64 with players including Reggie Theus, Scott Skiles, Terry Catledge, Sam Vincent, Otis Smith, Jerry Reynolds. In the 1990 NBA draft, the Orlando Magic selected Dennis Scott with the fourth overall pick. On December 30, 1990, Scott Skiles racked up 30 assists in the 155–116 victory over the Denver Nuggets, breaking Kevin Porter's NBA single-game assists record. Skiles was named the NBA's Most Improved Player at the end of the season, as the Magic heralded the NBA's most improved record that season.
Forward Dennis Scott set a team mark with 125 three-point field goals for the season, the best long-distance production by a rookie in NBA history. He was named to the NBA All-Rookie First Team. Despite a 31–51 record, there were 40 sellouts out of 41 home games. On September 19, 1991, the DeVos family, founders of Amway, purchased the franchise for $85 million. Family patriarch Richard DeVos became the owner of the franchise; the 1991–92 season was disappointing for the Magic as various players missed games with injuries. Dennis Scott played only 18 games, Nick Anderson missed 22 games, Stanley Roberts, Jerry Reynolds, Brian Williams, Sam Vincent and Otis Smith all missed at least 27 games each. With a shortage of healthy players the team struggled through a 17-game losing streak and finished with a 21–61 record; the Magic still managed to have all 41 home games sold out. The Magic history was changed on May 17, 1992, when the franchise won the first pick in the 1992 NBA draft Lottery; the Magic selected big-man Shaquille O'Neal from Louisiana State University, the biggest prize in the draft since the Knicks won Patrick Ewing.
O'Neal, a 7' 1" center, made an immediate impact on the Magic. The Magic again became the NBA's most improved franchise. O'Neal was the first rookie to be voted an All-Star starter since
Super Bowl
The Super Bowl is the annual championship game of the National Football League where the champion of the National Football Conference competes against the champion of the American Football Conference. The game is the culmination of a regular season that begins in the late summer of the previous calendar year. Roman numerals are used to identify each game, rather than the year in which it is held. For example, Super Bowl I was played on January 1967, following the 1966 regular season; the sole exception to this naming convention tradition occurred with Super Bowl 50, played on February 7, 2016, following the 2015 regular season, the following year, the nomenclature returned to Roman numerals for Super Bowl LI, following the 2016 regular season. The upcoming Super Bowl is Super Bowl LIV, scheduled for February 2, 2020, following the 2019 regular season; the game was created as a part of the merger agreement between the NFL and its then-rival, the American Football League. It was agreed that the two's champion teams would play in the AFL–NFL World Championship Game until the merger was to begin in 1970.
After the merger, each league was redesignated as a "conference", the game has since been played between the conference champions to determine the NFL's league champion. The National Football Conference leads the league with 27 wins to 26 wins for the American Football Conference; the Pittsburgh Steelers and the New England Patriots have the most Super Bowl championship titles, with six. The New England Patriots have the most Super Bowl appearances, with eleven. Tom Brady has six Super Bowl rings, the record for the most rings won by a single player; the day on which the Super Bowl is played, now considered by some as an unofficial American national holiday, is called "Super Bowl Sunday". It is the second-largest day for U. S. food consumption, after Thanksgiving Day. In addition, the Super Bowl has been the most-watched American television broadcast of the year. S. television history are Super Bowls. In 2015, Super Bowl XLIX became the most-watched American television program in history with an average audience of 114.4 million viewers, the fifth time in six years the game had set a record, starting with Super Bowl XLIV, which itself had taken over the number-one spot held for 27 years by the final episode of M*A*S*H.
The Super Bowl is among the most-watched sporting events in the world all audiences being North American, is second to the UEFA Champions League final as the most watched annual sporting event worldwide. The NFL restricts the use of its "Super Bowl" trademark; because of the high viewership, commercial airtime during the Super Bowl broadcast is the most expensive of the year, leading to companies developing their most expensive advertisements for this broadcast. As a result and discussing the broadcast's commercials has become a significant aspect of the event. In addition, popular singers and musicians including Mariah Carey, Michael Jackson, Prince, Justin Timberlake, Beyoncé, Janet Jackson, Paul McCartney, The Rolling Stones, The Who, Whitney Houston, Lady Gaga have performed during the event's pre-game and halftime ceremonies. For four decades after its 1920 inception, the NFL fended off several rival leagues. In 1960, it encountered its most serious competitor; the AFL vied with the NFL for fans.
The original "bowl game" was the Rose Bowl Game in Pasadena, first played in 1902 as the "Tournament East-West football game" as part of the Pasadena Tournament of Roses and moved to the new Rose Bowl Stadium in 1923. The stadium got its name from the fact that the game played there was part of the Tournament of Roses and that it was shaped like a bowl, much like the Yale Bowl in New Haven, Connecticut; the Tournament of Roses football game came to be known as the Rose Bowl Game. Exploiting the Rose Bowl Game's popularity, post-season college football contests were created for Miami, New Orleans, El Paso in 1935, for Dallas in 1937. By the time the first Super Bowl was played, the term "bowl" for any major American football game was well established. Lamar Hunt, owner of the AFL's Kansas City Chiefs, first used the term "Super Bowl" to refer to the NFL-AFL championship game in the merger meetings. Hunt said the name was in his head because his children had been playing with a Super Ball toy.
In a July 25, 1966, letter to NFL commissioner Pete Rozelle, Hunt wrote, "I have kiddingly called it the'Super Bowl,' which can be improved upon." The leagues' owners chose the name "AFL–NFL Championship Game", but in July 1966 the Kansas City Star quoted Hunt in discussing "the Super Bowl — that's my term for the championship game between the two leagues", the media began using the term. Although the league stated in 1967 that "not many people like it", asking for suggestions and considering alternatives such as "Merger Bowl" and "The Game", the Associated Press reported that "Super Bowl" "grew and grew and grew-until it reached the point that there was Super Week, Super Sunday, Super Teams, Super Players, ad infinitum". "Super Bowl" became official beginning with the third annual game. Roman numerals were first affixed for the fifth edition, in January 1971. After the NFL's Green Bay Packers won the first two Super Bowls, some team owners feared for the future of the merger. At the time, many doubted the c
American football
American football, referred to as football in the United States and Canada and known as gridiron, is a team sport played by two teams of eleven players on a rectangular field with goalposts at each end. The offense, the team controlling the oval-shaped football, attempts to advance down the field by running with or passing the ball, while the defense, the team without control of the ball, aims to stop the offense's advance and aims to take control of the ball for themselves; the offense must advance at least ten yards in four downs, or plays, otherwise they turn over the football to the defense. Points are scored by advancing the ball into the opposing team's end zone for a touchdown or kicking the ball through the opponent's goalposts for a field goal; the team with the most points at the end of a game wins. American football evolved in the United States, originating from the sports of association football and rugby football; the first match of American football was played on November 6, 1869, between two college teams and Princeton, under rules based on the association football rules of the time.
During the latter half of the 1870s, colleges playing association football switched to the Rugby Union code, which allowed carrying the ball. A set of rule changes drawn up from 1880 onward by Walter Camp, the "Father of American Football", established the snap, the line of scrimmage, eleven-player teams, the concept of downs; the sport is related to Canadian football, which evolved parallel and contemporary to the American game, most of the features that distinguish American football from rugby and soccer are present in Canadian football. American football as a whole is the most popular sport in the United States; the most popular forms of the game are professional and college football, with the other major levels being high school and youth football. As of 2012, nearly 1.1 million high school athletes and 70,000 college athletes play the sport in the United States annually all of them men, with a few exceptions. The National Football League, the most popular American football league, has the highest average attendance of any professional sports league in the world.
In the United States, American Football is called "football". The terms "gridiron" or "American football" are favored in English-speaking countries where other codes of football are popular, such as the United Kingdom, New Zealand, Australia. American football evolved from the sports of rugby football. Rugby football, like American football, is a sport where two competing teams vie for control of a ball, which can be kicked through a set of goalposts or run into the opponent's goal area to score points. What is considered to be the first American football game was played on November 6, 1869, between Rutgers and Princeton, two college teams; the game was played between two teams of 25 players each and used a round ball that could not be picked up or carried. It could, however, be kicked or batted with the feet, head or sides, with the ultimate goal being to advance it into the opponent's goal. Rutgers won the game 6 goals to 4. Collegiate play continued for several years in which matches were played using the rules of the host school.
Representatives of Yale, Columbia and Rutgers met on October 19, 1873 to create a standard set of rules for all schools to adhere to. Teams were set at 20 players each, fields of 400 by 250 feet were specified. Harvard abstained from the conference, as they favored a rugby-style game that allowed running with the ball. After playing McGill University using both Canadian and American rules, the Harvard players preferred the Canadian style having only 11 men on the field, running the ball without having to be chased by an opponent, the forward pass and using an oblong instead of a round ball. An 1875 Harvard–Yale game played under rugby-style rules was observed by two impressed Princeton athletes; these players introduced the sport to Princeton, a feat the Professional Football Researchers Association compared to "selling refrigerators to Eskimos." Princeton, Harvard and Columbia agreed to intercollegiate play using a form of rugby union rules with a modified scoring system. These schools formed the Intercollegiate Football Association, although Yale did not join until 1879.
Yale player Walter Camp, now regarded as the "Father of American Football", secured rule changes in 1880 that reduced the size of each team from 15 to 11 players and instituted the snap to replace the chaotic and inconsistent scrum. The introduction of the snap resulted in unexpected consequences. Prior to the snap, the strategy had been to punt. However, a group of Princeton players realized that, as the snap was uncontested, they now could hold the ball indefinitely to prevent their opponent from scoring. In 1881, both teams in a game between Yale-Princeton used this strategy to maintain their undefeated records; each team held the ball. This "block game" proved unpopular with the spectators and fans of both teams. A rule change was necessary to prevent this strategy from taking hold, a reversion to the scrum was considered. However, Camp proposed a rule in 1882 that limited each team to three downs, or tackles, to adva
