Origin
Although the third American Football League was not directly connected to any previous American football leagues of the same name, its formation was at the cost of an already-existing minor football league of the same name.
By the spring of 1940, the former American Professional Football Association announced intentions of turning itself into a major league with the addition of a Milwaukee team for the upcoming season over the protests of the Green Bay Packers. As the teams prepared for the upcoming season, the announcement of a rival major league resulted in the fracturing of this edition of the American Football League.
On July 14, 1940, a press conference introduced a new American Football League, not a continuation of the former minor league, but a new one with franchises in New York, Boston, and Buffalo. Bill Edwards (former president of the first AFL) was slated to be both the president of the new league and co-owner of the New York Yankees franchise, and Joseph Carr Jr. (son of former NFL president Joe Carr) was touted as a potential backer of the Columbus franchise.
The group of businessmen based on the American East Coast behind the formation of the new league had resorted to a trick done by the first two AFLs: they raided the established minor league by enticing APFA members Cincinnati, Columbus, and the new Milwaukee team to join their circuit. The move fractured the APFA as two of its members decided not to field teams for 1940, one (the Los Angeles Bulldogs) had already left the league, and there were only three left with only two months to go before the start of the new season. As the Kenosha Cardinals and St. Louis Gunners applied to join the new league (and were subsequently denied), the APFA went out of business.
After a 30 hour long meeting of the owners (and other representatives) of the six invited teams in Buffalo's Hotel Lafayette, the bylaws and officials of the new league were determined. Each team was scheduled to play a double round robin schedule (five home games, five away games), with games on either Sunday or Wednesday to reduce the likelihood of conflicts with baseball teams sharing the stadium in five of the six AFL cities (all except Buffalo). The agreement was signed by the team owners, Oct. 5, 1940.
While Bill Edwards did not take over the league as previously announced (that job eventually went to former Ohio State University publicity director William D. Griffith), the 1940 season began with six teams owned by people who were, for the most part, in better financial standing than their NFL counterparts (in the NFL, many of the owners had their franchise as their primary investment and source of income; in the AFL of 1940, most of the owners had most of their money invested in other fields, such as the local newspaper).
Read more about this topic: American Football League (1940)
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