1920: The National Football League is organized at a meeting in Canton, Ohio. The league, known as the American Professional Football Association, charges a team membership fee of $100 per team (though no team was actually required to pay the fee) and fields a handful of teams that first season. Several of the teams disbanded at the end of the inaugural campaign, but by 1921 the membership increased to 22 clubs. In 1922, the APFA officially changed its name to the National Football League.
1930: The NFL welcomes the Portsmouth (Ohio) 
Spartans to the league.
FOLLOW-THROUGH: Four seasons later, Detroit radio executive George A. Richards purchased the team for $7,952.08 and moved it to Detroit, where he renamed it the Lions.
1961: The Minnesota Vikings play their first game, a 37-13 victory over the Chicago Bears.
1973: ABC obtains TV rights for the 1976 Winter Olympics, held in Innsbruck, Austria. The network pays $10 million in rights fees, up from the $6.4 million that NBC paid for the 1972 Winter Games.
1995: Florida Panthers owner Wayne Huizenga
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| Huizenga kept a Panthers stake. |
files plans with the SEC for permission to sell 49 percent of the team by allowing shares to be traded publicly.
FOLLOW-THROUGH: The Panthers were sold to an investment group that included retired Buffalo-area auto dealer Al Maroone and his son, Michael, in 2001. The $101 million deal included $83.5 million in cash, a $7.5 million secured promissory note and the assumption of some debt. Huizenga continues to hold a minority investment in the team.
1995: Foamation Inc., the company that created and manufactures the cheesehead hat worn by Green Bay Packers fans, files a lawsuit in U.S. District Court against Menomonee Falls, Wis.-based Scofield Souvenirs for distributing counterfeit hats.
FOLLOW-THROUGH: U.S. Magistrate Judge William E. Callahan Jr. ruled against Foamation, saying it didn’t obtain a proper copyright. Today, Scofield and Foamation both make the cheesehead hats.
1995: Astros owner Drayton McLane signs an agreement with Harris County Judge Robert Eckels, Houston Mayor Bob Lanier and Enron Corp. President Richard Kinder to build a $265 million, 42,000-seat, retractable-roof, domed stadium on the east side of downtown Houston.
FOLLOW-THROUGH: In 2000, Enron Field opened. The ballpark was renamed Minute Maid Park in 2002.
1997: Major League Baseball agrees to a five-year, $40 million deal with ESPN Radio, ending a 21-year partnership with CBS Radio.
1998: Lakers executive vice president Jerry West joins Michael Ovitz’s group that’s trying to bring an NFL team to Los Angeles.
FOLLOW-THROUGH: The NFL continues to search for ways to deliver a team to the L.A. market, with the league expected to reach a decision by May 2005 regarding a stadium that would house an L.A. team.
1999: MLB owners approve plans to centralize league operations in the commissioner’s office. With the move, National League President Len Coleman announces his intention to resign.
1999: The International Olympic Committee decides to sell Web ads for the first time on its Sydney 2000 site.
