1954 - Update on the World Around Hybrid Gridiron Football

1954 - Update on the World Around Hybrid Gridiron Football

Since the NAAF formed in 1949 and began to use the new set of mixed rules from American and Canadian football, the world has changed quite a bit. Many leagues post-WW2 were region-based much like before the war. New England, New York, Pennsylvania, a mix of Mid-Atlantic States, and plenty of regions across the States, all had their leagues. Unfortunately, because of the war, many were struggling and down to 3-6 teams each. The NEFC merged into the NAAF and created a new way to play. The new style of football has taken over the cities that are a part of the NAAF. Boston and Buffalo have already become heavy centres for the sport with many people using the hybrid rules over the traditional American ones. Even the colleges in those cities have started to transition to the new rules to develop talent for the NAAF.  

Montreal and Ottawa have also followed behind in this as Canadian football has taken a hit in both of those cities. Surprisingly, the Quebec Ametuer league (formerly professional) that the Rouge used to play in has changed to the new rules. Ontario in general still is a strong centre for Canadian football and the OFU owns the area, which explains a lot of the Tigers’ struggles.  With the deals that the NAAF got with CBC and CBS has truly made the league stick out as many American football fans don’t have football to watch during the summer with the seasons starting in October. Because of the later start the fans who are football hungry were more likely to watch the CBS broadcasts and it has already caused some waves in other places in the states.   

The newfound popularity that the NAAF has found in the USA and Eastern Canada, has already started to affect the rest of the football world. The biggest changes have happened within the Atlantic coast leagues. With the formation of the larger NAAF, many leagues have seen its success and have started merging to create bigger leagues. In 1951, the Pennsylvania Football Association was struggling, and was losing some big players or young talent (QB Angelo Medina most notably). The league tried to recover and merged with the Mid-Atlantic Football League to form the now Atlantic Coast Football League, the ACFL has been more successful than the Pennsylvania league on its own. Another league that has taken a shot is the New York Football League. And as of this past season the league is joining the ACFL and will also be dropping several of their teams and went to just 4 teams this past season dropping Rochester, Syracuse, and Long Island teams. The remaining teams played out the 1953 season but only Brooklyn, Newark, and New York teams will join the league. The ACFL now consists of 8 teams making it now level with the NAAF for the largest professional football league in North America. The league contains teams from Baltimore, Brooklyn, Newark, New York, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Richmond, and Washington DC. There are also many leagues in the midwest that are considering merging, but the ACFL is currently the primary competition that the NAAF faces. 

​If there are any more specific questions about what I’ve explained here, feel free to ask.
And if you are wondering about the rules of the NAAF, they are in the original post of the thread so just go there to check it out. This is just a small snippet of the world, and the leagues will come up when they are important to the story and if any major changes occur.