Midwest Football League (1935–1940)
| Midwest Football League | |
|---|---|
| Sport | American Professional Football |
| Founded | 1935 |
| First Season | 1938 |
| Last Season | 1939 |
| Claim to Fame | precursor to 3rd competitor of National Football League |
| CEO | George Heitzler, president |
| No. of teams | unknown (1935), 7 (1936), 6 (1937–1938), 8 (1939) |
| Last champions | Columbus Bullies |
| Disbanded | 1940 |
The Midwest Football League (MFL) was a minor professional American football league that existed from 1935 to 1940. Originally comprising teams from Ohio, Kentucky, Indiana, and Illinois, the league eventually expanded its reach to include teams from Missouri, Tennessee, Wisconsin, and California to become a national league with major league aspirations by 1939. In 1938, the league became the American Football League after the collapse of the second major league of the same name, but changed its name once again the following year to American Professional Football Association (APFA). Some sources refer to it as the American Professional Football League.
Originally without major league aspirations, the APFA changed its ambition along with its name in 1939 when it admitted the Cincinnati Bengals and Los Angeles Bulldogs, two teams that survived the 1937 AFL collapse and spent the 1938 season as independent teams. Another independent Ohio team, the Columbus Bullies, also joined the loop for 1939.
After the end of the 1939 season, the league was preparing to become a new major league (with Milwaukee replacing Los Angeles in the lineup) when eastern businessmen lured Cincinnati, Columbus, and Milwaukee to join teams based in Boston, Buffalo, and New York to form a new American Football League. The resulting split doomed the APFA as two members folded and two others were turned away from membership in the new league).
The Midwest Football League was formed in 1935 with George Heitzler as president and James C. Hogan as secretary-treasurer. Like the National Football League in its first year, it was a loose assemblage of teams from the American Midwest, with teams representing Cincinnati, Dayton, Indianapolis, Louisville, Columbus, Ohio, and Springfield, Illinois. The league did not maintain standings for its first year and declared the Cincinnati Models, Indianapolis Indians and Louisville Tanks tri-champions.
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