Editing All-America Football Conference (section)

===1946===
{{Main|1946 AAFC season}}

In the AAFC's first game, on September 6, 1946, the Cleveland Browns hosted the Miami Seahawks, winning 44–0 before a professional football record crowd of more than 60,000 fans. This historic game would prove a microcosm of much about the league:
* Largely thanks to Paul Brown's innovations in organization and coaching,<ref name="MacCambridge36">MacCambridge, pg. 36</ref> the Browns were on their way to setting a new standard of pro football excellence.
* The other teams would have significant problems, but the Seahawks would become the AAFC's biggest fiasco. Along with two of their home games being postponed by hurricanes, they attracted poor home crowds en route to finishing last with a 3–11 record. These factors resulted in the Seahawks losing $350,000 for the year, and the AAFC shutting down the franchise after the season.
* The crowd was the first of many large gates that the AAFC's most popular teams (Cleveland, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and New York) would attract, surpassing the NFL.
* The score, however, was the first sign of the AAFC's greatest problem. The league would have a wide gap between its best and worst teams, and its standings would be remarkably consistent from year to year.
* Finally, this game marked the end of pro football's [[racial segregation|color line]]. The Browns' [[Marion Motley]] and [[Bill Willis]], both future Hall of Famers, became the first black players to play pro football since 1933 (the NFL Rams, who had also signed two black players, UCLA great [[Kenny Washington (American football)|Kenny Washington]] and future actor [[Woody Strode]], opened several weeks later). Notably, this was ''before'' [[Jackie Robinson]]'s debut with the [[Brooklyn Dodgers]], as Robinson was then playing for the [[Montreal Royals]], the Dodgers' top farm team. In coming years, the AAFC would tap this talent pool more than the NFL, with 20 black players compared with the NFL's seven in 1949.<ref name="Show131">Piascik, pg. 131</ref>

Other than New York, all of the quality teams were in the Western Division. In the West, Cleveland led with a 12–2 record, three games ahead of San Francisco, followed by Los Angeles and Chicago. In the East, New York was the only team to win more than three games, finishing 10–3–1. Brooklyn and Buffalo were seven games behind, followed by Miami. Despite Brooklyn's record, its tailback [[Glenn Dobbs]] led the league in passing and was named the MVP.

The title game was a tight affair, with the Browns coming from behind late in the fourth quarter to defeat the Yankees 14–9.

Despite the fiasco in Miami, the AAFC had enjoyed a successful debut, establishing a high level of play and doing well at the gate. The NFL likewise set attendance highs for both its season and title game. However, as salaries shot up with two leagues competing for players, the only teams to make a profit were the two champions, the Browns and the NFL Bears.<ref name="MacCambridge50"/>