Background
Winter meeting
The annual winter meeting of National Football League owners was held on the weekend of January 24–25 at the Statler Hotel in Cleveland. [1] Representatives of 18 NFL teams were in attendance. [1] The owners re-elected an executive committee consisting of league president Joe F. Carr, vice president John Dunn, and secretary-treasurer Carl Storck and approved a starting date of September 20 and hard termination date of December 20 for the 1925 season. [2]
On the second day of the meeting, the owners formally awarded the 1924 pennant to the Cleveland Bulldogs, bringing an end to a protracted debate over the NFL championship for that year. [3] The arrangement of any "post-season" game between top teams of the league to determine a champion for the forthcoming 1925 season was expressly forbidden by President Carr. [3]
Applications for new franchises were received from Detroit, Cincinnati, Providence, Rhode Island, and Pottsville, Pennsylvania — with Detroit, Providence, and Pottsville eventually fielding teams for the 1925 season. [3] President Carr also used the league meeting as an opportunity to network among owners, expressing his considered opinion that the large crowds drawn by league teams in Chicago, Philadelphia, and Cleveland illuminated a path forward for the struggling league — teams located in major urban centers, with new franchises for New York City and Detroit made the top priority. [3]
League president Carr took it upon himself to recruit an owner for a New York City franchise. In fairly short order, New York friends connected the top NFL official with a sports promotor with an eye for future profit, a 37-year old professional bookmaker named Tim Mara. [4] Mara had begun in the gambling industry — legal in New York State at the time — in his teenage years, first working as a "runner" for established bookies, collecting lost bets and delivering payouts before becoming a successful bookmaker in his own right. [5]
When first introduced to Carr, Mara asked about the league fee for a franchise. Told the fee was $2,500, including what was essentially a performance bond, Mara immediately accepted, declaring: "A New York franchise in anything should be worth $2,500, including one for shining shoes. I'll take it." [6] Mara wrote a check to Carr, the two shook hands, and the deal was done — the New York Football Giants were born. [7]
Summer scheduling meeting
There were twenty teams in the National Football League in 1925, an increase of two from the previous season. [8] Three teams had their final year in 1924 — the Kenosha Maroons, Racine Legion, and Minneapolis Marines — and were replaced by the Providence Steam Roller, Pottsville Maroons, and President Carr's pet projects in Detroit and New York City, as well as a return to action by a reorganized Canton Bulldogs team. [8]
The teams competed in a single group without divisions. Games were on an ad hoc basis, with teams booking their own dates and opponents. The lack of centralized official scheduling caused controversy at the end of the season when Cardinals owner Chris O'Brien hastily added two games against weak teams to edge out the expansion Pottsville Maroons for best record in the league and the championship pennant.
Scheduling was largely conducted around the league's summer meeting, held in Chicago the weekend of August 1–2. [9]
Attendance
Even the teams from major urban centers faced spotty attendance, frequently driven by the weather — this in an era before mass media. In Chicago, a city in which 50,000 fans regularly turned out to Stagg Field to watch the University of Chicago football team on a Saturday, the Chicago Bears still struggled to get 10,000 fans on Sundays. [10] The Bears struggled to break even; [10] for other teams from locations with smaller fanbases and fewer tickets to sell, the economic situation was worse.
Season highlights
The 1925 season was dominated by the decision of University of Illinois superstar halfback Red Grange to enter the league in November as a member of the Chicago Bears. Making his professional debut on Thanksgiving Day against the rival Chicago Cardinals, a standing room only crowd of 36,000 saw the legendary "Galloping Ghost" stymied in a scoreless tie. [8] Three days later the Bears won against the Columbus Tigers 14–13 in the Chicago snow. [8]
A tour to cash in on Grange's popularity followed, beginning with a game against a pick-up team in St. Louis in which Grange ran for 175 yards and 4 touchdowns, stoking the media flame. [8] The Bears played 8 games in 12 days during the tour, and had a crowd of 73,000 at New York's Polo Grounds — a record attendance for a professional football game and an unexpected financial windfall that helped save the expansion New York Giants from catastrophe in their maiden season. [8] Minor injuries forced Grange to sit out of a hastily scheduled rematch with the expansion Detroit Panthers [8] — a decision which lead to massive lines for ticket refunds, eliminating a profit that might have been enough to save the Panthers organization. [11]
1925 NFL Championship controversy
Controversy surrounds the 1925 NFL Championship. The Chicago Cardinals are listed as the 1925 NFL champions because they finished with the best record; however, many Pottsville fans at the time claimed that the Maroons were the legitimate champions. The Maroons and the Cardinals were the top contenders for the title, and Pottsville won a late-season meeting between them, 21–7. But the Maroons scheduled a game against a team of University of Notre Dame All-Stars in Philadelphia (which they won 9–7) on the same day that the Frankford Yellow Jackets were scheduled to play a game in the same city. Frankford protested, saying that the Maroons game violated their protected territory rights.
Although NFL president Joe Carr warned the Maroons in writing that they faced suspension if they played in Philadelphia on the same day as Frankford's game, the Maroons claimed that Carr had previously approved their game during a telephone call, and they played anyway. In response, Carr fined the club, suspended it from all league rights and privileges (including the right to play for the NFL championship), and returned its franchise to the league.
In 2003, the NFL decided to permit a reexamination of the 1925 championship. In October of that year, the NFL voted 30–2 not to reopen the case, with only Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, the league's two Pennsylvania-based teams, voting in favor. Thus, the Cardinals are listed as the 1925 NFL champions. [12]
Had the current (post-1972) system of counting ties as half a win and half a loss been in place in 1925, the Maroons would have won the championship with a win percentage of .833, and the Cardinals would have finished runner-up at .821.
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