• Source: Foolish Club

The Foolish Club were the owners of the eight original franchises of the American Football League (AFL). When Texas oil magnates Lamar Hunt and Bud Adams Jr. were refused entry to the established National Football League (NFL) in 1959, they founded franchises in Dallas and Houston, and recruited businessmen in six other U.S. markets to form an eight-team rival circuit, calling it the American Football League.
Hunt owned the Dallas Texans (now the Kansas City Chiefs), while the Houston Oilers (now the Tennessee Titans) were Adams' franchise. The other members of the "Original Eight" included Harry Wismer (Titans of New York, now the New York Jets), Bob Howsam (Denver Broncos), Barron Hilton (Los Angeles Chargers), Ralph C. Wilson Jr. (Buffalo Bills), and Billy Sullivan (Boston Patriots, now the New England Patriots). Though Max Winter had originally committed to fielding a Minneapolis AFL team, he reneged when lured away by the NFL; Winter's group instead joined the older circuit as the Minnesota Vikings in 1961. The Minneapolis AFL franchise only went as far as participating in the 1960 American Football League Draft and never fielded a team. It was replaced when a group of eight investors, led primarily by F. Wayne Valley and, briefly, Chet Soda, formed the Oakland Raiders, now the Las Vegas Raiders.
They called themselves the "Foolish Club" because of their seemingly foolhardy venture in taking on the entrenched NFL.




Innovative start-up league



The AFL quickly became a viable competitor to the established league, in its first year signing half of the NFL's first-round draft choices, and introducing the first professional football gate and TV revenue-sharing plans, which made it financially stable. It went on to develop its own stars, and added expansion franchises in the Miami Dolphins (1966) and Cincinnati Bengals (1968).
After forcing a merger with the NFL in 1966, the now ten-team AFL entered the NFL intact in 1970. It became the only major U.S. sports league ever to merge with another without losing any franchises. The merger was the raison d'être for the first "Professional Football World Championship Games" (later called the Super Bowl), and after losing the first two games of that series to the Green Bay Packers of the elder league, the AFL closed out its ten-year existence with victories over the NFL's best teams after the 1968 (with the Jets upsetting the then-Baltimore Colts) and 1969 (the Chiefs defeating the Vikings) seasons.




50th anniversary remembrance (2009)


In the first exhibition game of the 2009 NFL season, the Pro Football Hall of Fame Game on August 9, both the Bills and Titans faced off, with both teams wearing their 1960s throwback uniforms as the Titans wearing the colors of the Houston Oilers. This contest kicked off what would have been the AFL's 50th season, featuring "AFL Legacy Weekends", in which teams of the "Original Eight" played one another wearing AFL period uniforms, game officials wore AFL "Chinese Red" striped uniforms and fields were designed in the innovative style used during the 1960s. The first regular season games served as the Monday Night Football season opener on September 14 as the Bills visited the now-New England Patriots and the current San Diego Chargers visited the Oakland Raiders.




Personal legacies


The last surviving member of the Foolish Club, Barron Hilton, died in 2019; he had sold off the Chargers in 1966 to appease the board of directors of Hilton Hotels. With the AFL struggling in its early years, Howsam sold the Broncos after the first season, while Wismer sold the New York club in 1963. The Valley group eventually sold their shares of the Raiders in the 1970s after Al Davis took control over the club's team operations. After infamously bankrolling The Jackson Five's 1984 Victory Tour, financial difficulties forced Sullivan to sell his ownership stake in the Patriots in 1988 while Foxboro Stadium lapsed into bankruptcy; Sullivan remained team president until 1992 while Robert Kraft purchased the stadium out of bankruptcy to eventually use as leverage to buy the team in 1994. Ralph Wilson died in 2014 as Bills owner, but the estate instead auctioned off the Bills to the highest bidder when he died (his two surviving daughters were not directly involved in the team's operations during his lifetime).
Heirs of two Foolish Club members continue to own their teams. The Hunt family continues to own the Chiefs, with offspring equally splitting the team, with son Clark the owner of record since Lamar's death in 2006. The Adams family continues to own the Titans, although the offspring initially changed from his two surviving daughters and the widow of his son in 2013 (daughter Susie Smith the owner of record until 2016, selling her stake in 2020), and since 2016 officially from the other surviving daughter Amy Strunk, along with Susan Lewis, the widow of their brother, Kenneth S. Adams III, who died in 1987. Lewis' stake is evenly spit with her sons (the grandson of Bud Adams) Kenneth S. Adams IV and Barclay Adams. Since 2021, the structure is Strunk as the owner of record and owns 50% of the club, with 16.66% each by Lewis and the Adams brothers.




Members






See also


Other American Football League officials, coaches and players
Current National Football League team owners




External links


Schedule of American Football League Legacy Games
ESPN.com article on AFL Legacy Games
USA TODAY series on the American Football League

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