the american continental gridiron league

The American Continental Gridiron League was a grand experiment in North American sport. Every single state in the union would get a team, and their championship would be better than 10 Super Bowls: crowning the best of the best of the whole country.

It was a glorious dream.
And it wasn’t long before it became an exquisite nightmare.
Click on a state on the map, and you’ll learn how things got out of hand...

More detailed history of the ACGL is discuss in the section below the map. Here are the quick facts to clarify key information.

• The league used standard American Football rules, with no special additions
• Country was divided into regional divisions, with teams pitted against others in their region,
  and playing 4 games against the other divisions in the season
• Major game was the Columbia Cup Championship, held in Washington D.C.
  each year at the Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Stadium


• The Winners of the Columbia Cup Championship:
• 1986: Massachusetts Whalers (versus California Imperials)
• 1987: New Mexico Bombers (verus Florida Foxes)
• 1988: Tennessee Notes (versus California Imperials)

This map highlights the five divisions and their names. These colors were also used on uniform collars as a signifier.

Conceived in 1984 by businessmen Jamie Lopez de Santiago IV (New Mexico Bombers), Lester Lipschitz (New York Tigers), and Casey Buchanann (Oklahoma Pronghorns), the league was chartered with fanfare in 1985, when the USFL was on the decline; though it would not be for another year when teams actually took to the field. This was mainly due to persuading other businessmen to invest in the league, and buy a team, as well as securing stadiums, television contracts, and licensing.

A reproduction of the Columbia Cup award. The orginals have been lost forever.

As mentioned above, the novel idea behind the league was that all 50 states would be given their own team. The country was split into five divisions, and had ten teams. While teams generally played against other teams in their division, they would go against one team from the other divisions, chosen by lots. The big prize for the season was the Columbia Cup, and the playoffs to participate in the Columbia Cup Championship were fierce, structured so no two teams from the same division could play against each other.

The ACGL used standard American football rules, the same used by the National Football League. In fact, the league was dangerously similar to the NFL. However, unlike their far superior competitor, the ACGL started their season a week after the Super Bowl, and ended in late June, aping the model used by defunct the USFL, which died the year before the ACGL started up.

The ACGL wasn’t very popular; in spite its egalitarianism ideals, the league as a whole had a difficult time maintaining media coverage, corporate sponsorship, and most importantly, an interested and eager viewing public, and as a result, hemorrhaged money like an open sore, eventually losing everything shortly after the third and final Columbia Cup was awarded to the Tennessee Notes in 1988. Many people were ruined financially, and the American public quickly forgot the ACGL. Even today, there are hardly any records to remind people of its existence.

But for those who still remember, it was beautiful, and it could've been so much more, and it will remain in our hearts.