Foolish Club

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). The Hunt and Adams families continue to own their teams. After Lamar Hunt died in 2006, the Chiefs' ownership structure allowed each offspring to equally split the team. The official owner of record has been son Clark. After Bud Adams died in 2013, the Titans' ownership structure was split between his daughters Susie Smith and Amy Strunk, with an equal share by Susan Adams, the window of their brother Kenneth S. Adams III, who died in 1987, whose stake is split equally with their two sons Kenneth S. Adams IV and Barclay Adams, with Smith the owner of record. After Smith's sale of her stake, since , Amy Strunk became the owner of record, splitting the ownership equally with Susan Lewis and her sons. ==Members==