Foolish Club

The Foolish Club was the self-imposed name taken by the owners of the eight original franchises of the American Football League (AFL). When Texas millionaires Lamar Hunt and Bud Adams, Jr. were refused entry to the established NFL in 1959, they contacted other businessmen to form an eight-team professional football league, and called it the American Football League. Though Max Winter of Minnesota had originally committed to the new league, he reneged when lured away by the NFL; Winter instead joined the NFL in 1961 with the Minnesota Vikings (the Minneapolis AFL franchise only went as far as participating in the 1960 American Football League Draft and never actually fielded a team). Hunt owned the AFL's Dallas Texans (now the Kansas City Chiefs), while the Houston Oilers (now the Tennessee Titans) were Adams' franchise. The other six members of the "Original Eight" were Harry Wismer (the Titans of New York, now the New York Jets), Bob Howsam (Denver Broncos), Barron Hilton (Los Angeles Chargers, now the San Diego Chargers), Ralph Wilson (Buffalo Bills), Billy Sullivan (Boston Patriots, now the New England Patriots), and Chet Soda (in a group of eight) (Oakland Raiders).

The league 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 after forcing a merger with the NFL, became the only league ever to merge with another without losing any franchises. It 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, closed out its ten-year existence with victories over the NFL's best teams after the 1968 (with the Jets upseting the then-Baltimore Colts) and 1969 (the Chiefs defeating the Minnesota Vikings) seasons.

The only surviving members of the group are Adams and Wilson, and their teams (the Bills and the Titans) played in the first exhibition game of the 2009 NFL season, the Pro Football Hall of Fame Game on August 9, 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" will play one another wearing AFL period uniforms, game officials will wear AFL "Chinese Red" striped uniforms and fields will be 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.

Though Hunt died in 2006, his children continue to own the Chiefs franchise that he founded. All five of the other original AFL owners sold off their franchises to other owners in their lifetimes. Hilton is the only one of these five still alive as of 2011.