The Browns, as mentioned in my most recent story, played 16 non-Sunday regular-season games during their first four years of existence from 1946-49 in the All-America Football Confrrence.

That’s a lot — an average of four per season — and it stands out even more considering the fact that it happened almost 80 years ago, when pro football, even remotely close to what we know it to be today, was still in its infancy in all aspects.

So, then, why would the AAFC have scheduled all these games on what we would consider odd days?

It’s for the same reason that the Philadelphia Eagles are opening their regular season on a Friday night, Sept. against possibly the Browns in Brazil, marking the first time that country will have held an NFL game.

That is, just as the NFL is trying to capture the attention of fans on a non-traditional day by being the only game in town, so to speak, the AAFC was doing the same thing way back when as it tried to gain attention in a day and age when the NFL, its much more established rival, was playing only on Sundays. 

If you do something on a day when the sports calendar is crowded, then fewer people will notice. But when you do it when there aren’t many other things going on, in a relative sense, then the chance to have more eyeballs on your game increase meteorically.

It’s really no more complicated than that. Honest.

It’s just another example of what I’ve said all along, that the AAFC, even though it lasted only four seasons, was way ahead of its time in terms of trying to promote its product.

And nothing has changed, because the NFL, which has been light years ahead of other sports in terms of doing innovative things to increase its fan base, is trying to maintain that lead with its foray into Brazil on a Friday night in September when its only real football competition will be of the high school variety.

Steve King