I was thinking about this last night as to what year specifically the NFL got really big popularity wise. I'm just basing his off as to when I started watching sports in the 1990-1991 school year when I was 11 years old. I say from 1990-1998 the NBA was the number 1 sport with Michael Jordan, Hakeem, Karl Malone, Shawn Kemp, David Robinson, and Patrick Ewing. Than the NBA strike happened for the 1998-1999 and that season started in early 1999 with 50 regular season games.  You had the Lakers with Kobe, and Shaq 3 peating from 2000-2002, Allen Iverson, Tim Duncan, Kevin Garnett, and Chris Webber who was playing with Sacramento and their in-state rivalry with The Lakers at the time. The 2002 Western Conference Finals were exciting with Lakers vs Kings! That mini-era(1999-2004) ended however once the Lakers lost to the Pistons in a huge upset in the 2004 NBA Finals. However I think the slight popularity dip in between the 1997-1998 and 1998-1999 seasons allowed the NFL to overtake the NBA very slightly in popularity. I think in 2005-2006 the NFL blew up in popularity with Tom Brady  Peyton Manning, an even Ben Rothlisberger.  NBA players like Chris Webber and Shaq were traded to other teams(76ers and Heat) respectively. Allen Iverson was traded to the Nuggets early to midway in the 2006-2007 season and Iverson rally wasn't that popular as he was earlier in the decade to begin with when he took the Sixers to the Finals in 2001 vs the Lakers. It took the NBA a decade to regain even its early 2000's popularity with the Lebron and Steph rivalry.

I think the NFL blew up in popularity when the first Super Bowl happened. It was really big compared to the World Series, since it was obviously America's pastime. So, I think around the late 1960s/early 1970s was when the NFL was going nuts over its teams, metaphorically.

I had to ask some of my relatives and all of them said 1971. I have to agree.

I had to ask some of my relatives and all of them said 1971. I have to agree.


The early 70s were really good for the NFL, so I could see why.

The early 70s were really good for the NFL, so I could see why.
Yep.

Pro football had been growing since the 1920s after Chicago and Green Bay got their first teams and fans started to approve, but the development was sort of slow but study for the next few decades.. I'd say once all those New York baseball teams dominated in the 1950s with their pennants, this left the door with fans understanding that watching September baseball was pretty useless, so many turned to football as a result, and although there were multiple leagues around for awhile, by the time it was strictly AFL and NFL by the early 1960s, the rise of television to accommodate those who couldn't see the game and the beginning of national advertising endorsements meant that the game as we knew hit had arrived, but I agree that the birth of the Super Bowl Era in 1966-67 was the cornerstone to its renewed popularity. You also had early superstars like Bart Starr, Johnny Unitas, and Sonny Jurgensen.