By the mid-1960s, competition between the two leagues had settled into an increasingly acrimonious stalemate. Rather than continuing to compete with one another, executives from the two leagues instead resolved to join forces. In 1966, the two leagues announced that they had reached an agreement to merge into a single league under the name of the National Football League.
The problem was, this merger was a blatant violation of the Sherman Antitrust line data Act, under which the resulting league would be considered an illegal monopoly. In years prior, the federal government had sought to enforce antitrust laws on the National Football League, even filing suit against the league for violating the Sherman Antitrust Act[9] in 1953. But the mood in Washington was different in 1966, and Congress was more amenable to making exceptions for the NFL. Five years earlier, Congress had passed the Sports Broadcasting Act,[10] which carved out extensive exemptions from the Sherman Antitrust Act to enable the NFL to sign league-wide exclusive contracts with broadcast networks, thus overturning a prior decision from a U.S. District Court that found the NFL in violation of antitrust laws.