Tweet   This episode we fire up the DeLorean and head back to explore the life and career of Ralph Hay, The Founder of the NFL.  He was an owner of an auto dealership and the Canton Bulldogs, a professional football team.  Professional football in the Ohio region was at the brink of extinction, so Mr. Hay gathered together representatives from 11 different teams on September 17, 1920 to discuss the formation of a new league.  The meeting would result in formation of the American Professional Football Association, which would later become the NFL.  So strap on your seat belt, and let’s get ready to take this baby up to 88mph.
 
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Read Full Transcript In the year 1920, professional football was at a crossroads. The league could have easily fallen into the depths of obscurity, or it could rise to a level of greatness. An automobile showroom in Canton, OH would serve as the backdrop for this pivotal moment, and buckets of beer all over the showroom would serve as the liquid refreshment that would help decide the fate of the NFL.
THE FOUNDER OF THE NFL'S BACKGROUND
When we step off our time machine in this episode, we end up in Canton, OH. Yes, this is the home of the Pro Football Hall of Fame, but it wasn’t around at the year of our landing. The day is January 12, 1891. We’re here to look at our hero of the episode, Ralph E. Hay. We landed on the day he was born, and we’re in the city he lived in and ended up founding what would ultimately be known as the National Football League. Ralph would end up working at a car dealership after graduating high school. Soon he found he had a knack for selling cars, which probably can at least partially explain why he was able to sell the rest of the teams in the area to form a new league. After a few years of selling cars, Ralph decided to open his own dealership, called Ralph E. Hay Motor Company. His dealership would sell Hupmobiles (affiliate link) , Jordans, and Pierce-Arrows (affiliate link). Hupmobiles seemed to me more like the working-man class vehicles. They were a little more affordable and not so flashy compared to the rest. A Pierce-Arrow was the luxurious car that exuded classiness. Many famous people of the time were known to have Pierce-Arrows in their collection. Some of the names more recognizable to me included John D. Rockefeller, Orville Wright, J. Edgar Hoover, and Babe Ruth. Another cool note about the Pierce-Arrow car is 1909 President Howard Taft requested the vehicles become the official car of the White House. To me, the more interesting vehicle sold at the Ralph E. Hay Motor Company was the Jordan’s. The company was said to be the first to give more exotic names to the cars. A few examples include Sports Marine, Tomboy, and Playboy. The Playboy had an ad that many marketers claim was the turning point in the automotive industry advertising game. It was a picture of a cool looking dude riding in a Jordan Playboy, with a cowboy on a horse chasing him. What was more intriguing was the ad copy that was posted with the picture. This was meant to get the blood pumping for guys that would read the ad to make them want to immediately go to the dealership to purchase one. The ad went as such:
“Somewhere west of Laramie there’s a bronco-busting, steer-roping girl who knows what I’m talking about. She can tell what a sassy pony, that’s a cross between greased lightning and the place where it hits, can do with eleven hundred pounds of steel and action when he’s going high, wide and handsome. The truth is – the Jordan Playboy was meant for her.â€
Hay would ultimately build his dealership to the larges