This article is written in American English, which has its own spelling conventions (color, defense, traveled) and some terms that are used in it may be different or absent from other varieties of English. According to the relevant style guide, this should not be changed without broad consensus.
Various sections in this article may refer to either a team's total National Football League championships, or their total Super Bowl championships. Please remember that these values are different because the NFL's first season was held in 1920, several decades before Super Bowl I was played at the end of the 1966 regular season. Thank you.
This article is within the scope of WikiProject National Football League, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of the NFL on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.National Football LeagueWikipedia:WikiProject National Football LeagueTemplate:WikiProject National Football LeagueNational Football League articles
This article is within the scope of WikiProject American Football League, a project which is currently considered to be inactive.American Football LeagueWikipedia:WikiProject American Football LeagueTemplate:WikiProject American Football LeagueAmerican Football League articles
This article is within the scope of WikiProject American football, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of American football on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.American footballWikipedia:WikiProject American footballTemplate:WikiProject American footballAmerican football articles
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Sports, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of sport-related topics on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.SportsWikipedia:WikiProject SportsTemplate:WikiProject Sportssports articles
Assess : newly added and existing articles, maybe nominate some good B-class articles for GA; independently assess some as A-class, regardless of GA status.
Cleanup : * Sport governing body (this should-be-major article is in a shameful state) * Field hockey (History section needs sources and accurate information - very vague at the moment.) * Standardize Category:American college sports infobox templates to use same font size and spacing. * Sport in the United Kingdom - the Popularity section is incorrect and unsourced. Reliable data is required.
* Fix project template and/or "to do list" Current version causes tables of content to be hidden unless/until reader chooses "show."
This article is within the scope of WikiProject United States, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of topics relating to the United States of America on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the ongoing discussions.
On 3 March 2024, it was proposed that this article be moved to NFL. The result of the discussion was All articles except main article and timeline article moved..
I agree with this and have made the change, although another person then reverted it on the theory that the NFL uses "clubs." As anyone who edits Wikipedia knows, the league's usage is not controlling—the rule is to use the terminology most seen in common usage. I don’t see how anyone can seriously dispute that in American English the normal term is "teams," except perhaps among some soccer fans who persist in using other odd terminology like "kit" when they mean "uniform" and "match" when they mean "game." 1995hoo (talk) 01:02, 15 May 2024 (UTC)Reply
This has been "Club" for over a decade now, as a good article. The proper term is "Club". The league always uses this term when referring to the organizations. We need to be accurate when referring to things - it's not a matter of WP:COMMONNAME, it's a matter of basic accuracy. "Club", "franchise", "team" - all of these have meanings. Using them incorrectly can confuse, but more importantly, it's simply not accurate. "Club" is the organization itself, "franchise" is the slot in the league, and "team" is the actual team out on the field; see, for example, the Carolina Panthers website, where "Team" links to the roster listing. See, as an example, this recent NFLPA report, which uses "club" to refer to the organization and "team" to refer to the team on the field. Team and club are not the same thing. That being said - the article, as it is right now, is inconsistent in usage, and this should be corrected. ToaNidhiki0501:54, 15 May 2024 (UTC)Reply
It’s 10:00 at night, so I’m not going to think about it further tonight. But I believe your analysis, while "technically" accurate as a matter of word definitions, is unnecessarily hypertechnical because there is no doubt that the commonly used, and widely understood, term is "teams." No reader will be remotely confused by the use of "teams," which is also consistent with the usage in all the other North American major leagues' articles (even MLS, where I’d expect people to be militant about using British terminology). I sincerely doubt this word is even remotely relevant to good article status. 1995hoo (talk) 02:06, 15 May 2024 (UTC)Reply
It's not British terminology. It's the terminology the league uses, and has always used. There are exceptions - we don't call the "extra point" the "try", for example - but it's not like "club" is unknown. ToaNidhiki0502:16, 15 May 2024 (UTC)Reply
The NBA, NHL, MLB, and MLS pages all have a section titled Teams, not Clubs. So, using the definition that teams only refers to the actual players on the field, then shouldn't the other pages be updated too? After all, why should the NFL page be unique in this sense? Alielmi1207 (talk) 17:16, 6 July 2024 (UTC)Reply
I agree with using "teams" as the common term. Overly technical pedantry is irrelevant in what word to use in the header, as it'll both are completely accurate. That is to say, even if we conceded a distinction between the organization and the playing squad, the material in the chart is applicable to both. Consistency with other major North American sports leagues should be maintained (yes, even the CFL uses "teams"). The fact that this gets changed periodically and is changed back by one editor tells me that there's some WP:OWN going on here. oknazevad (talk) 17:43, 6 July 2024 (UTC)Reply
It's not an accurate term. A handful of Wikipedia editors who genuinely do not know what they are talking about doesn't make a commonname. ToaNidhiki0522:48, 6 July 2024 (UTC)Reply
That is not an appropriate reply to charges of WP:OWN. If you look at the "Statements" section of WP:OWN, you'll see your statement smacks of the sort (that is, the sort—certainly not an exact match) of impermissible comments shown in examples 3 ("I'm an expert on the subject. If you have any suggestions, please put them in the talk page and I will review them.") and 6 ("I can see nothing wrong with the article and there is no need to change anything at all."). Your statement essentially boils down to, "I'm right on this issue and nobody else can change the article because I will revert it." I don't mean the following to sound rude, but your comments raise a question: Who, other than your own ipse dixit, says you know what you are talking about? 1995hoo (talk) 12:09, 6 September 2024 (UTC)Reply
Well, given your argument is "Toa is correct as a matter of fact but I think it should be teams anyway", I think you already have admitted I'm correct here, no? ToaNidhiki0513:30, 6 September 2024 (UTC)Reply
Practically every other sports league page has a section titled "Teams", not "Clubs", among them being the NBA, NHL, MLB, MLS, CFL, and WNBA. So, this page should be consistent with the others to avoid confusion. Alielmi1207 (talk) 06:16, 7 October 2024 (UTC)Reply
It seems that club may be the accurate term for soccer, as there are several teams with FC in their name (C for Club), and perhaps for hockey, as we now have the Utah Hockey Club, but not for football, since the former Redskins were known as the Washington Football Team for a couple years. Alielmi1207 (talk) 16:08, 7 October 2024 (UTC)Reply
@Toa Nidhiki05 If you refer to nfl.com, nba.com, nhl.com, and mlb.com, they all have a listing for "Teams" under their pull-down menu. Only mlssoccer.com refers to it as "Clubs". So, I don't understand how you're concluding that it should be "Clubs" for the NFL. Alielmi1207 (talk) 03:30, 19 October 2024 (UTC)Reply
It looks like we have a single editor displaying WP:OWN tendencies and potentially throwing borderline personal attacks (quote, " A handful of Wikipedia editors who genuinely do not know what they are talking about …"). You should feel free to change the article if you wish. 1995hoo (talk) 13:35, 19 October 2024 (UTC)Reply
How can we be in the wrong when I have pointed out that the league's official website (www.nfl.com) refers to Teams and not Clubs? Would creating an RfC page to get others' opinions as well be sufficient in resolving this issue once and for all? Alielmi1207 (talk) 17:17, 19 October 2024 (UTC)Reply
The member club shall be held in a separate corporation, partnership, or trust (the “Football Company”), the primary purpose of which shall at all times be and remain the operation of a professional football team as a member club of the League, which such primary purpose shall not be changed, and the only material asset of which shall be the member club.
In other words: the league awards franchises to clubs, who field teams. The proper term for the organizations themselves are "clubs". Referring to the organizations themselves as "teams" is not accurate. The league is composed of clubs, not teams. ToaNidhiki0520:10, 19 October 2024 (UTC)Reply
Needlessly pedantic. The league publicly uses "teams" just as readily. Also, that is not unique to the NFL. The MLB and NHL constitutions also officially call their member organizations clubs (the NBA constitution uses "members"), yet those articles all use "teams" because the word is accurate for what the charts contain, as it does here.
Frankly, you being the sole person insisting on "club" repeatedly over the years when everyone else commenting has wanted to change it to "teams" to be consistent with other North American sports leagues has grown into obvious WP:OWN behavior. oknazevad (talk) 01:39, 22 October 2024 (UTC)Reply
The fact that the league constitution uses a word is not controlling either for Wikipedia purposes. The question is what verifiable, reliable sources use to refer to the organizations. That’s why I said once before that as a technical matter your preferred term is not incorrect—but on Wikipedia, the mere fact that something is "not wrong" does not make it the right, correct, or preferred term to use. This isn’t quite the same principle as the WP:COMMONNAME principle for naming an article, but it’s close. (Let me also add: I think the article's text distinguishes between "clubs," "franchises," and "teams" in fairly high detail. Given that distinction, there is no need for the heading to use the soccer-ism.) 1995hoo (talk) 11:45, 22 October 2024 (UTC)Reply
It's not just the league constitution, it's the league itself, which consistently refers to the organizations as "clubs". It's not a "soccer-ism" - it's literally what they're called. I'm genuinely bewildered you seem so internet on replacing correct verbiage with incorrect verbiage. ToaNidhiki0512:48, 23 October 2024 (UTC)Reply
It's not "incorrect verbiage" at all. As I assume you know quite well, Wikipedia does not necessarily use what a particular organization might deem "official." Wikipedia uses the verifiable most common name for things (thus, for example, Wikipedia consensus is to use "Stanley Cup Finals," rather than the NHL's odd "Stanley Cup Final," because the former is the prevailing term in media reports about that competition). The most common word used to refer to the member organizations of a sports league in North America is "teams," with the exception of by some soccer fans who think they need to use Britishisms for everything and so use weird words like "kit" when they mean to say "uniform," etc. Let me emphasize that I have no quibble with the text of the article referring to the 32 "clubs"—I think the section's text explains it quite well (although this morning I was staring at it thinking the sentence or two about roster size is in the wrong place and should be moved to a location that is not yet apparent to me). My quibble is only with the section heading itself—which, of course, is intended more as an outline-type guidepost to help a reader find material and is more in the nature of a summary. 1995hoo (talk) 13:03, 23 October 2024 (UTC)Reply
I'm not sure why you keep calling this a "soccer-ism" when it, in fact, predates soccer. Maybe you should do some more research on the history of American football. This term has been in use forever in American football. As it stands, all you've effectively done is added incorrect terminology because you personally think "club" sounds like a soccer term. ToaNidhiki0513:18, 23 October 2024 (UTC)Reply
I see no point in responding further. We've both made our positions clear; it's also clear (1) that we both believe the other is wrong and (2) neither of us will change the other's mind. Have a nice rest of the day. 1995hoo (talk) 13:32, 23 October 2024 (UTC)Reply
I saw your edit summary claiming I'm "irrational." Quit it with the personal attacks. You're entitled to hold that opinion, but you are not entitled to express it that way. 1995hoo (talk) 14:48, 23 October 2024 (UTC)Reply
Toa, we understand that "club" is the official term per the NFL (you provided the league's constitution as evidence). We don't need to argue that point any further. In addition, as stated previously "The MLB and NHL constitutions also officially call their member organizations clubs (the NBA constitution uses "members")". I would venture to guess that the MLS constitution also uses the term "club". So, we're not arguing the accuracy of the term, but just trying to be consistent with other North American sports leagues' wiki pages. I'm curious, if you're so adamant that the NFL page state "club", then why are you not advocating the same for the other pages? Alielmi1207 (talk) 14:57, 23 October 2024 (UTC)Reply
It doesn't matter what other pages say. And frankly, I'm not interested in those sports, nor have I researched them. What I am interested in is ensuring this article is accurate. "Franchise" is definitely better than "team", although strictly speaking "franchise" refers only to the league's authorization for a club to have a team in the league. ToaNidhiki0515:18, 23 October 2024 (UTC)Reply
Support: I have no idea when this was changed, but it's absolutely not proper to call NFL franchises "clubs". I'd like to see RS that supports the claim of "clubs" being the proper way to refer to these teams, because there's a gigantic mountain of RS that refers to these as teams or franchises. As it stands now, this article reads like it was written by a soccer fan who doesn't actually follow the NFL. Hey man im josh (talk) 14:54, 23 October 2024 (UTC)Reply
@Alielmi1207: On Wikipedia, RS is shorthand for "reliable sources". I'm asking because when trying to find mentions of "NFL clubs", they're overwhelmingly referred to as teams or franchises. As such, I'm looking to see if reliable sources exist that will outweigh the countless sources that refer to the organizations as teams or franchises. Hey man im josh (talk) 15:15, 23 October 2024 (UTC)Reply
Most colloquial articles will use "team" because they are referring to the team on the field. But that's not accurate to refer to the organization itself. See:
The league constitution (cited above)
The league's record and fact book (figures in charge of clubs are referred to as "club officials"; the word "club" is used over 120 times)
What we're talking about in this section are the organizations. Not the players on the field (team), or the authorization (franchise). I don't see a reason to not use the most accurate terminology. ToaNidhiki0515:28, 23 October 2024 (UTC)Reply
Your own link actually helps to establish my point. The league record book sorts stats by franchise, which is overwhelming the WP:COMMONNAME / common term used to refer to them. Sure, the NFL may use the word club sometimes, but do you have sources aside from them that also do so? I could find thousands of reliable sources that overwhelmingly use team/franchise to refer to the organization. Hey man im josh (talk) 15:33, 23 October 2024 (UTC)Reply
@Toa Nidhiki05: Not even counting news stories, which would demonstrate an overwhelming and unquestionable common usage of team / franchise over "clubs", here's a list of static pages that a number of common sites use:
Record book – All records/section titles in the index are listed "by franchise", as opposed to by club
NFL Operations, – "Team Histories" page under "Learn the game", uses franchises and teams, specifically stating the NFL is made up of 32 franchises
Teams list – Teams is used in the header at NFL.com, and this is also the first result when googling "NFL clubs", yet there is no mention of "club" on this page
Do I need to keep going and compile a list of a thousand RS stories stories that overwhelmingly use team or franchise instead of club to prove that it's the common name and that that's what should be used in the article? Hey man im josh (talk) 16:12, 23 October 2024 (UTC)Reply
Support calling NFL franchises "teams" and not "clubs", which is not used as commonly in North American sports (if at all). Hey man im josh's sources pretty much showed "franchise" and "organization" being way more common than club, so where is the WP:COMMONNAME support coming from? ~ Dissident93(talk)21:57, 23 October 2024 (UTC)Reply
Weak support - The arguments that the term "club" is not used in relation to NFL teams are absolutely wrong. There's even a quote in the article from Roger Goodell where he uses the term "club". However, this term is not in common use in NFL media and certainly not in colloquial parlance. There are some cases where using the term "club" is appropriate, but not to the extent currently employed in the article. "Team" or "franchise" should be the terms most commonly used, but "club" shouldn't be removed altogether as long it's being used appropriately. – PeeJay14:14, 24 October 2024 (UTC)Reply
It seems like the discussion has stalled out now. @Toa Nidhiki05, are you willing to accept that there's a general consensus to use team/franchise in place of club, despite the NFL occasionally referring to the franchises as clubs? I ask just so that we can move forward. Hey man im josh (talk) 23:52, 29 October 2024 (UTC)Reply
@Toa Nidhiki05: It kind of does matter. It's a discussion, one in which we're trying to come to a conclusion on how to edit the article. At the end of the day, you could drag it out based on the status quo and push further, presenting evidence for your point of view. But, based on your lack of response, I sort of thought maybe you were begrudgingly accepting it's viewed as a common name, even if you don't personally agree that's how it should be (been there and felt the same on other stuff as well). I appreciate your contributions and I wanted to be respectful about it instead of trying to steamroll ahead with changes or something. Hey man im josh (talk) 01:23, 30 October 2024 (UTC)Reply
It's clear that editors want to refer to them as something else, it's not like I'm going to edit war and stop it. I'm not going to be happy about it, and I don't think using incorrect terminology on a Good Article is a great idea, but it's clear that editors prefer referring to clubs as franchises or teams. Of the other two terms, franchise is probably more accurate. But given how clearly lopsided the discussion is, you really don't need my approval here. ToaNidhiki0501:36, 30 October 2024 (UTC)Reply
level-4 vital article is rated GA-class on Wikipedia's content assessment scale.
