The NFL structure is organized around 32 teams in two conferences. These conferences are further divided into four divisions. The teams play 16 games. After the season is played, 12 teams qualify for postseason play, six from each conference. Playoffs determine which teams, one from each conference, will play for the Vince Lombardi Trophy in the Super Bowl.

National Football Conference

The NFC is made up of 16 teams in four different divisions with four teams in each division. The four divisions are the NFC East,NFC North, NFC South and NFC West.

American Football Conference

The AFC is also made up of 16 teams in four different divisions with four teams in each division. The four divisions are the AFC East, AFC North, AFC South and AFC West.

Regular Season

The teams in each conference play 16 games over 17 weeks. The teams that post the best record in each division become division champions and qualify for the post season. Two other teams qualify for post season spots based on their records.

Post Season

Games are played based on single elimination. The winners advance to the next round. The winners in the post season tournament of the NFC and AFC advance to the Super Bowl.

Super Bowl

The winner of the Super Bowl is crowned the Super Bowl Champion.

Back in the summer of 1997 the Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA) began its first season, featuring dozens of young and talented female hoopsters from around the globe. Since that time the sport has grown into a multifaceted and internationally inspired enterprise. In June of that same year, the New York Liberty traveled west to take on the Los Angeles Sparks; from that point forward, the league not only encountered great success, but also acted as a gateway for the success of women’s professional sports in general.

What originally started out as an eight team league has doubled in size over the last decade. Until 2006 the rules paralleled collegiate guidelines, with two 20 minute halves and a 30-second shot clock. The game is now structured with four 10-minute quarters and 24-second shot clock, which has led to faster-paced and higher scoring games.

Throughout its history, the WNBA has seen some phenomenal players showcase their talents: Sheryl Swoopes, Cynthia Cooper, Tina Thompson, Lisa Leslie, Lauren Jackson, Diana Taurasi, and an even longer list of role players that have provided some memorable thrills over the years.

As the WNBA continues to make history with a new batch of current and rising stars, many records are set to be broken in a sport that has gained worldwide viewership.
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President Theodore Roosevelt initiated reforms among athletic bodies of universities and colleges by inviting college athletics leaders to two famous conferences in the white house. This resulted in Chancellor Henry M. McCracken of New York University to convene a meeting between 13 academic institutions to discuss changes in rules of football practices. It was on the 28th of December, in New York City, 62 colleges and universities signed a charter to form the Intercollegiate Athletic Association of the United States (IAAUS). Later, this body became officially constituted in 1906 and went on to be named the NCAA (National Collegiate Athletic Association).

The initial years, saw this body formulating rules and in 1921 the first NCAA national championship was conducted and was called the National Collegiate Track and Field Championships. The NCAA kept on refining its rules and in 1939 held its first basketball championship. In 1952, the NCAA found a home for itself in Kansas City, Missouri and Walter Byers was named the first executive director. Byer put in a lot of effort into defining the NCAA rules and is seen as a great visionary who established systems for governing championships, rules and finance. Today, the NCAA is governed by an elaborate set of rules based on vision and experiences of its collegiate bodies.

The National Hockey Association, founded in 1909, was suspended in 1917 after a series of disputes for the current National Hockey League. In November 1917, a meeting was held in Montreal Canada to organize the current league. The league started out with just four teams but through a series of contractions, expansions, and relocations the league has grown into its modern formation of thirty teams. A strike in the 2004/2005 hockey season meant that no team played Hockey in the season; however, the players resumed under the current collective bargaining agreement. There were two smaller strikes in 1992 and 1994/1995 respectively. Wayne Gretzky is argueably the best professional hockey player that ever played the sport; his career lasted from 1978 to 1999. This league has attracted hockey players from 20 different countries but the majority of the players come from Canada. Hockey has been becoming more popular among Europeans though; behind Canada, there are a lot of European hockey players. The Stanley Cup trophy is the oldest professional sports trophy in North America as it dates back to 1903. In the current Professional Hockey League, there are thirty team as there are twenty three American hockey and seven Candian Hockey Teams in the league.

The history of Major League Baseball goes all the way back to 1869 when the first professional team formed; this was the the Cincinnati Red Stockings. Major League baseball has two leagues today; the National League which was founded in 1876 and the American League which was founded in 1901. The Chicago Cubs and Atlanta Braves can trace their teams back to the 1870s. All the major league baseball teams have rich histories including the relatively new Tampa Bay Devil Rays and the Arizona Dimondbacks.

The 100+ years of major league baseball is great as the sport has seen many changes of the years.The size of the baseball bat, the size of the baseball ball, and the size of the baseball field have all changed over the years. Babe Ruth was hiting homeruns with a smaller baseball. Discrimination made its way into MLB as blacks were expected to play in the Negro Leagues from roughly 1860 to about 1950. Jackie Robinson was the first black to play in what had been the white baseball league. Some things that happened in baseball rich histories include: the expansion of baseball into the sport it is today, the baseball strike of 1994, and playing baseball through World War II.

The NBA has an illustrious history. In 1949, the BAA league became the NBA. Because of the NBA and the worldwide fan base basketball is one of the fastest growing sports in the world! The league, since its inception, has grown from eight teams to 30 teams.

The first season of the BBA had 60 games on the schedule and the Philadelphia Warriors won the first championship four games to one. The second season had a reduced schedule of 48 games. The birth of the NBA as we know it today occurred in 1949.< a href='http://ignatiusbaumgar.typepad.com/blog/2012/06/how-much-do-nba-players-make-for-the-all-star-game.html'>This{{/tag} helps explain it more. The league was renamed the National Basketball Association. It consisted of seventeen teams playing in three divisions.

The Minneapolis Lakers won the first championship of the newly named NBA. As with any other sport the NBA hosts an all star game every year. The National Basketball Association thrilled its fans with the first All-Star Game in 1951. The inaugural All-Star game took place in the Boston Garden.

Many stars have contributed to the grand history of the NBA. Records have been made and broken by many star players as they pass through the NBA. That is why it is hard to say or determine a greatest player ever. Some of the great players, however, are Shaquille O'Neal, Wilt Chamberlin, Kareem Abdul Jabbar, Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant. You can watch classic NBA games and determine for yourself who you think is the greatest.