During the infancy of the American Football League (AFL) in 1960, several owners who had wanted to purchase an NFL expansion team were turned away from the established league and told that they were not going to expand. Until the AFL began, that is.
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Meanwhile, five of those men had agreed to become owners of new AFL clubs. The fourth franchise granted was for Denver, Colorado. Today, the population is 2,862,000, but back then it was just over 809,000.