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- Minor league football is a loose term for pro football (gridiron) which is played below the major league level (also known as Secondary Football or Alternative Football). There is a major league designation to the National Football League (American football) and the Canadian Football League (Canadian football), but contrary to the other major sports in North America (MLB, MLS, NBA and NHL) no formal development farm system is in use, after the NFL severed ties with all minor league teams in 1948, and again with the cancellation of NFL Europe in 2006. Since 2018 the CFL has a partnership agreement with the Professional American Football League of Mexico (LFA) for player development, but do not consider it as a minor league in the traditional sense. There have been professional football leagues of varying levels since the invention of the sport, and over the years there was an attempt to organize a development or farm leagues such as the Association of Professional Football Leagues and the after-mentioned WLAF/NFL Europe/NFL Europa, but they failed to produce profits and cancelled unceremoniously. As a result, over time the North American leagues settled into an informal hierarchy, with many aspiring entrepreneurs trying to establish in that vacuum rival or alternative/ supplement leagues to the NFL, but beside the All-America Football Conference and the American Football League that merged with the NFL, none of the other leagues succeeded, particularly because the leagues lack of ability to generate television revenue to keep them afloat in its first years of existence. In modern times, the NFL has developed players not ready for the active roster through each team's practice squad, or relied on college football and separate entities like the now-defunct Arena Football League as their feeder organizations. Since the beginning of the 21st century, three fledgling pro football leagues - UFL, FXFL and AAF - had hoped to create a relationship with the NFL as some sort of a developmental minor league, but all folded without any such connection being made. Currently, there are four active minor leagues in North America; one high-level - the USFL and three low-level leagues: the Gridiron Developmental Football League, Rivals Professional Football League and one Mexican league - Liga de Fútbol Americano Profesional. One more high-level league is in hiatus, the XFL, which set to return in 2023. (en)
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- Minor league football is a loose term for pro football (gridiron) which is played below the major league level (also known as Secondary Football or Alternative Football). There is a major league designation to the National Football League (American football) and the Canadian Football League (Canadian football), but contrary to the other major sports in North America (MLB, MLS, NBA and NHL) no formal development farm system is in use, after the NFL severed ties with all minor league teams in 1948, and again with the cancellation of NFL Europe in 2006. Since 2018 the CFL has a partnership agreement with the Professional American Football League of Mexico (LFA) for player development, but do not consider it as a minor league in the traditional sense. (en)
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