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American Football Conference

The American Football Conference (AFC) is one of the two conferences of the National Football League (NFL), the highest professional level of American football in the United States. The AFC and its counterpart, the National Football Conference (NFC), each contain 16 teams with 4 divisions. Both conferences were created as part of the 1970 merger between the National Football League, and the American Football League (AFL). All ten of the AFL teams, and three NFL teams, became members of the new AFC, with the remaining thirteen NFL teams forming the NFC. A series of league expansions and division realignments have occurred since the merger, thus making the current total of 16 teams in each conference. The current AFC champions are the Kansas City Chiefs, who defeated the Baltimore Ravens in the 2023 season's AFC Championship Game for their fourth conference championship and went on to win Super Bowl LVIII against the San Francisco 49ers

For the 1940s American football league, see All-America Football Conference. For the league that operated from 1959 to 1961, see American Football Conference (1959–1961).

Formerly

1970

16

Kansas City Chiefs (4th title)

New England Patriots (11 titles)

Television[edit]

NBC aired the AFC's Sunday afternoon and playoff games from 1970 through the 1997 season. From 1998 to 2013, CBS was the primary broadcast rightsholder to the AFC; in those years, all interconference games in which the AFC team was the visiting team were broadcast on either NBC or CBS. Since 2014, the cross-flex policy allows select AFC games (that involve them playing an NFC team at home or intraconference games) to be moved from CBS to Fox. Since 1990, select AFC playoff games have been seen on ABC or ESPN.

AFC Championship Game

AFC Divisions


AFC Division Rivals


AFC East


AFC North


AFC South Rivals


AFC West Rivals


AFC Interdivisional Rivals


AFC Television Network