no championship game in 1939. In a meeting of the owners of the APFA on January 7, 1940, the Columbus Bullies were announced as league champions with a 9-2 record, despite the standings shown above. It was the only time that the Louisville Tanks failed to win the league title. Demise of the league As the 1939 season wound down, the league anticipated change as the Los Angeles Bulldogs left to form the football version of the Pacific Coast League. With the subsequent awarding of a new franchise to Milwaukee, the league announced plans to compete with the National Football League, while the Green Bay Packers protested the intrusion into their territory. In July 1940, the league's ambitious plans for the upcoming season were derailed: a group of businessmen based on the American East Coast formed their own American Football League, with new franchises in Boston, New York, and Buffalo, and had APFA members Cincinnati, Columbus, and Milwaukee jump to their league, which split the five-year-old league and mortally wounded it. After Louisville and Dayton both decided not to field teams for the 1940 season, only three teams (Chicago, Kenosha, and St. Louis) remained, and the APFA subsequently folded. Kenosha and St. Louis applied to the new AFL for membership, but were rejected. They and the Chicago Indians rejoined the ranks of independent professional football teams in 1940, ironically often playing the teams that had jumped from the APFA in the first place. For two games in 1941, Kenosha also loaned three players to the AFL's Buffalo Tigers. References Defunct American football leagues in the United States 1935 establishments in the United States 1940 disestablishments in the United States