In NFL football, AFC stands for American Football Conference and NFC stands for National Football Conference.

Quick Scoop

  • The AFC and NFC are the two main conferences that make up the National Football League (NFL) in the United States.
  • Each conference has 16 teams, split into four divisions: North, South, East, and West.
  • The winners of each conference meet in the Super Bowl at the end of the season.

What does AFC stand for?

  • AFC = American Football Conference.
  • It was created in 1970 during the merger between the older NFL and the American Football League (AFL).
  • Many of the former AFL teams were placed into the AFC when the merger happened.

What does NFC stand for?

  • NFC = National Football Conference.
  • The NFC was formed alongside the AFC in the 1970 merger to balance the league into two equal conferences.
  • Most of the pre‑merger NFL teams went into the NFC.

AFC vs NFC at a glance

html

<table>
  <tr>
    <th>Item</th>
    <th>AFC</th>
    <th>NFC</th>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td>Full name</td>
    <td>American Football Conference[web:5][web:7]</td>
    <td>National Football Conference[web:5][web:8]</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td>League</td>
    <td>NFL (American football)[web:5][web:8]</td>
    <td>NFL (American football)[web:5][web:8]</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td>Teams</td>
    <td>16 teams, 4 divisions[web:1][web:5][web:8]</td>
    <td>16 teams, 4 divisions[web:5][web:8]</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td>Role</td>
    <td>Sends AFC champion to the Super Bowl[web:5][web:8]</td>
    <td>Sends NFC champion to the Super Bowl[web:5][web:8]</td>
  </tr>
</table>

Little extra context

  • Outside the NFL, AFC can also mean Asian Football Confederation in world soccer, but in the context of “AFC vs NFC” people almost always mean the NFL conferences.
  • Understanding what AFC and NFC stand for helps make sense of playoff talk, conference standings, and Super Bowl matchups you see in sports news and forum discussions.

Information gathered from public forums or data available on the internet and portrayed here.