The last of these 16 matchups will be Sunday when the Patriots play the Miami Dolphins, who joined the A.F.L. in 1966. The Cincinnati Bengals became the 10th team in 1968. The commemoration of the A.F.L. has provided a much-needed lift for the teams and the league, which were looking for ways to offset the effects of the recession on merchandise sales.
More than two dozen licensees have been making about 100 A.F.L.-related products, which have produced tens of millions of dollars in sales, said Leo Kane, the N.F.L.’s vice president for consumer products.
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“This economy has been challenging, so it’s been a great story for our clubs to have a positive story out there,” Kane said.

CJ Gunther/European Pressphoto Agency

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Sales of throwback goods are a small slice of the $3 billion worth of N.F.L. merchandise sold annually, but they are proving to be the biggest sellers this year.
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In New England, sales of A.F.L. and 50th anniversary goods have made up 20 percent of overall sales, compared with 12 percent last year, said Stacey James, a spokesman for the Patriots. The best sellers have been 50th-anniversary T-shirts for $19.95 and red jerseys worn in 1963.
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The Chiefs, who started in 1960 in Dallas, played the Dallas Cowboys this season in a contest billed as “the game that never was” because the teams never faced each other when they were both in Texas. Sales of red sweatshirts with the original Dallas Texans logo have been hot sellers.
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We didn’t have vertically striped socks, but it did very well,” said Jim Fisher, the manager of merchandise services for the Chiefs.
Russ Brand, the chief operating officer of the Bills, said 30 percent of all merchandise sales this year had been 50th anniversary or A.F.L. related.
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“There was a lot of hype, and it’s certainly helped,” he said.
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Bills fans have celebrated their team’s 50th anniversary at an exhibit at the Buffalo and Erie County Historical Society, which has 900 team-related items, many of them from the collection of Greg Tranter, an avid fan.
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The exhibit includes black-and-white photographs of players caked in mud at the old War Memorial Stadium, which had notoriously bad drainage. Tranter, who has 100,000 Bills-related items in all, is clearly fond of the team’s original, silver-and-blue uniform.
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Few exist because old uniforms were given away to high schools at the end of the season, said Tranter, who grew up in Elmira, N.Y., and went to his first Bills game in 1965. His other favorites include a Johnny Hero doll in a 1965 Bills uniform and a straw hat that says “All the Way with O. J.”
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The A.F.L. still resonates with fans not just because of the snazzy uniforms and innovative marketing, but because the league was a scrappy underdog derided as a Mickey Mouse league filled with N.F.L. rejects.
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“The fans definitely felt that the A.F.L. represented something new,” said Angelo Coniglio, who runs RemembertheAFL.com. “The owners were rebels, and they acted the part.”
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That spirit lives on in an HBO Sports documentary from 1995, “Rebels with a Cause: The Story of the American Football League.” The one-hour program will be rebroadcast on Dec. 31 and several times in January.
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“There are a lot of 20-somethings looking at all these funny uniforms and do not dig any deeper,” said Ross Greenburg, the president of HBO Sports. “This truly was the first sports league that became a power on its own.”

            Gee, I wonder haw many copies of the 'FULL COLOR FOOTBALL: The History of the American Football League' DVDs they might have sold, if they had been available this year? 
                                                                                                                                       ~ REMEMBER the AFL