The History of the Pro Football Hall of Fame

by Richard Janvrin, April 04, 2025

The NFL’s best are housed and enshrined at the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio.

Several players and other key NFL figures are enshrined each year, creating an everlasting legacy of the league’s best.

Each year, the NFL preseason kicks off with the Hall of Fame game in early August – all of the best football betting sites offer odds on the game.

Below, I’ll examine the Pro Football Hall of Fame’s history, including its origins, expansion, selection process, answer the question, “What does HOF mean in football?” and more.

• The Origins
• The Expansion and Growth
• Hall of Fame Village
• How Players Are Selected
• Hall of Fame Games and Enshrinement
• Recent Hall of Fame Classes

The Origins

The city of Canton lobbied the NFL to build the Pro Football Hall of Fame (also referred to as the NFL Hall of Fame Museum) there, opening on Sept. 7, 1963.

The city provided three reasons why it should house the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

The reasons provided were the following:

• The NFL was founded in the city on Sept. 17, 1920, and was then known as the American Professional Football Association.
• The Canton Bulldogs, a now-defunct squad, was the league’s first back-to-back champion.
• The city came together to raise $400,000 to get the Pro Football Hall of Fame built there.

The original building had two rooms and 19,000 square feet.

You may also see the site referred to as the HOF.

What does HOF mean in football? The Hall of Fame.

The Expansion and Growth

After the opening in 1963, the first expansion began in April 1970.

The first expansion cost $620,000 and was completed just over a year later, in May 1971. It increased the space from 19,000 to 34,000 square feet, adding another room and bringing in the pro shop.

What helped make this expansion even more meaningful was that yearly attendance surpassed 200,000.

The next expansion came about six years after the first was finished in November 1977.

This time, it cost $1.2 million, finishing up a year later in Nov. 1978. This included making the pro shop bigger, a research library, and doubling the size of the theater.

Overall, the Pro Football Hall of Fame was 50,500 – quite an improvement from the initial 19,000.

The building remained this size for a number of years, but there was another in July 1993. This expansion was a staggering $9.2 million. It added a fifth room and the GameDay Stadium. The stadium.

Then, in 2013, the final and largest expansion was finished, bringing the Pro Football Hall of Fame to 118,000 square feet, nearly 100,000 more than where it began.

Hall of Fame Village

As for other expansion efforts, there’s the Hall of Fame Village which is nearby the NFL Hall of Fame Museum. This project is expected to be about $900 million. The first phase was finished in 2022. As for phase two, it focused on a water park but has yet to be open. As of Jul. 2024, there’s also a hotel set to be built.

Currently, the venue is 200 acres and hosts concerts, festivals, and other special events and forms of entertainment.

How Players Are Selected

The selection process for the Hall of Fame includes a 50-person committee, which includes mostly media members. This group of 50 is known as the Selection Committee.

Each city with an NFL team sends one representative from the media in their area to it. For cities with multiple franchises, they each send a member.

Then, there are 15 at-large delegates, including one individual from the Pro Football Writers Association.

This person has a two-year term, while others who are appointed are open-ended. Their term only ends upon death, retirement, resignation, or incapacitated.

From there, the pool of available players and coaches includes those who have been retired from the sport for five years. Others, like team executives or owners, can be selected at any time.

Fans can nominate players or other NFL personnel via mail or email.

From there, the Selection Committee is polled three times via mail: in March, September, and October.

There then becomes a list of 25 semi-finalists, which is narrowed to 15 in November by mail ballots.

Then, a Seniors and Contributors Committee, which is a subcommittee of the Selections Committee, picks two types of players:

• Seniors: Players whose career ended more than 25 years ago.
• Contributors: People who contributed to the game beyond coaching and playing.

Then, these committees add one or two finalists on alternating years.

That brings the grand total of finalists to 18.

The Selection Committee meets the day before the Super Bowl to elect a class.

Each finalist must receive 80% support from the Selection Committee.

There has to be at least four, but there cannot be more than nine.

Hall of Fame Game and Enshrinement

The Hall of Fame Game marks the beginning of the NFL Preseason. It’s played at Tom Benson Hall of Fame Stadium at the Hall of Fame Village in Canton. The game was first held on Thursday in 2017.

As for the Enshrinement Ceremony, it’s held on the Saturday night after the Thursday preseason game. As of 2022, it’s held at noon ET.

Recent Hall of Fame Classes

Including the 2025 NFL Hall of Fame Museum class, here are the seven most recent groupings.

• 2025: Sterling Sharpe, Antonio Gates, Jared Allen, Eric Allen.
• 2024: Julius Peppers, Steve McMichael, Andre Johnson, Devin Hester, Randy Gradishar, Dwight Freeney.
• 2023: DeMarcus Ware, Zach Thomas, Joe Thomas, Ken Riley, Darrelle Revis, Joe Klecko, Don Coryell, Ronde Barber.
• 2022: Bryant Young, Dick Vermeil, Richard Seymour, Sam Mills, Art McNally, LeRoy Butler, Cliff Branch, Tony Boselli.
• 2021: Charles Woodson, Drew Pearson, Bill Nunn, Peyton Manning, John Lynch, Calvin Johnson, Tom Flores, Alan Faneca.
• 2020: George Young, Paul Tagliabue, Ed Sprinkle, Mac Speedie, Duke Slater, Donnie Shell, Steve Sabol, Troy Polamalu, Alex Karras, Jimmy Johnson, Edgerrin James, Steve Hutchinson, Winston Hill, Cliff Harris, Bobby Dillon, Bill Cowher, Jim Covert, Harold Carmichael, Isaac Bruce, Steve Atwater.
• 2019: Johnny Robinson, Ed Reed, Kevin Mawae, Ty Law, Tony Gonzalez, Gil Brandt, Pat Bowlen, Champ Bailey, Brian Urlacher, Terrell Owens, Randy Moss, Ray Lewis, Jerry Kramer, Brian Dawkins, Robert Brazile, Bobby Beathard.