Ever wonder why a football field is 100 yards long and exactly 160 feet wide? It turns out the dimensions of the gridiron aren't just random numbers—they are a mix of 17th-century surveying tools, farming traditions, and a desperate need to fit a game into a New York baseball stadium.

In this session of the Pig Pen, Darin Hayes sits down with Timothy P. Brown of Football Archaeology to dig into the fascinating and often arbitrary evolution of the football field.

Our friend Timothy Brown, from Football Archaeology.com, joins us to tell the tale of the tape, errrr.. chain in his recent post titled: Why Football Fields are 100 Yards Long and 160 Feet Wide

The Rugby Roots (140 x 70 Yards)

American football began as a variation of rugby. In 1876, the first official American rules defined the field as 140 yards long and 70 yards wide.

At the time, there were no stadiums. Games were played on whatever flat land was available—school grounds, town squares, or between two oak trees. Because space was inconsistent, the dimensions were loose until teams from different regions began playing each other and demanded a standardized field.

The Furlong Influence: Why 110 Yards?

By 1879, the Intercollegiate Football Association (IFA) shortened the field to 110 yards. This seemingly odd number actually has its roots in British surveying:

• Gunter's Chains: In 1608, Edmund Gunter invented a surveying tool called "chains." Each chain was 22 yards long.
• The Furlong: A standard unit of measurement in the UK (the length of a furrow in a farm field) was 220 yards.
• Standardization: 110 yards is exactly a half-furlong (or 5 chains). Since this was a standard land measurement, it became the logical choice for standardizing a field of play.

The Polo Grounds Problem: The Move to 100 Yards

If we started at 110 yards (a measurement the Canadian game still uses today), why did American football drop those extra 10 yards?

The culprit: The Forward Pass.

When the forward pass was legalized in 1906, players weren't allowed to throw the ball across the goal line. To loosen this up, the rules committee decided to allow catches behind the goal line but wanted to limit how far back a receiver could go. They decided to add 10-yard end zones.

However, adding 20 total yards of end zones to a 110-yard field made the total length 130 yards—which was too big to fit into many existing stadiums, most notably the Polo Grounds in New York. To make the game fit the architecture, they shortened the field of play to 100 yards in 1912, and it has remained that way ever since.

The Mystery of the 160-Foot Width

While the length has a clear history, the width of 160 feet (or 53.3 yards) remains a bit of a "football archaeology" mystery.

• The Myth: Many believe Walter Camp narrowed the field in 1880 to accommodate fewer players (dropping from 15 to 11).
• The Fact: Meeting minutes show the IFA adopted the 160-foot width in 1879, a year before the player count was reduced.

Despite various mathematical theories involving fractions of a furlong, there is no confirmed record of why 160 was the magic number.

From Ropes to Chains

The "chains" used by officials today to measure first downs also have a humble beginning. Early rules called for two poles connected by a stout cord. However, cords stretch and shrink depending on the weather. By 1892, innovators began using actual metal chains to ensure a "fair" 10 yards, mirroring the surveying tools used to measure the field itself.

"If it decided tomorrow, we’d make them 175 feet wide... all rules of games are arbitrary. You can choose any number you want." — Tim Brown

Keep Digging into Football History

For more deep dives into the antiquity of the game, visit FootballArchaeology.com. Tim Brown publishes "tidbits" several times a week that uncover the hidden stories behind the rules and equipment we see on the field today.

Join us at the Pigskin Dispatch website to see even more Positive football news!

Don't forget to check out and subscribe to the Pigskin Dispatch YouTube channel for additional content and the regular Football History Minute Shorts.

Miss our football by the day of the year podcasts, well don't, because they can still be found at the Pigskin Dispatch website.

Mentioned in this episode:

Sports History Theme Song

This theme song was produced by Ron "Tyke" Oliver of Music Meets Sportz https://sites.google.com/view/sportsfanztastic/sports-history-network?authuser=0

Why is an American football field 160ft wide?

Why not 50 yards?

The answer involves the 16th century chains, the legalization of the forward pass, and a land survey measurement.

We're diving into the strange, arbitrary history of why the football field is the size that it is and how close we came to playing a completely different game on a different sized playing surface.

Stay tuned for the history facts to be revealed.

Check it out.

Pigskin Dispatch video.

Yeah.

Woohoo.

Foreign.

Have you ever sat and wondered why is a football field the size that it is?

Well, we've had that question too, and we've got the guy that's going to tell us some answers.

Timothy P. Brown of Football Archaeology.

Tim, welcome back to the Pig Pen.

Hey there.

Good to chat with you once again.

And I've waited for a long time to discuss this topic.

You have?

I, I bet you have.

It's like fields away from wondering about this topic for us.

And we're finally there because you recently wrote an article titled why football fields are 100 yards long and 160ft wide.

Wide?

Why wide?

Why don't you tell us why, Tim?

Why is it this size?

Well, I don't have all the answers, but I have some of them.

So, you know, it's, it's one of those things that the, you know, just the dimensions of the field is such a basic element of the game, you know, but it's one we don't think about.

It's just, it's like a given, you know, and we know Canadians do it a little differently and we used to do it a little differently, but you know, so, but it's still like, oh, why did we end up with a 100 yard by a, you know, 100 yards by 160ft.

And so, so you know, the fact that I mentioned that the, you know, our field changed at one point or several points early on and the Canadian field is different even though the games are basically the same.

Right.

Just tells you, you know, all rules of games are arbitrary.

You can make these things up.

We could have them be.

If we decided tomorrow we'd make them 175ft wide.

You know, now we got to fit them in the stadiums and everything.

But all these things are, you can choose any number you want.

So how did they choose the numbers is the question.

And so, you know, the, the first American football fields were rugby fields.

You know, we just, we basically adopted the rugby rules.

And one of them, we defined the Football field, you know, that the early American players, you know, they hadn't grown up playing rugby, and they didn't really understand they could read the rules.

And they, A couple of them had played, you know, the guys from Canada and things like that, but they didn't really understand how rugby was played.

So they, they were kind of reading the rules, trying to figure out, how does this work?

And it wasn't as specific as they wanted it to be.

So, you know, Americans started documenting the rules more.

And when in the first set of first year, they define the rule or the field as being 140 by 70 yards.

And you know, how that came about, you know, who knows?

But, you know, generally, even like back in the uk, they didn't have a set.

Rugby did not have a set dimension for their field.

They tended to be around a number like that, you know, 100 to 140 yards long, 150 yards long.

That kind of makes sense though, doesn't it, that the field is half as wide as it is long?

I mean, I mean, dimensionally, that's proportionate to each other.

Yeah, I mean, that's one way of looking at it.

Yes.

And.

But, like, you know, they didn't have, like, football fields or rugby fields.

It was just like this plot of land on the school grounds was that size.

So we played to that size.

Right.

Or this, this part of the town square was that big.

So that's where, you know, that's, you know, it wasn't like they didn't have stadiums.

The two oak trees are just that far apart.

Exactly.

Yeah.

I mean, fire hydrant, you know, how far apart of the fire hydrants.

So, I mean, so that's, you know, so there wasn't.

There really wasn't a need to define them.

And then.

But, you know, as teams from different parts of the country started playing one another, they were looking to have more standardized rules that, that you could practice to and, you know, become proficient.

That.

Which is kind of funny, but only because the.

There's.

There's a lot of.

Actually, I'm gonna.

I'm gonna skip to that.

I'm gonna skip where I was going.

So they shortened it from, you know, from 140.

And so it's like, okay, well, why would you come up with 110?

You know, it's not like a normal number.

He invents this measurement tool for surveying, and it was called chains.

It was like two poles with a bunch of metal links in between.

And each chain was.

Had 100 links that was 22 yards long or 66ft long.

Long.

And so you go, okay, why would you do that?

You know, that makes no sense.

And was because they.

The primary way to measure properties in the UK was based on furlongs, which was the length of a fur furrow in a farm field.

And those were standardized as being.

As being 220 yards long.

So his set of chains was one tenth of a furlong.

Okay, so that made sense.

He's kind of doing a metric thing on a furlong.

Is that the same furlongs like they use in horseries?

Yeah, okay.

Yep.

And a square furlong.

So a length.

That is a furlong by a furlong.

Furlong, like an area furlong by furlong.

We call that an acre.

Right.

So I mean, okay, we all know about acres and you know about furlongs because of horse racing, but that's where that comes from.

And so when they were.

And then the other piece of that is, the Romans had said that a.

A mile is 5,000ft, but the English said, no, no, we're going to make it.

Yeah, we're going to do it based on eight furlongs, which is 5,280ft.

Okay.

I mean, again, it makes sense in a furlong world.

And.

But as a result.

And a half a furlong is 110 yards.

Right.

So a furlong is.

Is 220, but a half furlong is 110.

And so if you're looking to standardize the field, then a half a furlong, you know, I mean, if, if the, if that dimension makes made sense based on the way you're playing the game anyways, that's a pretty good way to do it.

It's five chains, half a furlong.

Right.

And then, you know, so.

So that's basically how.

And then rugby did the same thing they did a little bit after American football, but then they standardized on 110 yards as well.

So five chains.

And then, so then, then we get to the issue of the width of the field.

And so if you look at.

There's a lot of.

It's not like people think about and write this stuff all the time, but if you look for an explanation of how we got to 160ft.

A lot of, a lot of the explanations will tell you that it's Walter Camp.

And, and you know, we went to a system of downs and anyways, supposedly that was the reason for making the field smaller or narrower.

So he actually wanted a larger field with fewer people.

The IFA rejects it and says, no, we're going to go with.

We're going to go with 160ft.

You know, the field is, you know, such and such length and 160ft.

So that whole thing obviously is wrong because, you know, it changed before the reduced number of players on the field and Camp was arguing to expand the size of the field.

So anyways, now why they chose 160, I have no idea.

So, you know, that doesn't seem real logical.

So I'm not sure what the, you know, I'd love for somebody to come up with a rationale.

I haven't, you know.

Yeah, I always, I've always wondered that, you know, because when I officiated, of course, you know, we knew that the field was 100 yards long, goal line to goal line, 53 and a third or whatever.

I think that equates out to your 160ft.

So we knew that and the nine yard marks were, you know, nine yards off the sideline and all that.

But I always couldn't figure out, I'm like, why did they just make it 50 yards wide, you know, or, or if it's, you know, 110 and what it was before in American football and Canadian football, why isn't it 55 yards wide instead of 53?

It's just kind of crazy.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So I mean, I've tried to figure it out and, you know, so far, you know, haven't come up with it, but, you know, maybe somebody else out there has written it up or figured it out somehow.

So you know, love to, love to hear any kind of comments.

But then we still had the hundred yard field too.

You know, that change too still had to come which was the, you know, so like, you know, we had the 100, we had 110 yard field.

It couldn't, couldn't go through the air and it couldn't bounce over the goal line.

And if it did, it was a touchback.

So, so they ended up, they wanted to loosen up the forward pass a bit.

So say, okay, we're going to allow people to throw the ball over the goal line.

They have to catch it.

If it bounds over, then it's still a touchback.

But if they catch it in the, beyond the goal line, then it's a touchdown.

But we don't want them, you know, going 50 yards downfield behind the goal line.

So they constrained it and they said, okay, we're going to add a 10 yard zone at the end of, you know, can add the end line and the end zone at the, at either end of the field.

And then that became too large to fit in certain place like Polo Grounds in New York.

So they said, okay, we, we got to shorten the field, we got to figure out something else.

So they got rid of the 55 yard line and so we went from 110 yard field to 100 yards and we then had, you know, 220 yard end zones onto the field.

And then since then the field has stayed the same in terms of the, you know, the dimensions.

Yeah, great, great story, great research on, on that.

But here you brought up another question when you're talking about how they were measuring the, the 22 and a half yards with two poles and chains, 100 links of chain in it.

Now a couple months ago we talked about your tidbit on how they came up with the down and distance markers, what we call the chains nowadays, and they went through some different variations.

If they had a measuring device back then with two poles and a chain, isn't it kind of surprising they didn't like immediately gravitate to, to that for measuring the 10 yards for first down or the 5 yards or wherever when they came up with it?

Yeah, yeah, I mean, it's true.

And so I, I don't have a, I don't have an explanation for that.

But you know, your, your, the question raises a Thought.

What's his name at Penn, the coach, I'm blanking on his name right now, but the coach at Penn, and that it was his idea.

But you know, previously I thought it was the, the Crescent Athletic Club, you know, based in Brooklyn.

Anyways, so they, they used it and like the rules initially said, you know, two poles connected by a stout cord.

And.

But even from the beginning there were a couple of people.

So it ought to be a chain.

Right.

So it's not something that can be stretched.

So maybe, you know, it's possible that person either just obviously knew what a chain was, but possibly even recognize, you know, the chains used for surveying.

You know, maybe they kind of made that connection too.

I, I don't know.

But.

So while the suggestion was made like from the beginning to use chains rather than a cord, you know, there were probably more pieces of cord laying around, you know, that were handy than the chains.

Right.

But yeah, even like the crossbar early on, the crossbar on the goalpost oftentimes was a piece of rope.

So yeah, I mean that's, that's in some of the stuff, you know, if you read some of the old junk, it's, it's in some of the modern.

Day kickers that have those doinks happening on the crossbar.

Probably maybe rather have the rope.

Maybe it'd be more forgiving.

Yeah, if it's.

But in, you know, cold weather, you'd still have a frozen rope.

Yeah, that's true.

True.

Which is good for a quarterback passing the ball, but not for maybe a kicker kicking over rope.

You always have some interesting stuff, Tim.

And you know, this one is no doubt one of those that, you know, something that we probably don't even.

We take for granted that the field size is the way it is and there's really an interesting history to it, which you explained quite well and you do this a lot in your tidbits and maybe you could share with folks where they can take in some of these.

Yep, just go to footballarchaeology.com it's a substack site.

And yeah, I publish a couple times a week and, and then plus the, you know, the podcasts with you are also posted on there, you know, so you can subscribe, you can follow, you can actually pay if you want to, which I'd always appreciate.

And then.

But otherwise, just bookmark it and show up and look at stuff whenever you want to.

So.

Well, there's definitely always something interesting@footballarchaeology.com and it's a great place to go and visit to take up some football antiquity.

And it's great to talk to you each Tuesday and we love to talk to you again next week.

Very good sir.

Look forward to it.

That's all the football history we have today folks.

Join us back tomorrow for more of your football history.

We invite you to check out our website pigskindispatch.com not only does see the daily football history, but to experience positive football with our many articles on the good people of the game as well as our own football comic strip cleat marks comics.

Pigskindispatch.com is also on social media outlets, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and don't forget the Big Skin Dispatch YouTube channel to get all of your positive football news and history.

Special thanks to the talents of Mike and Gene Monroe as well as Jason enough for letting us use their music during our podcast.

This podcast is part of the Sports.

History Network, your headquarters for the yesteryear.

Of your favorite sport.

You can learn more at sportshistorynetwork.

Com.