NFL Empires: 1970

This is a continuation of my "empire" maps (where victors take the territory of the losers) of the NFL. Different than most such imperialism sports maps, instead of gaining all the loser's land from a victory home or away, the victor only gets territory for an away victory, and just two-thirds of it (or one-third for an away tie).

1970 was the first season after the NFL-AFL merger was completed. Pittsburgh, Baltimore, and Cleveland moved to the AFC and the rest is history.

Since the Super Bowl was played at a neutral site, the winner gains one third of the territory of the loser (splitting the difference between a home game and an away game).

My data was from Pro Football Reference and most of the logos from SportsLogos.net.

Here then is the map of the NFL empires after the 1970 season:

Baltimore (royal blue) beat Dallas (gray green) in the Super Bowl, which is how Baltimore gained most of their land on this map. They had a great season (and thus home-field advantage during the playoffs) but they didn't beat any big empires till Dallas. In the NFC, Minnesota (dark violet) had home-field advantage, but they lost to San Francisco (burgundy), who then lost at home to Dallas in the conference championship. Thus no empire dominates the map.

Los Angeles (red), Kansas City (light violet), St. Louis (magenta), and New York (dark blue) all had respectable empires (by this year's standards), but all missed the playoffs by a game or two. Kansas City lost at home to Dallas, plus two home ties, to see their empire crumble. Detroit (gray purple) made the playoffs as a wildcard, but promptly lost in Dallas.

Here is the map before the season started:

So much for purple.