By Simon Evans

(Reuters) – The New England Patriots will head to the Super Bowl as the most successful NFL team of the past decade but the proud franchise began life flitting from home to home in a city that was at first a tough place for a professional football organisation.

The Patriots started life in November 1959 when a consortium of Massachusetts businessmen led by Billy Sullivan Jr were granted a franchise in the old American Football League(AFL).

The Boston Patriots were by no means guaranteed survival, given that the city had not seen a major league football franchise since the Boston Yanks, who played in the NFL from 1944-48.

Prior to the Yanks, the city had a series of short-lived teams – the Bears, the Braves, who became the Boston Redskins and moved to Washington D.C, the Shamrocks and the Bulldogs.

Unlike their predecessors, the Patriots were at least joining a stable and well-financed league with eight teams.

The problem, however, was the lack of a regular home base, forcing the team to use four different venues during the decade before the leagues merged, including the Boston Red Sox’s Fenway Park baseball stadium.

By Simon Evans

(Reuters) – National Football League (NFL) Commissioner Roger Goodell, who helped reach a labor deal with players that salvaged the 2011 season, was handed a five-year contract extension that will extend his reign to 13 years, the league said on Wednesday.

The 52-year-old Goodell’s deal was set to expire in March 2014, but the league’s 32 clubs unanimously voted to extend his contract until March 31, 2019.

“I speak on behalf of 32 NFL club owners in saying we are fortunate to have Roger Goodell as our commissioner,” Atlanta Falcons owner Arthur Blank said in the statement.

“Since becoming commissioner in 2006, the NFL — already the leader in professional sports — has gotten even stronger. As evidenced by this contract extension, we have great confidence in Roger’s vision and leadership of the NFL.”

The NFL endured a fourth-month lockout last year during bitter negotiations over a new collective bargaining agreement but the season began on time after a deal was reached.

The new deal avoided a potentially disastrous impact on the season in a league that generates $9 billion in revenue, a number that has grown steadily during Goodell’s time in charge.

MIAMI (Reuters) – An NFL season which almost did not happen is set for a thundering finale with the New York Giants and the New England Patriots heading to the Super Bowl for what should be a pulsating battle.

The rivalry between New York and Boston is unrivaled in North American professional sports, whether it be the Yankees and the Red Sox in baseball or the two gridiron teams who will come face to face in Indianapolis on February 5.

The league, sponsors, television companies and fans will be licking their lips at the prospect.

The NFL season was threatened by a four-month long lockout as the players’ union and team owners argued over a new collective bargaining agreement and it was not until late July that a deal was struck that allowed August’s pre-season to hastily get underway.

The prospect of walking away from $9 billion of annual revenue was too much even for disputing parties who had traded bitter public threats and the Super Bowl, a de facto national holiday in the United States, lies at the core of that money-making machine.

Nothing gets the cash registers ringing more than a New York-New England game for the Vince Lombardi Trophy – a repeat of the 2007/08 season’s Super Bowl, won by the Giants.

The Patriots beat the Baltimore Ravens 23-20 in a dramatic AFC title game Sunday to reach the Super Bowl after Billy Cundiff hooked a potential game-tying field goal left of the upright in the final seconds of the game.

MIAMI (Reuters) – Kobe Bryant confessed he was finding life after Phil Jackson “strange” after the Los Angeles Lakers fell to another road defeat at the Miami Heat on Thursday.

The team’s top scorer said the Lakers were still adjusting to new head coach Mike Brown after Jackson’s departure after 11 years in charge and some changes in the roster.

“We tweaked some things offensively,” Bryant told reporters after going down 98-87 to Miami.

“We probably want to go back to some of the things that we were doing a few weeks ago in terms of some spots I am on the floor.”

The Lakers have struggled on the road and the latest setback left them with a 1-5 record away from home.

“We are still experimenting, trying out different things,” said Bryant. “We don’t have any practice time so we are kind of experimenting on the fly, which we’ve had interesting conversations about, in terms of trying it on national TV.

“But this is what we have to do, it is a process and we have got to stick to it,” added Bryant, who went into the game as the league’s top scorer.