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The final announcement, at least the final announcement at this time, was one concerning how the American Professional Baseball League would be organized. The Five Founders wanted a 90-game schedule and a season-ending playoff of some sort, so putting every team in a single group would have meant the teams would play each other an unequal number of times.

This meant the teams needed to be split into two groups. Here’s what the NBBO Executive Committee and the Five Founders settled on:

• COLONIAL CONFERENCE: Alleghany, Flour City, Mass. Bay, Niagara, Shamrock, & St. John’s
• METROPOLITAN CONFERENCE: American, Excelsior, Gotham, Kings Co., Knickerbocker, & Orange

There were seven teams from the state of New York and five from elsewhere, so simply splitting the teams into “New York” & “Northeastern” like in the NBBO wouldn’t work. However, with five based in New York’s metropolitan area and one based in Philadelphia, a split between those in the two largest metro areas in the USA and those based elsewhere made sense.

While one might think that splitting the teams up in such a manner would make the conference with the teams based in America’s two biggest cities far stronger than the other, as a reminder the NBBO’s two most successful clubs and three of the Five Founders were named members of the Colonial Conference.

There were still many finer details to be hammered out: player salaries, contract lengths, ticket prices, playoff format, etc. That would more than likely be done during the Autumn Meetings, with final roster regulations and any rule tweaks coming at the 1871 Spring R&R Meetings.

And with that, the American Professional Baseball League was officially organized. Professional baseball was one giant step closer.