McBride was a fan of boxing and baseball, but knew little about football. He only grew interested in the sport in 1940, when his son Arthur Jr. was a student the University of Notre Dame and he attended Notre Dame Fighting Irish football games in South Bend, Indiana. He was drawn by the excitement that surrounded football and thought a professional team could be profitable. In 1942, McBride made overtures to supermarket heir Dan Reeves about buying his Cleveland Rams, a National Football League team, but Reeves rebuffed him. In 1944, however, "Chicago Tribune" sports editor Arch Ward proposed a new professional league called the All-America Football Conference. McBride, who knew Ward from his days in the newspaper business, eagerly signed on as the owner of the eight-team circuit's Cleveland franchise.