Opinion: Arizona sucks
By Evan Weiner - The Daily Caller 05/19/10 at 3:46 PM
http://dailycaller.com/2010/05/19/opinion-arizona-sucks/2/
In America, there’s supposed to be a stark separation between sports and real life. Sporting events are designed to be forms of escapist entertainment, much-needed opportunities for Americans to forget about things like budget deficits and political candidates and focus instead on their hometown team.
On Facebook, you can find a popular group entitled “Keep Your Politics Out Of My Arizona Sports” that tries to preserve this escapist element of sports. The stated reason for the group’s existence is simple: It’s for “Democrats and Republicans alike who don’t want to see their hometown teams get caught up in political issues.”
Though Los Angeles Lakers Coach Phil Jackson once entertained the idea of serving as former teammate Bill Bradley’s campaign manager for his ill-fated 2000 presidential run, he could easily be a member of the group, as well.
“I have respect for those who oppose the new Arizona immigration law, but I am wary of putting entire sports organizations in the middle of political controversies,” said Jackson.
Jackson and the Facebook group were referring to the recently passed Arizona law that aims to crack down on what some see as the growing threat posed to the state by illegal immigration. The ownership of the Phoenix Suns, they argue, made an unwise statement by permitting the team to wear ‘Los Suns’ jerseys to protest the Arizona law.
Still, there are calls by everyone from Chicago White Sox Manager Ozzie Guillen — whose team trains in the Phoenix suburb of Glendale — to San Diego’s Adrian Gonzalez urging Major League Baseball to move the 2011 All-Star Game out of Phoenix. One soccer match on July 7 featuring two teams from Mexico at a Glendale, Arizona stadium was canceled. And the World Boxing Council will not schedule Mexican fighters in boxing matches in Arizona.
For the 125 members of the Keep Your Politics Out Of My Arizona Sports group – and for Jackson – here’s a sobering reality check: Politics and government in the United States and around the world drive sports, and they always will.
Take a look at Afghanistan: It was the Soviet invasion of the country that was the basis of President Jimmy Carter’s decision to stop Americans from competing in the 1980 Moscow Summer Olympics. The Soviets returned the favor in 1984, when Eastern European countries under Soviet influence and the USSR boycotted the Los Angeles Summer Games in 1984.
Before that, twenty-five African countries used the Olympics as a forum for protest by boycotting the 1976 Montreal Summer Games because New Zealand’s rugby team had played a match in the apartheid state of South Africa. Arizona lost one Super Bowl — the January 31, 1993 contest — because NFL owners, with a heavy push from the NFL Players Association, did not like the fact that the state chose not to celebrate Martin Luther King Day.
If Major League Baseball did move the 2011 All-Star Game out of Phoenix, it would not be precedent-setting, though it would be somewhat startling in that many athletes today are instructed to ignore the political climate. It’s not generally considered good for business for teams to discuss the issues of the day.
**
In January of 1965, a group of American Football League players took a political stand that has mostly been forgotten. Following the 1964 American Football League season, the league scheduled the fourth-annual AFL All-Star Game in New Orleans. The January 16, 1965 contest would have been the prelude to the city getting an American Football League team.
New Orleans was a football hotbed, and both the American Football League and National Football League were taking a close look at the city as a potential expansion site. The AFL apparently won the race to New Orleans, and a game was scheduled at Tulane Stadium. Dave Dixon headed the promotion and persuaded American Football League owners and players that it would be a good city for the match.
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was now the law of the land, and New Orleans was going to welcome the AFL All-Stars — which included twenty-two African-American players — with open arms. Segregation and Jim Crow were part of the history books, and the city desperately wanted a professional team. After all, Syracuse had just played in the Sugar Bowl against LSU and had eight African-American players on the team without incident. New Orleans seemed the perfect spot to host both the All-Star Game and a professional football team.
It didn’t turn out that way, according to Abner Haynes, a former Kansas City Chiefs running back. Haynes had been a civil rights pioneer as one of the first two African-Americans to play college football in Texas.
“Clem and I decided to fly out to the game,” Haynes said. “I didn’t know what to expect; Mr. [Lamar] Hunt [the Kansas City Chiefs owner and American Football League founder] said there would be no problems.”
The American Football League was really an experiment in the sports world. It was the only league at the time to truly embrace the African-American athlete as an equal on the field with white players. Major League Baseball struggled with integration, even through the 1950s. And the NFL’s Washington Redskins did not employ a black player until 1962.
“One of the things we [the AFL] needed was the unity of the white and black players for our new league,” said Haynes. “When the white players, Jack Kemp, Jerry Mays who was our [Kansas City] defensive leader and four or five other guys heard about what was happening, their character showed and my teammates were looking after me.”
The idea of a boycott of New Orleans didn’t take shape until the players met at the Roosevelt Hotel and started sharing stories. It’s worth noting that neither Haynes nor Daniels was able to hail a cab at the airport to take them down to the city. They waited for about two hours before someone finally picked them up and took them to the hotel. Once they got there, things didn’t get much better.
“They had a woman operating the elevator and she said, ‘you monkeys come on in and get to the back.’ […] Finally we had about 10 or 12 guys in my room, we were talking sensibly. We were going to stay together. This was just another test,” he said.
The thought of a boycott of the game came up, and the discussion quickly grew serious, with Buffalo’s Cookie Gilchrest being one of the most vocal leaders.
“We were disrespected as men,” Haynes remembered. “We were not here because of color; we were here because of talent. Why should we go out there and put our lives on the line for people who don’t appreciate us? We were not appreciated here. Everyone agreed, you should not put your life on the line in that type of situation.”
Pro football in 1965 does not in any way resemble pro football in 2010. The players acted alone and took a stand. There were no agents warning the players of possible and probable repercussions if there was a boycott of the game. There were not any worries about losing endorsements because the players had no endorsements at the time. They players took the action because they felt it was a correct and principled fight. They got support from their white teammates, including Jack Kemp, the Buffalo quarterback who headed the American Football league Players Association. Kemp, Ron Mix, Jim Tyrer, Freddie Arbanas and the other white players put their careers on the line, as did the African-American players. There was no safety net for any of them, and they could have all been fired for their actions.
“They were first good men,” said Haynes of everyone involved with the boycott. “They gave a damn, they stood up, people I am extremely proud of.”
The boycott was not about sports. It was about society and conditions in New Orleans for nearly two-dozen African-American players. The New Orleans boycott came after Civil Rights actions throughout the South and after President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the 1964 Civil Rights legislation. But, oddly enough, civil rights leaders never contacted Haynes or his teammates, as far as he could tell.
“We had no leverage,” Haynes said. “We weren’t playing for money, but we were playing for progress. Football players took the lead. Places like Atlanta, New Orleans, [and] Miami were death holes. Grayson couldn’t get a drink at the bar. Our white teammates [in New Orleans] were there for us.”
Haynes did not know at the time that Houston Oilers owner Bud Adams was in contact with some of the players and offered an alternative site for the game: Houston.
On January 11, 1965, the league moved the game.
The AFL players stood up and staged the first sports boycott of a city, New Orleans. The players received tacit support from Hunt, Adams and the rest of the American Football League owners. There seemed to be no retribution for ruining the New Orleans game and the possible expansion fee revenues that would have been split up by the eight owners, which might have come out to somewhere between $500,000 and a million dollars for each owner. That was big money in 1965.
“That was the toughest thing that happened to me,” said Haynes. “We stood up; we shocked the nation. Our white teammates stood up. It was amazing the league moved the game. Stuff like that didn’t happen. Hunt took us to dinner, Stram, the Chiefs All-Stars, but never addressed the issue.”
Haynes did say he thought all the players were “kind of marked,” but none of the players was blackballed.
New Orleans eventually did get a football team in 1966, though only after some political intervention. The two leagues, the AFL and NFL, decided that they could no longer financially compete for players and worked out a merger. The marriage needed congressional blessing, and there were two prominent members of Congress — Louisiana Senator Russell Long and Louisiana Congressman Hale Boggs — who didn’t think the merger served the best interests of Louisiana because New Orleans had no team. Both Long and Boggs eventually voted ‘yes’ after NFL Commissioner Pete Rozelle promised them New Orleans would eventually get a team.
To those on Facebook and to Phil Jackson, there is a lesson to be learned here: You cannot keep politics out of sports.
Evan Weiner is an author, radio-TV commentator and a lecturer on “The Politics of Sports Business” and can be reached for speaking engagements at evanjweiner@yahoo.com
Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2010/05/19/opinion-arizona-sucks/print/#ixzz0oQyvc4Ug
Showing posts with label 1965 AFL All Star Game. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 1965 AFL All Star Game. Show all posts
Wednesday, May 19, 2010
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
Wednesday is Emanuel Cellar Day
http://www.mcnsports.com/en/node/7545
Wednesday is Emanuel Cellar Day
By Evan Weiner
September 29, 2009
10:00 AM EDT
(New York, N. Y.) -- September 30th is Emanuel Cellar Day around the NFL and NFL owners and players should be celebrating the life of one of the 20 most important people in NFL history. Wait a second, when did Emanuel Cellar play football? Did Emanuel Cellar coach a team? Did Cellar own a franchise? Was he a Commissioner?
The answer to all of those questions is no. Emanuel Cellar never put on a uniform, never patrolled a sideline or ran the NFL yet without Emanuel Cellar, the NFL of today might be a totally different entity. It is conceivable that there would be no Super Bowl without the Brooklyn native, Congressman Cellar.
New York Congressman Emanuel Cellar first entered the House of Representatives in 1923. In 1923, the NFL was a floating craps game with teams scattered throughout the American northeast and Midwest that would come and go. It is unclear if the young Congressman liked football in his early days in office. But the Brooklyn representative's impact on professional football would come nearly four decades later in 1961, when Congressman Cellar authored legislation that would give the NFL tremendous clout with growing television networks: the Sports Broadcast Act of 1961. That summer, both the House and Senate passed Cellar’s legislation, and the Act was signed into law by President John F. Kennedy on September 30, 1961. The Cellar Bill allowed the NFL to market its broadcast rights as a league package, evenly spreading the broadcasting revenues among the franchises and guaranteeing each team substantial annual revenues.
In 1961, the National Football League was still mired in a mom and pop store mentality not long removed from the days of when Chicago Bears owner and Coach George Halas would travel to Wisconsin and lend a hand at Green Bay Packers fund raisers. The NFL was growing in the 1950s because of television exposure but the league owners were extremely cautious in their business decisions and with good reason. The business of the National Football League was strictly a six month a year affair and there was not much financial growth or stability until the mid 1950s.
That all changed in 1959 when Lamar Hunt and Bud Adams were unable to buy the Chicago Cardinals, Hunt wanted to move the franchise to Dallas and Adams wanted to place it in Houston, nor were they able to convince Halas and Pittsburgh owner Art Rooney that the 12-team NFL should expand. So Hunt started his own circuit, the American Football League, got Adams to join up and found six other owners. Hunt's new league, the AFL would start operations in 1960.
In early 1960, Hunt's league or AFL IV (three previous AFLs folded in the 1920s and 1930s) signed a television contract with the rather weak American Broadcasting Company for $2 million per year for the first five years, with each AFL franchise receiving $250,000 per team per year, which was approximately 15% less than received per team in the NFL.
The deal, which was brokered by among others Jay Michaels, the father of Al Michaels who was the announcer of Monday Night Football and now Sunday Night Football, was somewhat astounding as the AFL had no track record but neither did ABC which wasn't even seen in a number of American cities in those days. But ABC needed something and the AFL would be a perfect partner.
Part of the success of the league in attaining coverage was due to New York Titans owner Harry Wismer, who was also a noted sportscaster of the time. Wismer got AFL IV game coverage on the Associated Press and United Press International wires and helped the league land a contract with ABC. History has been unkind to Wismer as the New York Titans franchise skirted with bankruptcy but without Wismer, there might not have been a big TV deal. The AFL pooled its eight teams and sold ABC the league's team as one entity which was against United States antitrust laws. But the AFL was a new business that flew under the radar, at least in legal circles.
The NFL owners and new NFL Commissioner Pete Rozelle took note of the AFL-ABC TV deal and wanted the same thing. In 1960, NFL teams were on TV but each of the 13 teams put together a local TV network and the large city teams, New York, Chicago and Los Angeles received far more TV money than Green Bay, Baltimore and Pittsburgh. The inequity of TV revenues could have become a big problem but Rozelle went to work convincing his owners that selling the league as one TV package to either the two big networks at the time, the Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS) or the National Broadcasting Company (NBC) was the way to go.
In 1961, the 14 NFL owners decided to sell their TV rights as one and give a TV network the right to show all 98 games on the schedule just like Hunt's league was doing (not every one of the AFL's games was shown on ABC in 1960) Rozelle cut a two-year, $9.1 million deal with CBS but the NFL decided to make sure their deal was legal and submitted the deal before Federal Judge Alan K. Grim in Philadelphia.
Justice Grim was very familiar with NFL TV deals. In 1953, Judge Grim handed down a ruling that gave the NFL the right to blackout team's home games which meant that a local fan either had to buy a ticket to a home game to watch the team or travel about 75 miles and watch the game in an out of town bar or hotel and cheer on the home team from there. In the 1960s, it was common for New York Giants fans to travel to Connecticut to watch WTIC, Channel 3 in Hartford if they wanted to see Giants games and could not get a ticket inside Yankee Stadium. In July 1961, Judge Grim decided the NFL-CBS deal violated antitrust laws because the agreement the competition between teams for TV deals. The decision flew counter to the AFL-ABC deal as well as the National Basketball Association's partnership with the National Broadcasting Company
Because the league was under a court-ordered injunction which prevented it from signing a league-wide contract with a network which meant Rozelle had to become a lobbyist and find a sympatric ear in either the House or the Senate. Rozelle found just the man he needed in Congressman Cellar, the Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee's Subcommittee on Anti-Trust and Monopoly. The long time Brooklyn Democrat in the House got a bill through the House and a similar bill introduced in the Senate by one time Vice Presidential candidate, Tennessee Democrat Estes Kefauver pushed a bill through the Senate. The whole process took about a month as Cellar began hearings on August 28. The proceedings took a day.
President John F. Kennedy signed the Sports Broadcast Act of 1961 into law on September 30. The legislation gave both the NFL and AFL cover from the Sherman Anti-Trust Act and gave the same protection to the National Basketball Association as well as the National Hockey League. The American and National Leagues of Baseball already had an antitrust exemption thanks to the Supreme Court decision of 1922 in the Baltimore Terrapins versus the National League case. Congressman Cellar and Senator Kefauver didn't overlook college football in the bill.
There was provision included which precluded the NFL from televising any game on either Friday night after 6 PM or on Saturday between the second Friday in September and ending on the second Saturday in December. This was done to protect college football which had a TV deal in place for Saturday afternoons.
After operating under local contracts for the 1960 and 1961 seasons, the NFL pooled its television rights and sold them to CBS for $4.65 million annually for the league. In 1963, NBC was awarded exclusive network broadcasting rights for the 1963 AFL Championship Game for $926,000, and later signed a five-year, $36 million television contract with the AFL IV to begin with the 1965 season.
In 1950, the most popular sports in the United States were baseball, horse racing and boxing. Within a decade, Americans had falling in love with Sunday afternoon football, with the 1958 NFL title game between the Baltimore Colts, led by a crew cut quarterback named John Unitas taking on the glamour boys from New York. The Giants were led by handsome Frank Gifford and were the darlings of Madison Avenue. The close game went into overtime and with Unitas leading the Colts downfield for a game-winning touchdown. That game changed the course of TV history for the NFL. The Giants would lose the 1959 NFL title game as well to the Colts, but that didn’t diminish TV’s appetite for Giants players. In 1960, middle linebacker Sam Huff was featured on the CBS television show 20th Century with Walter Cronkite providing the narration of “The Violent World of Sam Huff.” TV embraced football, both the National and American Football League. It was the perfect sports event for the small screen.
Public Law 87-331, better known as the Sports Broadcasting Act, is the most important piece of legislation passed by Congress and signed into In 1964, CBS submitted the winning bid of $14.1 million per year for the NFL regular-season television rights for the 1964 and 1965 seasons, and also acquired the rights to the championship games for $1.8 million per game for those same seasons. In 1965, CBS acquired the rights to the NFL regular-season games in 1966 and 1967, with an option for 1968, for $18.8 million per year (an increase of 33% over the prior deal). The NFL later moved to an arrangement in which all of the networks got some of the games, making all networks solely interested in broadcasting the games of the NFL, and not those of a rival league. By 1969, TV income had risen to $1.6 million per team in the NFL and $900,000 per team in the AFL.
The television deals signed by CBS and the NFL solidified the profitability of the NFL and the 1964 AFL-MNC deal enhanced football's popularity. “The TV contract and then the June 1966 AFL-NFL merger made it possible,” said Wellington Mara, the long time owner of the NY Giants, years later in analyzing the NFL's success. “You can't predict what would have happened, but we certainly would not have the league we have today. That was the most important decision ever made in the league.”
After the merger of the AFL and the NFL in 1966 (the television contracts did not expire until 1970), Rozelle thought a Monday Night televised game would be a ratings grabber. After CBS and NBC declined, due to the success of shows such as Laugh-In, Rozelle approached ABC. ABC, which had been struggling in prime time for years, jumped at the chance in 1969. Monday Night Football (MNF) debuted in 1970, with ABC acquiring the rights to televise 13 NFL regular-season Monday night games in 1970, 1971, and 1972. The Jets lost to Cleveland 31-21 in the first Monday Night Football contest, and Howard Cosell and Don Meredith provided commentary. Joe Namath, star Quarterback for the Jets who eventually would be on the MNF crew, could not envision what kind of franchise Monday Night Football would become. “For players back then especially, we didn't realize anything about prime time or how many people would be watching. It was another game for us. It was exciting knowing that you are on television,” said Namath. “Monday Night Football is great for the fans and the players alike. Heck, I didn't have the foresight to see how important that was.”
Congressman Emanuel Cellar has never been honored by the NFL or recognized by the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio but he is as responsible for the NFL's success as much as Rozelle, Halas, Namath, Red Grange and a handful of others including two Presidents Theodore Roosevelt (who single handily saved football) and Ronald Reagan (who signed into law the 1984 Cable TV Act and the 1986 Tax Act which changed sports). Cellar's legislation propelled the NFL and by 1965, pro football eclipsed baseball as America's favorite sport.
eweiner@mcn.tv
Wednesday is Emanuel Cellar Day
By Evan Weiner
September 29, 2009
10:00 AM EDT
(New York, N. Y.) -- September 30th is Emanuel Cellar Day around the NFL and NFL owners and players should be celebrating the life of one of the 20 most important people in NFL history. Wait a second, when did Emanuel Cellar play football? Did Emanuel Cellar coach a team? Did Cellar own a franchise? Was he a Commissioner?
The answer to all of those questions is no. Emanuel Cellar never put on a uniform, never patrolled a sideline or ran the NFL yet without Emanuel Cellar, the NFL of today might be a totally different entity. It is conceivable that there would be no Super Bowl without the Brooklyn native, Congressman Cellar.
New York Congressman Emanuel Cellar first entered the House of Representatives in 1923. In 1923, the NFL was a floating craps game with teams scattered throughout the American northeast and Midwest that would come and go. It is unclear if the young Congressman liked football in his early days in office. But the Brooklyn representative's impact on professional football would come nearly four decades later in 1961, when Congressman Cellar authored legislation that would give the NFL tremendous clout with growing television networks: the Sports Broadcast Act of 1961. That summer, both the House and Senate passed Cellar’s legislation, and the Act was signed into law by President John F. Kennedy on September 30, 1961. The Cellar Bill allowed the NFL to market its broadcast rights as a league package, evenly spreading the broadcasting revenues among the franchises and guaranteeing each team substantial annual revenues.
In 1961, the National Football League was still mired in a mom and pop store mentality not long removed from the days of when Chicago Bears owner and Coach George Halas would travel to Wisconsin and lend a hand at Green Bay Packers fund raisers. The NFL was growing in the 1950s because of television exposure but the league owners were extremely cautious in their business decisions and with good reason. The business of the National Football League was strictly a six month a year affair and there was not much financial growth or stability until the mid 1950s.
That all changed in 1959 when Lamar Hunt and Bud Adams were unable to buy the Chicago Cardinals, Hunt wanted to move the franchise to Dallas and Adams wanted to place it in Houston, nor were they able to convince Halas and Pittsburgh owner Art Rooney that the 12-team NFL should expand. So Hunt started his own circuit, the American Football League, got Adams to join up and found six other owners. Hunt's new league, the AFL would start operations in 1960.
In early 1960, Hunt's league or AFL IV (three previous AFLs folded in the 1920s and 1930s) signed a television contract with the rather weak American Broadcasting Company for $2 million per year for the first five years, with each AFL franchise receiving $250,000 per team per year, which was approximately 15% less than received per team in the NFL.
The deal, which was brokered by among others Jay Michaels, the father of Al Michaels who was the announcer of Monday Night Football and now Sunday Night Football, was somewhat astounding as the AFL had no track record but neither did ABC which wasn't even seen in a number of American cities in those days. But ABC needed something and the AFL would be a perfect partner.
Part of the success of the league in attaining coverage was due to New York Titans owner Harry Wismer, who was also a noted sportscaster of the time. Wismer got AFL IV game coverage on the Associated Press and United Press International wires and helped the league land a contract with ABC. History has been unkind to Wismer as the New York Titans franchise skirted with bankruptcy but without Wismer, there might not have been a big TV deal. The AFL pooled its eight teams and sold ABC the league's team as one entity which was against United States antitrust laws. But the AFL was a new business that flew under the radar, at least in legal circles.
The NFL owners and new NFL Commissioner Pete Rozelle took note of the AFL-ABC TV deal and wanted the same thing. In 1960, NFL teams were on TV but each of the 13 teams put together a local TV network and the large city teams, New York, Chicago and Los Angeles received far more TV money than Green Bay, Baltimore and Pittsburgh. The inequity of TV revenues could have become a big problem but Rozelle went to work convincing his owners that selling the league as one TV package to either the two big networks at the time, the Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS) or the National Broadcasting Company (NBC) was the way to go.
In 1961, the 14 NFL owners decided to sell their TV rights as one and give a TV network the right to show all 98 games on the schedule just like Hunt's league was doing (not every one of the AFL's games was shown on ABC in 1960) Rozelle cut a two-year, $9.1 million deal with CBS but the NFL decided to make sure their deal was legal and submitted the deal before Federal Judge Alan K. Grim in Philadelphia.
Justice Grim was very familiar with NFL TV deals. In 1953, Judge Grim handed down a ruling that gave the NFL the right to blackout team's home games which meant that a local fan either had to buy a ticket to a home game to watch the team or travel about 75 miles and watch the game in an out of town bar or hotel and cheer on the home team from there. In the 1960s, it was common for New York Giants fans to travel to Connecticut to watch WTIC, Channel 3 in Hartford if they wanted to see Giants games and could not get a ticket inside Yankee Stadium. In July 1961, Judge Grim decided the NFL-CBS deal violated antitrust laws because the agreement the competition between teams for TV deals. The decision flew counter to the AFL-ABC deal as well as the National Basketball Association's partnership with the National Broadcasting Company
Because the league was under a court-ordered injunction which prevented it from signing a league-wide contract with a network which meant Rozelle had to become a lobbyist and find a sympatric ear in either the House or the Senate. Rozelle found just the man he needed in Congressman Cellar, the Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee's Subcommittee on Anti-Trust and Monopoly. The long time Brooklyn Democrat in the House got a bill through the House and a similar bill introduced in the Senate by one time Vice Presidential candidate, Tennessee Democrat Estes Kefauver pushed a bill through the Senate. The whole process took about a month as Cellar began hearings on August 28. The proceedings took a day.
President John F. Kennedy signed the Sports Broadcast Act of 1961 into law on September 30. The legislation gave both the NFL and AFL cover from the Sherman Anti-Trust Act and gave the same protection to the National Basketball Association as well as the National Hockey League. The American and National Leagues of Baseball already had an antitrust exemption thanks to the Supreme Court decision of 1922 in the Baltimore Terrapins versus the National League case. Congressman Cellar and Senator Kefauver didn't overlook college football in the bill.
There was provision included which precluded the NFL from televising any game on either Friday night after 6 PM or on Saturday between the second Friday in September and ending on the second Saturday in December. This was done to protect college football which had a TV deal in place for Saturday afternoons.
After operating under local contracts for the 1960 and 1961 seasons, the NFL pooled its television rights and sold them to CBS for $4.65 million annually for the league. In 1963, NBC was awarded exclusive network broadcasting rights for the 1963 AFL Championship Game for $926,000, and later signed a five-year, $36 million television contract with the AFL IV to begin with the 1965 season.
In 1950, the most popular sports in the United States were baseball, horse racing and boxing. Within a decade, Americans had falling in love with Sunday afternoon football, with the 1958 NFL title game between the Baltimore Colts, led by a crew cut quarterback named John Unitas taking on the glamour boys from New York. The Giants were led by handsome Frank Gifford and were the darlings of Madison Avenue. The close game went into overtime and with Unitas leading the Colts downfield for a game-winning touchdown. That game changed the course of TV history for the NFL. The Giants would lose the 1959 NFL title game as well to the Colts, but that didn’t diminish TV’s appetite for Giants players. In 1960, middle linebacker Sam Huff was featured on the CBS television show 20th Century with Walter Cronkite providing the narration of “The Violent World of Sam Huff.” TV embraced football, both the National and American Football League. It was the perfect sports event for the small screen.
Public Law 87-331, better known as the Sports Broadcasting Act, is the most important piece of legislation passed by Congress and signed into In 1964, CBS submitted the winning bid of $14.1 million per year for the NFL regular-season television rights for the 1964 and 1965 seasons, and also acquired the rights to the championship games for $1.8 million per game for those same seasons. In 1965, CBS acquired the rights to the NFL regular-season games in 1966 and 1967, with an option for 1968, for $18.8 million per year (an increase of 33% over the prior deal). The NFL later moved to an arrangement in which all of the networks got some of the games, making all networks solely interested in broadcasting the games of the NFL, and not those of a rival league. By 1969, TV income had risen to $1.6 million per team in the NFL and $900,000 per team in the AFL.
The television deals signed by CBS and the NFL solidified the profitability of the NFL and the 1964 AFL-MNC deal enhanced football's popularity. “The TV contract and then the June 1966 AFL-NFL merger made it possible,” said Wellington Mara, the long time owner of the NY Giants, years later in analyzing the NFL's success. “You can't predict what would have happened, but we certainly would not have the league we have today. That was the most important decision ever made in the league.”
After the merger of the AFL and the NFL in 1966 (the television contracts did not expire until 1970), Rozelle thought a Monday Night televised game would be a ratings grabber. After CBS and NBC declined, due to the success of shows such as Laugh-In, Rozelle approached ABC. ABC, which had been struggling in prime time for years, jumped at the chance in 1969. Monday Night Football (MNF) debuted in 1970, with ABC acquiring the rights to televise 13 NFL regular-season Monday night games in 1970, 1971, and 1972. The Jets lost to Cleveland 31-21 in the first Monday Night Football contest, and Howard Cosell and Don Meredith provided commentary. Joe Namath, star Quarterback for the Jets who eventually would be on the MNF crew, could not envision what kind of franchise Monday Night Football would become. “For players back then especially, we didn't realize anything about prime time or how many people would be watching. It was another game for us. It was exciting knowing that you are on television,” said Namath. “Monday Night Football is great for the fans and the players alike. Heck, I didn't have the foresight to see how important that was.”
Congressman Emanuel Cellar has never been honored by the NFL or recognized by the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio but he is as responsible for the NFL's success as much as Rozelle, Halas, Namath, Red Grange and a handful of others including two Presidents Theodore Roosevelt (who single handily saved football) and Ronald Reagan (who signed into law the 1984 Cable TV Act and the 1986 Tax Act which changed sports). Cellar's legislation propelled the NFL and by 1965, pro football eclipsed baseball as America's favorite sport.
eweiner@mcn.tv
Wednesday, August 5, 2009
A Foolish Club Member Gets the Ultimate Honor This Weekend
http://www.mcnsports.com/en/node/7486
A Foolish Club Member Gets the Ultimate Honor This Weekend
By Evan Weiner
August 5, 2009
6:00 PM EDT
(New York, N. Y.) -- Buffalo Bills owner Ralph Wilson will enter the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio this weekend in a celebration of Wilson’s contribution to football and a tip of the hat to the American Football League. The AFL or AFL IV was an entity with a short history that featured a group of men who collectively changed football and in the process opened the door to many who were shut out of football, particularly athletes from black colleges and took social stands.
The AFL shut down the weekend following the assassination of U. S. President John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963. The older National Football League did not. The league pulled an all-star game and a potential expansion franchise out of New Orleans in 1965 because of African-American players could not get cabs from the airport into the city nor could they eat at the same restaurants as their white teammates or stay in the same hotels despite passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
Wilson and his fellow AFL owners read from a different playbook than the established NFL. Wilson’s team won the AFL championship in 1965 and 1966.
Wilson is an original member of the “Foolish Club” eight men with some means who challenged the football establishment, the National Football League although the NFL of 1959 when Texas native Lamar Hunt decided to form his new league was little more than a rag tag outfit. Hunt had previously applied for expansion franchises in Dallas, and had also tried to buy the Chicago Cardinals with the idea of moving them to Texas, but the NFL rejected both of his offers. After his attempts to create an NFL team failed, Hunt began to organize a rival league, the American Football League.
Wilson and Tennessee owner K. S. “Bud” Adams are the last two survivors of the “era of change” still active in football.
Hunt’s AFL was the fifth attempt by a group of owners to start a rival league; none were successful although the NFL did add the Cleveland Rams from the second AFL in 1937, that team moved to Los Angeles in 1946, and three teams from the All American Football Conference, the Baltimore Colts, Cleveland Browns and San Francisco 49ers in 1950.
NFL owners, with the league somewhat stable by the mid-1950s with 12 franchises of varying financial backing from the good, New York, Los Angeles, the Chicago Bears to the weak, Green Bay, Pittsburgh and the Chicago Cardinals with everyone else in between, thought about expansion and were interested in adding franchises in Houston, Dallas, Miami, Minneapolis, and Buffalo. However, there had to be a unanimous vote of all NFL owners to expand and two of them opposed expansion.
In 1959, Hunt lined up six owners for the new AFL. A number of the AFL IV owners including Adams had repeatedly petitioned the NFL for expansion teams or tried to purchase existing teams like the Chicago Cardinals. A future AFL owner, Boston’s William H. Sullivan, among the first to conceive of putting luxury boxes into a stadium in 1958, failed to bring an NFL team to the Hub.
Had Sullivan landed an NFL franchise and built his proposed stadium, it would have also housed the Boston Red Sox as he and Red Sox owner Tom Yawkey would have been partners which would have eliminated the need for Fenway Park.
The first meeting of AFL IV was held in Chicago on August 14, 1959, with Hunt representing his Dallas franchise; Bob Howsam, with a Denver franchise; Bud Adams, with a Houston franchise; Barron Hilton, with a Los Angeles franchise; Max Winter and Bill Boyer, with a Minneapolis franchise; and Harry Wismer, owner of the New York City franchise. Buffalo, owned by Ralph Wilson, became the seventh franchise in late October, and Boston, owned by William H. Sullivan, became the eighth team.
Buffalo last had an NFL team in 1929. A moderately successful AAFC team was not invited into the NFL following the 1949 season.
“I think there was an opportunity, the sport needed to grow. It had gone through a consolidation period and we had seen the 1958 great championship game between the Giants and Colts,” recalled Hunt. “There was great national interest in the game and there were a lot of cities frankly that were growing, and not all of them had great stadium facilities. But it was beginning to happen. The public was beginning to perceive that this game had a national appeal.”
In response to the threat of a rival league, some NFL owners tried to push forward a plan to expand by four teams, one of which would be in Dallas, but that plan was vetoed by one owner, George Marshall of the Redskins. Hunt talked with Chicago Bears owner George Halas about an expansion which would have included the six teams that he had lined up for his new league, but Halas informed him of the NFL wanted to limit expansion to four teams, and would not accept the offer.
The Minnesota owners, despite being members of the AFL, were also conducting negotiations with the NFL for an expansion franchise, and when that news leaked, the Metropolitan Stadium Commission of the Twin Cities withheld its approval of a stadium deal with AFL IV to see if it could get an NFL team instead. The AFL Minnesota owners pulled out. AFL IV assigned the franchise to Oakland.
In early 1960, the NFL changed its bylaws to require a 5/6th vote to approve league expansion, but retained its unanimous vote requirement for expanding into an existing team’s territory. A unanimous vote led to Clint Murchison being awarded a franchise to operate the Texas Rangers franchise in Dallas for the 1960 season, which later became the Dallas Cowboys. The Cardinals were also permitted to relocate to St. Louis for the 1960 season. Soon after, Minnesota was granted a franchise for the 1961 season.
Even though NFL owners were trying to throw Hunt a roadblock in his efforts to establish both the AFL and his Dallas franchise, the NFL did not go out of its way to make the Rangers (Cowboys) a very competitive team.
AFL IV both competed with and improved the NFL, expanding the presence of professional football. “The AFL jerked the game of pro football forward rapidly into an era where all of a sudden instead of there being 12 teams, in one year's time there were 21 teams,” recalled Hunt. “Before 1960, you had two West Coast cities in the NFL and the rest concentrated in the northeast. The AFL changed all of that. Suddenly you had pro football in cities that didn't have it before, Dallas, Denver, Houston and Buffalo…. There was a need for a second football league…. There was a need, a natural opening for it. The AFL was very fortuitous, it had perfect timing.”
This was the first rival league where television income played a critical role it its survival. Before it began play in November 1959, AFL IV approved a cooperative television plan whereby the league office negotiated the television contract and equally divided proceeds among member clubs. In 1960, AFL IV signed a network contract with ABC for $2 million per year for the first five years, which amounted to $250,000 per team per year, approximately 15% less than received per team in the NFL.
Part of the success of the league in attaining coverage was due to New York Titans owner Harry Wismer, who was also a noted sportscaster of the time. Wismer got AFL IV game coverage on the Associated Press and United Press International wires and helped the league land a contract with ABC.
At the time, the NFL was under a court-ordered injunction, as a result of United States v. NFL that prevented it from signing a league-wide contract with a network. After operating under local contracts for the 1960 and 1961 seasons, the NFL pooled its television rights and sold them to CBS following the passing of an act by Congress that exempted league-wide television agreements in sports from antitrust laws for $4.65 million annually for the league.
Television revenues were large enough to keep the AFL going, and the AFL was generally considered a well-financed league. Despite having a good team, Los Angeles played before just 8,000 fans when it played in the Western Division championship at the Los Angeles Coliseum. Moreover, the AFL lacked a major league presence that might have helped it to succeed. Houston played on a dirt field in a high school stadium, and the Boston Patriots played in different stadiums on Friday nights so the team would not compete with New York Giants telecasts in New England on Sunday afternoons.
Exposure was the key that allowed this fourth American Football League to survive. Wismer was the conduit between the AFL owners and the media decision makers.
"It was pretty good but not equal," according to Hunt.
"We certainly had good inroads and the media, interestingly, really wanted the AFL to succeed, a lot of them did.
"That's not always true; I think sometimes in a new league like Major League Soccer, I think the media is very ho-hum about it because they have plenty to cover.
"Harry was very important, a battler and fighter and helped make things happen that would not have happened otherwise."
The Oakland Senors became the Raiders and played its games in San Francisco at Kezar Stadium, Oakland owners thought about relocating the franchise to Vancouver but found a place to play in Oakland in 1962. Wilson loaned Oakland money to get the franchise through tough times. Denver was a laughing stock, Boston was constantly looking for a stadium after Sullivan’s proposed football-baseball park failed to materialize and the New York Titans weren't drawing people to the Polo Grounds. Los Angeles has playing before thousands upon thousands of empty seats despite having a good football team.
Hilton moved the Chargers to San Diego in 1961, Oakland restructured its ownership and Denver was sold. In 1962, the AFL decided against expanding after listening to presentations by Kansas City, New Orleans and Atlanta. But Hunt took the Kansas City offer in 1963 and moved his franchise from Dallas to western Missouri.
The biggest off field business move for the AFL happened on March 28, 1963 however. That was the day a five-man syndicate led by David (Sonny) Werblin purchased the bankrupted New York Titans for $1 million.
Wilson was one of the few guys with a solid franchise in Buffalo. A city that was not yet in decline when he got the franchise in 1959.
It was around 1962 that Wilson started talking to Baltimore Colts owner Carroll Rosenbloom about the possibility of merging the leagues but nothing would come of that meeting and the owners started to pay bigger salaries to unproven rookies fresh out of college.
NBC was awarded exclusive network broadcasting rights for the 1963 AFL Championship Game for $926,000, and later signed a five-year, $36 million television contract with the AFL IV to begin with the 1965 season.
The NBC contract gave the AFL the financial wherewithal to sign players to larger contracts and new Commissioner Al Davis began signing NFL stars like John Brodie and Roman Gabriel to AFL contracts.
In 1966, as a result of the escalating competition between the leagues, Halas decided he had had enough with the war with the AFL, and pushed for a merger to end it. Dallas Cowboys President Tex Schramm and Hunt had already devised a comprehensive plan before Halas came to them with the merger proposal. Neither Gabriel nor Brodie ever played in the AFL but they became rich because of Davis’ planned raid of the NFL.
The United States Congress approved the NFL-AFL merger when an anti-trust exemption was added as a rider to an anti-inflation tax bill. In October, 1966 President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the bill into law, thus creating a newly expanded NFL.
Under the merger agreement, the two leagues combined to form an expanded league with 24 teams, to be increased to 26 in 1968 and to 28 by 1970 or soon thereafter. (Soon after would be in 1974 when the league gave Seattle and Tampa franchises not because the NFL was wanted to honor the 1966 merger agreement but league owners jumped into those two cities to keep the World Football League from establishing teams in that new league)
All existing franchises would be retained, and no franchises would be transferred outside their metropolitan areas. Despite a proposal to move the Jets to Los Angeles, the Rams to San Diego, the Chargers to New Orleans and the Raiders to Portland or Seattle. While maintaining separate schedules through 1969, the leagues agreed to play an annual AFL-NFL World Championship Game beginning in January 1967, and to hold a combined draft, also beginning in 1967. Official regular-season play would start in 1970 when the two leagues would officially merge to form one league with two conferences. Pete Rozelle was named Commissioner of the expanded league.
“It was the right thing to do,” said Hunt. “It consolidated the sport. It assured the continuity of every team in both leagues. There were some teams that were pretty weak financially at that point. Some teams going out of business generally accompanied previous mergers in sports. We assured that every team would stay in business. We assured the addition of new teams in Cincinnati and New Orleans. It gave the public the Super Bowl. It also provided the teams and the league with a common draft, which provided for an equal dissemination of playing talent.”
Terms of the agreement included AFL payments to the NFL of $18 million (over 20 years), much of which went to the San Francisco 49ers ($8 million) and the New York Giants ($10 million), whose territories were being “invaded.” The AFL also agreed to pay the NFL the $7.5 million it received from the Cincinnati expansion fee.
Wilson has been in Buffalo for 50 years and the franchise will stay there until 2012. After the Bills lease runs out in Orchard Park at what will be a 40-year-old stadium is anybody’s guess. Wilson’s family will not be getting the team following his passing and Wilson opened the door to Toronto interests by “leasing: a home game in the Canada’s financial center. But that is a discussion for another time as an AFL original -- there are not many left from 1959 -- Wilson is getting his day in the Canton sun.
Wilson’s Pro Football Hall of Fame induction is also a rare acknowledgement by the Pro Football Hall of Fame of the American Football League impact on what was little more than a mom and pop entity five decades ago, professional football.
eweiner@mcn.tv
A Foolish Club Member Gets the Ultimate Honor This Weekend
By Evan Weiner
August 5, 2009
6:00 PM EDT
(New York, N. Y.) -- Buffalo Bills owner Ralph Wilson will enter the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio this weekend in a celebration of Wilson’s contribution to football and a tip of the hat to the American Football League. The AFL or AFL IV was an entity with a short history that featured a group of men who collectively changed football and in the process opened the door to many who were shut out of football, particularly athletes from black colleges and took social stands.
The AFL shut down the weekend following the assassination of U. S. President John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963. The older National Football League did not. The league pulled an all-star game and a potential expansion franchise out of New Orleans in 1965 because of African-American players could not get cabs from the airport into the city nor could they eat at the same restaurants as their white teammates or stay in the same hotels despite passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
Wilson and his fellow AFL owners read from a different playbook than the established NFL. Wilson’s team won the AFL championship in 1965 and 1966.
Wilson is an original member of the “Foolish Club” eight men with some means who challenged the football establishment, the National Football League although the NFL of 1959 when Texas native Lamar Hunt decided to form his new league was little more than a rag tag outfit. Hunt had previously applied for expansion franchises in Dallas, and had also tried to buy the Chicago Cardinals with the idea of moving them to Texas, but the NFL rejected both of his offers. After his attempts to create an NFL team failed, Hunt began to organize a rival league, the American Football League.
Wilson and Tennessee owner K. S. “Bud” Adams are the last two survivors of the “era of change” still active in football.
Hunt’s AFL was the fifth attempt by a group of owners to start a rival league; none were successful although the NFL did add the Cleveland Rams from the second AFL in 1937, that team moved to Los Angeles in 1946, and three teams from the All American Football Conference, the Baltimore Colts, Cleveland Browns and San Francisco 49ers in 1950.
NFL owners, with the league somewhat stable by the mid-1950s with 12 franchises of varying financial backing from the good, New York, Los Angeles, the Chicago Bears to the weak, Green Bay, Pittsburgh and the Chicago Cardinals with everyone else in between, thought about expansion and were interested in adding franchises in Houston, Dallas, Miami, Minneapolis, and Buffalo. However, there had to be a unanimous vote of all NFL owners to expand and two of them opposed expansion.
In 1959, Hunt lined up six owners for the new AFL. A number of the AFL IV owners including Adams had repeatedly petitioned the NFL for expansion teams or tried to purchase existing teams like the Chicago Cardinals. A future AFL owner, Boston’s William H. Sullivan, among the first to conceive of putting luxury boxes into a stadium in 1958, failed to bring an NFL team to the Hub.
Had Sullivan landed an NFL franchise and built his proposed stadium, it would have also housed the Boston Red Sox as he and Red Sox owner Tom Yawkey would have been partners which would have eliminated the need for Fenway Park.
The first meeting of AFL IV was held in Chicago on August 14, 1959, with Hunt representing his Dallas franchise; Bob Howsam, with a Denver franchise; Bud Adams, with a Houston franchise; Barron Hilton, with a Los Angeles franchise; Max Winter and Bill Boyer, with a Minneapolis franchise; and Harry Wismer, owner of the New York City franchise. Buffalo, owned by Ralph Wilson, became the seventh franchise in late October, and Boston, owned by William H. Sullivan, became the eighth team.
Buffalo last had an NFL team in 1929. A moderately successful AAFC team was not invited into the NFL following the 1949 season.
“I think there was an opportunity, the sport needed to grow. It had gone through a consolidation period and we had seen the 1958 great championship game between the Giants and Colts,” recalled Hunt. “There was great national interest in the game and there were a lot of cities frankly that were growing, and not all of them had great stadium facilities. But it was beginning to happen. The public was beginning to perceive that this game had a national appeal.”
In response to the threat of a rival league, some NFL owners tried to push forward a plan to expand by four teams, one of which would be in Dallas, but that plan was vetoed by one owner, George Marshall of the Redskins. Hunt talked with Chicago Bears owner George Halas about an expansion which would have included the six teams that he had lined up for his new league, but Halas informed him of the NFL wanted to limit expansion to four teams, and would not accept the offer.
The Minnesota owners, despite being members of the AFL, were also conducting negotiations with the NFL for an expansion franchise, and when that news leaked, the Metropolitan Stadium Commission of the Twin Cities withheld its approval of a stadium deal with AFL IV to see if it could get an NFL team instead. The AFL Minnesota owners pulled out. AFL IV assigned the franchise to Oakland.
In early 1960, the NFL changed its bylaws to require a 5/6th vote to approve league expansion, but retained its unanimous vote requirement for expanding into an existing team’s territory. A unanimous vote led to Clint Murchison being awarded a franchise to operate the Texas Rangers franchise in Dallas for the 1960 season, which later became the Dallas Cowboys. The Cardinals were also permitted to relocate to St. Louis for the 1960 season. Soon after, Minnesota was granted a franchise for the 1961 season.
Even though NFL owners were trying to throw Hunt a roadblock in his efforts to establish both the AFL and his Dallas franchise, the NFL did not go out of its way to make the Rangers (Cowboys) a very competitive team.
AFL IV both competed with and improved the NFL, expanding the presence of professional football. “The AFL jerked the game of pro football forward rapidly into an era where all of a sudden instead of there being 12 teams, in one year's time there were 21 teams,” recalled Hunt. “Before 1960, you had two West Coast cities in the NFL and the rest concentrated in the northeast. The AFL changed all of that. Suddenly you had pro football in cities that didn't have it before, Dallas, Denver, Houston and Buffalo…. There was a need for a second football league…. There was a need, a natural opening for it. The AFL was very fortuitous, it had perfect timing.”
This was the first rival league where television income played a critical role it its survival. Before it began play in November 1959, AFL IV approved a cooperative television plan whereby the league office negotiated the television contract and equally divided proceeds among member clubs. In 1960, AFL IV signed a network contract with ABC for $2 million per year for the first five years, which amounted to $250,000 per team per year, approximately 15% less than received per team in the NFL.
Part of the success of the league in attaining coverage was due to New York Titans owner Harry Wismer, who was also a noted sportscaster of the time. Wismer got AFL IV game coverage on the Associated Press and United Press International wires and helped the league land a contract with ABC.
At the time, the NFL was under a court-ordered injunction, as a result of United States v. NFL that prevented it from signing a league-wide contract with a network. After operating under local contracts for the 1960 and 1961 seasons, the NFL pooled its television rights and sold them to CBS following the passing of an act by Congress that exempted league-wide television agreements in sports from antitrust laws for $4.65 million annually for the league.
Television revenues were large enough to keep the AFL going, and the AFL was generally considered a well-financed league. Despite having a good team, Los Angeles played before just 8,000 fans when it played in the Western Division championship at the Los Angeles Coliseum. Moreover, the AFL lacked a major league presence that might have helped it to succeed. Houston played on a dirt field in a high school stadium, and the Boston Patriots played in different stadiums on Friday nights so the team would not compete with New York Giants telecasts in New England on Sunday afternoons.
Exposure was the key that allowed this fourth American Football League to survive. Wismer was the conduit between the AFL owners and the media decision makers.
"It was pretty good but not equal," according to Hunt.
"We certainly had good inroads and the media, interestingly, really wanted the AFL to succeed, a lot of them did.
"That's not always true; I think sometimes in a new league like Major League Soccer, I think the media is very ho-hum about it because they have plenty to cover.
"Harry was very important, a battler and fighter and helped make things happen that would not have happened otherwise."
The Oakland Senors became the Raiders and played its games in San Francisco at Kezar Stadium, Oakland owners thought about relocating the franchise to Vancouver but found a place to play in Oakland in 1962. Wilson loaned Oakland money to get the franchise through tough times. Denver was a laughing stock, Boston was constantly looking for a stadium after Sullivan’s proposed football-baseball park failed to materialize and the New York Titans weren't drawing people to the Polo Grounds. Los Angeles has playing before thousands upon thousands of empty seats despite having a good football team.
Hilton moved the Chargers to San Diego in 1961, Oakland restructured its ownership and Denver was sold. In 1962, the AFL decided against expanding after listening to presentations by Kansas City, New Orleans and Atlanta. But Hunt took the Kansas City offer in 1963 and moved his franchise from Dallas to western Missouri.
The biggest off field business move for the AFL happened on March 28, 1963 however. That was the day a five-man syndicate led by David (Sonny) Werblin purchased the bankrupted New York Titans for $1 million.
Wilson was one of the few guys with a solid franchise in Buffalo. A city that was not yet in decline when he got the franchise in 1959.
It was around 1962 that Wilson started talking to Baltimore Colts owner Carroll Rosenbloom about the possibility of merging the leagues but nothing would come of that meeting and the owners started to pay bigger salaries to unproven rookies fresh out of college.
NBC was awarded exclusive network broadcasting rights for the 1963 AFL Championship Game for $926,000, and later signed a five-year, $36 million television contract with the AFL IV to begin with the 1965 season.
The NBC contract gave the AFL the financial wherewithal to sign players to larger contracts and new Commissioner Al Davis began signing NFL stars like John Brodie and Roman Gabriel to AFL contracts.
In 1966, as a result of the escalating competition between the leagues, Halas decided he had had enough with the war with the AFL, and pushed for a merger to end it. Dallas Cowboys President Tex Schramm and Hunt had already devised a comprehensive plan before Halas came to them with the merger proposal. Neither Gabriel nor Brodie ever played in the AFL but they became rich because of Davis’ planned raid of the NFL.
The United States Congress approved the NFL-AFL merger when an anti-trust exemption was added as a rider to an anti-inflation tax bill. In October, 1966 President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the bill into law, thus creating a newly expanded NFL.
Under the merger agreement, the two leagues combined to form an expanded league with 24 teams, to be increased to 26 in 1968 and to 28 by 1970 or soon thereafter. (Soon after would be in 1974 when the league gave Seattle and Tampa franchises not because the NFL was wanted to honor the 1966 merger agreement but league owners jumped into those two cities to keep the World Football League from establishing teams in that new league)
All existing franchises would be retained, and no franchises would be transferred outside their metropolitan areas. Despite a proposal to move the Jets to Los Angeles, the Rams to San Diego, the Chargers to New Orleans and the Raiders to Portland or Seattle. While maintaining separate schedules through 1969, the leagues agreed to play an annual AFL-NFL World Championship Game beginning in January 1967, and to hold a combined draft, also beginning in 1967. Official regular-season play would start in 1970 when the two leagues would officially merge to form one league with two conferences. Pete Rozelle was named Commissioner of the expanded league.
“It was the right thing to do,” said Hunt. “It consolidated the sport. It assured the continuity of every team in both leagues. There were some teams that were pretty weak financially at that point. Some teams going out of business generally accompanied previous mergers in sports. We assured that every team would stay in business. We assured the addition of new teams in Cincinnati and New Orleans. It gave the public the Super Bowl. It also provided the teams and the league with a common draft, which provided for an equal dissemination of playing talent.”
Terms of the agreement included AFL payments to the NFL of $18 million (over 20 years), much of which went to the San Francisco 49ers ($8 million) and the New York Giants ($10 million), whose territories were being “invaded.” The AFL also agreed to pay the NFL the $7.5 million it received from the Cincinnati expansion fee.
Wilson has been in Buffalo for 50 years and the franchise will stay there until 2012. After the Bills lease runs out in Orchard Park at what will be a 40-year-old stadium is anybody’s guess. Wilson’s family will not be getting the team following his passing and Wilson opened the door to Toronto interests by “leasing: a home game in the Canada’s financial center. But that is a discussion for another time as an AFL original -- there are not many left from 1959 -- Wilson is getting his day in the Canton sun.
Wilson’s Pro Football Hall of Fame induction is also a rare acknowledgement by the Pro Football Hall of Fame of the American Football League impact on what was little more than a mom and pop entity five decades ago, professional football.
eweiner@mcn.tv
Sunday, May 3, 2009
Jack Kemp, a sports business force RIP
http://www.examiner.com/x-3926-Business-of-Sports-Examiner~y2009m5d3-Jack-Kemp-a-sports-business-force-RIP
Evan Weiner
Go to Evan's Home Page
Business of Sports Examiner
Jack Kemp, a sports business force RIP
Jack Kemp and I had a 30 year relationship. I first met Congressman Kemp in 1979 as a 22 year old reporter in some ballroom in Tappan, or maybe it was Orangetown, New York when he was either campaigning for something or fundraising for someone or himself. It must have been a fundraiser because it was late winter/early spring and he was 400 miles from his district. Nonetheless, it was our first meeting and it wasn't our last.
Over the years, I ran into Congressman, Housing and Urban Development Secretary Kemp, the failed Vice Presidential candidate Kemp, the former professional football player Kemp and private citizen Kemp and I was struck by how he wasn't a mean, vindictive politician filled with vitriol and distain. We never agreed on his economic policy but that never stopped me from enjoying spending time with him or talking politics or football (“lookie, lookie here comes Cookie,” he said of one time teammate Cookie Gilchrist or how Elbert “Golden Wheels” Dubenion was now “rusted wheels.”)
Nearly two decades after we first met, I found a picture of our first meeting, I showed it to him and the first thing he said was. "You had more hair in those days." I said, "Yours is grayer but the same cut." We both laughed. A few years later, we were at an NFL owners meeting at the Arizona Biltmore in Phoenix at an owners party. Jack gave my then 18 year old son a drink; it might have been a scotch and told him to join in with us. Then Jack saluted me and my son, "Shalom!"
It turned out that Kemp grew up in a heavily Jewish area, Fairfax, in Los Angeles and as a kid turned on and off the lights at a local synagogue on the Sabbath.
He joked after he bonded with my son, "I wanted to run for Vice President in the worst way and I did." Kemp was on the Republican ticket in 1996 running as the number two with Presidential candidate Robert Dole. The Dole team was beaten by incumbent President Bill Clinton and Vice President Al Gore.
Jack Kemp’s view of the world was shaped by football where the huddle is colorblind. He was just another guy looking to be a quarterback somewhere and in the late 1950s with just 12 National Football League franchises around, it was very difficult for guys like Kemp, like Len Dawson and others to get starting jobs. But Kemp caught a break when a pair of Texans, Lamar Hunt and K. S. "Bud" Adams could not get expansion franchises in the NFL nor could Hunt or Adams entice the owners of the Chicago Cardinals to sell their franchise. Hunt wanted to buy the Bidwill family Cardinals franchise and move the team to Dallas in 1959, Adams wanted the team and put the franchise in Houston.
Hunt and Adams after failing to land an NFL team started a new league, the American Football League. It was actually the fourth attempt for the name American Football League as three AFL's were formed in the 1920s and 30s and all failed although some AFL teams were absorbed into the NFL, the most notable being the Cleveland Rams.
Kemp signed a contract with Barron Hilton's Los Angeles Chargers in 1960 and played for the Hilton's Chargers in both Los Angeles and San Diego. According to Paul Maguire, who played with Kemp with the Chargers and the Buffalo Bills, Chargers players took an off season job in 1961 to help bring Balboa Stadium to AFL standards by expanding the seating capacity from 15,000 to 34,000. Maguire claims Kemp showed his political skills by leaning on teammates and encouraging them to shovel and cement so the building would get done. Maguire said Kemp made a good boss as he watched his teammates help construct the Balboa expansion. Kemp ended up with Buffalo in 1962.
The American Football League was looking for players and started singing players from traditional black football playing colleges like Grambling. This marked a sharp contrast to NFL signings of players. George Preston Marshall's Washington Redskins did not hire an African-American player until 1962 when Washington traded for Cleveland's Bobby Mitchell. The AFL experience would lead to one of the biggest civil rights showdowns in sports history in 1965 and Kemp was one of the leaders.
New Orleans missed out on hosting the 1965 American Football League All-Star Game and getting an AFL franchise because a group of players and AFL owners had a social conscience.
Kemp and his white teammates saw their teammates, black players, have cabs pass them by at the airport when they needed a ride to New Orleans, could not eat with their black teammates in New Orleans restaurants nor could they stay in the same hotels in December 1964. There were 21 African American players who were selected to be play in the game.
The American Football League was looking to expand and decided that New Orleans would be a perfect fit for the five-year-old league. The AFL owners’ plans included a January 1965 All-Star game at Tulane Stadium and an announcement at the game that the league was going to put a team in the city. But the idea came to a sudden halt because a group of players were appalled that African American players could not get hotel rooms in New Orleans or eat at city restaurants because of their skin color. This occurred after the Civil Rights Act of 1964 had been passed by Congress and signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson.
Kemp, who was a co-founder of the American Football League Players Association in 1964, and the white All-Stars said they would support whatever decision the 21 African Americans made after their meeting about boycotting the 1965 AFL All Star Game.
Their decision was to boycott the game.
The outraged group of AFL players called Houston Oilers owner Bud Adams and said they were going to boycott the game. The eight AFL owners league moved the contest to Houston. It was the first time that players and owners together showed social concern and boycotted a city. It was a remarkable showing of solidarity and backbone but it was the 1960s and some athletes, like the AFL players, took stands in those days. The boycott ended the chance that New Orleans would get an AFL team. Two years later, New Orleans had an NFL team because of Congressional maneuvering. The American Football League and the National Football League announced that the two leagues wanted a merger on June 8, 1966. Congress had to approve the marriage of the rival leagues and neither Louisiana Senator Russell Long, who was the Democratic Party whip, nor Representative Hale Boggs, the Democrat who was the House Majority Whip, weren't sure whether it made sense that the two leagues merged. New Orleans didn't have a team and Louisiana was involved in pro football so two of the most powerful politicians in Washington weren't inclined to vote on the football alliance.
Within a few days of signaling their displeasure, NFL Commissioner Pete Rozelle told Senator Long and Congressman Boggs that the NFL thought things over and would give New Orleans a franchise if they delivered the Congressional approval. The Louisiana politicians got the votes and New Orleans had a team in exchange for the merger.
Kemp ran for Congress in 1970 in western New York and won his first race. Kemp got involved with politics during the 1964 Presidential campaign supporting Republican nominee Barry Goldwater. Of course it could be argued Kemp was immersed in politics with the founding of the American Football League Players Association and winning an election to serve as president five times. Kemp was an enigma in the Republican Party as he often sided with Democrats on labor issue because of his past.
Kemp would spend the rest of his life fighting social injustices as a nine term Congressman and the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development under President George H. W. Bush. He kept advocating supply side economics claiming that cutting taxes would grow the economy.
Kemp was always a gentleman. His political view wasn't for everyone but he was always respectful. A lot of people arguing politics, whether they are career politicians or the noise machines on radio talk shows and cable TV news, would do well emulating Kemp. He was a good guy and a great acquaintance whether we saw eye to eye on issues or not. Rest in Peace, my friend.
evanjweiner@yahoo.com
Evan Weiner
Go to Evan's Home Page
Business of Sports Examiner
Jack Kemp, a sports business force RIP
Jack Kemp and I had a 30 year relationship. I first met Congressman Kemp in 1979 as a 22 year old reporter in some ballroom in Tappan, or maybe it was Orangetown, New York when he was either campaigning for something or fundraising for someone or himself. It must have been a fundraiser because it was late winter/early spring and he was 400 miles from his district. Nonetheless, it was our first meeting and it wasn't our last.
Over the years, I ran into Congressman, Housing and Urban Development Secretary Kemp, the failed Vice Presidential candidate Kemp, the former professional football player Kemp and private citizen Kemp and I was struck by how he wasn't a mean, vindictive politician filled with vitriol and distain. We never agreed on his economic policy but that never stopped me from enjoying spending time with him or talking politics or football (“lookie, lookie here comes Cookie,” he said of one time teammate Cookie Gilchrist or how Elbert “Golden Wheels” Dubenion was now “rusted wheels.”)
Nearly two decades after we first met, I found a picture of our first meeting, I showed it to him and the first thing he said was. "You had more hair in those days." I said, "Yours is grayer but the same cut." We both laughed. A few years later, we were at an NFL owners meeting at the Arizona Biltmore in Phoenix at an owners party. Jack gave my then 18 year old son a drink; it might have been a scotch and told him to join in with us. Then Jack saluted me and my son, "Shalom!"
It turned out that Kemp grew up in a heavily Jewish area, Fairfax, in Los Angeles and as a kid turned on and off the lights at a local synagogue on the Sabbath.
He joked after he bonded with my son, "I wanted to run for Vice President in the worst way and I did." Kemp was on the Republican ticket in 1996 running as the number two with Presidential candidate Robert Dole. The Dole team was beaten by incumbent President Bill Clinton and Vice President Al Gore.
Jack Kemp’s view of the world was shaped by football where the huddle is colorblind. He was just another guy looking to be a quarterback somewhere and in the late 1950s with just 12 National Football League franchises around, it was very difficult for guys like Kemp, like Len Dawson and others to get starting jobs. But Kemp caught a break when a pair of Texans, Lamar Hunt and K. S. "Bud" Adams could not get expansion franchises in the NFL nor could Hunt or Adams entice the owners of the Chicago Cardinals to sell their franchise. Hunt wanted to buy the Bidwill family Cardinals franchise and move the team to Dallas in 1959, Adams wanted the team and put the franchise in Houston.
Hunt and Adams after failing to land an NFL team started a new league, the American Football League. It was actually the fourth attempt for the name American Football League as three AFL's were formed in the 1920s and 30s and all failed although some AFL teams were absorbed into the NFL, the most notable being the Cleveland Rams.
Kemp signed a contract with Barron Hilton's Los Angeles Chargers in 1960 and played for the Hilton's Chargers in both Los Angeles and San Diego. According to Paul Maguire, who played with Kemp with the Chargers and the Buffalo Bills, Chargers players took an off season job in 1961 to help bring Balboa Stadium to AFL standards by expanding the seating capacity from 15,000 to 34,000. Maguire claims Kemp showed his political skills by leaning on teammates and encouraging them to shovel and cement so the building would get done. Maguire said Kemp made a good boss as he watched his teammates help construct the Balboa expansion. Kemp ended up with Buffalo in 1962.
The American Football League was looking for players and started singing players from traditional black football playing colleges like Grambling. This marked a sharp contrast to NFL signings of players. George Preston Marshall's Washington Redskins did not hire an African-American player until 1962 when Washington traded for Cleveland's Bobby Mitchell. The AFL experience would lead to one of the biggest civil rights showdowns in sports history in 1965 and Kemp was one of the leaders.
New Orleans missed out on hosting the 1965 American Football League All-Star Game and getting an AFL franchise because a group of players and AFL owners had a social conscience.
Kemp and his white teammates saw their teammates, black players, have cabs pass them by at the airport when they needed a ride to New Orleans, could not eat with their black teammates in New Orleans restaurants nor could they stay in the same hotels in December 1964. There were 21 African American players who were selected to be play in the game.
The American Football League was looking to expand and decided that New Orleans would be a perfect fit for the five-year-old league. The AFL owners’ plans included a January 1965 All-Star game at Tulane Stadium and an announcement at the game that the league was going to put a team in the city. But the idea came to a sudden halt because a group of players were appalled that African American players could not get hotel rooms in New Orleans or eat at city restaurants because of their skin color. This occurred after the Civil Rights Act of 1964 had been passed by Congress and signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson.
Kemp, who was a co-founder of the American Football League Players Association in 1964, and the white All-Stars said they would support whatever decision the 21 African Americans made after their meeting about boycotting the 1965 AFL All Star Game.
Their decision was to boycott the game.
The outraged group of AFL players called Houston Oilers owner Bud Adams and said they were going to boycott the game. The eight AFL owners league moved the contest to Houston. It was the first time that players and owners together showed social concern and boycotted a city. It was a remarkable showing of solidarity and backbone but it was the 1960s and some athletes, like the AFL players, took stands in those days. The boycott ended the chance that New Orleans would get an AFL team. Two years later, New Orleans had an NFL team because of Congressional maneuvering. The American Football League and the National Football League announced that the two leagues wanted a merger on June 8, 1966. Congress had to approve the marriage of the rival leagues and neither Louisiana Senator Russell Long, who was the Democratic Party whip, nor Representative Hale Boggs, the Democrat who was the House Majority Whip, weren't sure whether it made sense that the two leagues merged. New Orleans didn't have a team and Louisiana was involved in pro football so two of the most powerful politicians in Washington weren't inclined to vote on the football alliance.
Within a few days of signaling their displeasure, NFL Commissioner Pete Rozelle told Senator Long and Congressman Boggs that the NFL thought things over and would give New Orleans a franchise if they delivered the Congressional approval. The Louisiana politicians got the votes and New Orleans had a team in exchange for the merger.
Kemp ran for Congress in 1970 in western New York and won his first race. Kemp got involved with politics during the 1964 Presidential campaign supporting Republican nominee Barry Goldwater. Of course it could be argued Kemp was immersed in politics with the founding of the American Football League Players Association and winning an election to serve as president five times. Kemp was an enigma in the Republican Party as he often sided with Democrats on labor issue because of his past.
Kemp would spend the rest of his life fighting social injustices as a nine term Congressman and the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development under President George H. W. Bush. He kept advocating supply side economics claiming that cutting taxes would grow the economy.
Kemp was always a gentleman. His political view wasn't for everyone but he was always respectful. A lot of people arguing politics, whether they are career politicians or the noise machines on radio talk shows and cable TV news, would do well emulating Kemp. He was a good guy and a great acquaintance whether we saw eye to eye on issues or not. Rest in Peace, my friend.
evanjweiner@yahoo.com
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