9781422283080

ALL ABOUT PROFESSIONAL FOOTBALL

Commissioner, Owners, Front Office, and More R unning P ro F ootball

by Ted Brock

ALL ABOUT PROFESSIONAL FOOTBALL

F antasy F ootball

F ootball and P layer S afety

I nside C ollege F ootball : P reparing for the P ros ?

I nside H igh S chool F ootball : A C hanging T radition

I nside P ro F ootball M edia

T he I ntense W orld of a P ro F ootball C oach

T he P ro F ootball D raft

P ro F ootball P layers in the N ews

R unning P ro F ootball : C ommissioners , O wners , F ront O ffice , and M ore

T he S uper B owl : M ore T han a G ame

by Ted Brock R unning P ro F ootball : C ommissioners , O wners , F ront O ffice , and M ore

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C ontents

Key Icons to Look For Words to Understand: These words with their easy-to-understand definitions will increase the reader’s understanding of the text, while building vocabulary skills. Sidebars: This boxed material within the main text allows readers to build knowledge, gain insights, explore possibilities, and broaden their perspectives by weaving together additional information to provide realistic and holistic perspectives. Educational Videos : Readers can view videos by scanning our QR codes, providing them with additional educational content to supplement the text. Examples include news coverage, moments in history, speeches, iconic sports moments, and much more! Introduction: 32 = 1 …….…….…….…….…….…….… 6 Chapter 1: Forming the League … .…….…….…….… 8 Chapter 2: The Commissioner …….…….…….…….… 18 Chapter 3: The League Office …….…….…….…….… 34 Chapter 4: The Front Office …….…….…….…….…… 50 Find Out More …….…….…….…….…….…….…….… 62 Series Glossary of Key Terms …….…….…….…….… 63 Index/About the Author …….…….…….…….…….… 64

Text-Dependent Questions: These questions send the reader back to the text for more careful attention to the evidence presented here.

Research Projects: Readers are pointed toward areas of further inquiry connected to each chapter. Suggestions are provided for projects that encourage deeper research and analysis. Series Glossary of Key Terms: This back-of-the-book glossary contains ter- minology used throughout this series. Words found here increase the reader’s ability to read and comprehend higher-level books and articles in this field.

I ntroduction

Without the people who built the NFL and continue to fuel its growth, the players wouldn’t be the big stars they are today.

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32 = 1

By just about any measure, the National Football League is America’s—and perhaps the world’s—most popular sports league. With revenues of $13 billion in 2015 and a solid place atop opinion polls as “favorite sport,” the NFL is an enormous success. That it continues to grow is a testament to nearly 100 years of vision, ambition, and discipline. The men who formed the league in 1920 were unable to throw in the $100 their own rules said they owed. So they sealed their agreement with a handshake. Early NFL leaders built the framework that kept the league alive through the Great Depression and World War II. The era of television launched pro football on its dizzying ride. And now, in the digital age, detailed information hits hard and often. The people who built and continue to build the NFL are the subject of this book. This is a picture of pro football’s key figures then and now—from the commissioner to the league office to the 32 teams. They know their product. They understand its power. They never stop making it grow.

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C hapter 1

A Pennsylvania football club paid Pudge Heffelfinger $500 to play for its team, making him the first official pro player.

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F orming the L eague

Today, the NFL landscape glitters with money and fame. Its play- ers are icons, its team logos adorn every possible product, and its teams rake in money. The origins of this huge enterprise are much more humble, however. Here’s a brief look at how the NFL was formed and how those beginnings—and some key steps along the way—continue to have a huge impact on the sport today. The first college football game was played in 1869. The game’s popularity spread from the colleges to private athletic clubs in Ohio and Pennsylvania. In 1892, American football got its first professional player. William Walter “Pudge” Heffelfinger received $500 to play one game.

Words to Understand

adorn to decorate chaotic completely confused or disordered tainted dishonored or discredited

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A swarm of pro football teams dotted the map for the next 20 years. Most of them struggled financially. Scheduling was chaotic . Teams bid against each other for top talent, while the game itself was brutal and disorganized. Players earned two- and three- figure amounts per game. College players assumed false identities to earn extra bucks on Sundays. It was time to all start working from the same playbook. Birth of the League In August of 1920, representatives of four pro teams met in a Canton, Ohio, automobile showroom. They formed the American Professional Football Conference. A month later, 10 more teams joined the group. It was renamed American Professional Football Association, then became the National Football League in 1922. During the 1920s and 1930s, NFL teams came and went, among them one-year wonders such as the Tonawanda Kardex (0–1 in 1922), the Kenosha Ma- roons (0–4–1 in 1924), and the Kansas City Cow- boys (8–3, the NFL’s fourth-best record, in 1926).

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The original 14 franchises in 1920 swelled to 22 in 1926. The stock mar- ket crash of 1929 and the Great De- pression both took a toll, as many teams ran out of money and/or fans. By 1932, the NFL was down to eight teams. Two teams joined the following year, and the NFL split into Western and Eastern divisions. (Of course, back then “Western” was a bit of a reach. Chicago was the far- thest west NFL team until the Los Angeles Rams joined in 1951.) In the first official NFL Championship Game, the Chicago Bears defeated the New York Giants, 23–21, for the 1933 title. After World War II, the new All-Ameri- ca Football Conference (1946–49) began as a rival to the NFL. The AAFC expanded the sport’s reach to the West Coast with the Los Angeles Dons and San Francisco 49ers. In 1950, the AAFC and the NFL merged. Three teams from the AAFC—

Look Who’s Back In January 2016, Los An- geles again became an NFL city when owners voted to approve the St. Louis Rams’ move to Inglewood, an L.A. suburb. Pro football had left town in 1995—the Rams for St. Louis and the Raiders heading back to Oakland after 13 years in L.A. The Rams’ winning plan had to overcome a rival bid by the Raiders and the San Diego Chargers. They proposed sharing a new stadium in Carson, another L.A. suburb. The owners’ vote wasn’t a total loss for the Chargers. They were given the option of coming to L.A.; if they opted out, the Raiders could negotiate with the Rams.

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the 49ers, Cleveland Browns and Baltimore Colts— became part of a 13‑team NFL. That reformed new league began appearing on national television for the first time in 1956, as TV took the country by storm. In 1958, the league’s national championship game changed the future of both the medium and the sport. On December 25, 1958, the Baltimore Colts and New York Giants played the NFL Championship Game at the Polo Grounds in New York City. The first 60 minutes were not an artistic success. The last eight-and-a-half minutes changed NFL history. A 17–17 tie after four quarters forced a new term into the language of pro football: sudden-death overtime. The Colts took the ball and went 80 yards in 13 plays to win 23–17. But the outcome that mattered was the marriage of television and the NFL: the dra- ma of Baltimore quarterback Johnny Unitas master- fully directing his team’s winning drive, finishing with Alan Ameche’s touchdown from one yard out. One game suddenly generated a new level of suspense and enjoyment…and ratings.

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Network television executives woke up Mon- day morning hungry for more. NFL executives suddenly understood their product as never before. It would prove to be a perfect marriage between sport and media. The game’s three-hour length, its hori-

zontal field (just like a TV set), and its hard-hitting ac- tion (with plenty of time for commercials) all added up to TV gold. Thanks to TV, pro football over the next six decades would dominate the sports media land- scape in the United States. Rights fees would rise from around $20 million to more than $1 billion a year. Another Rival Forces Change Another newcomer to pro football, the eight-team American Football League (AFL), joined the national sporting scene in 1960, threatening the NFL’s grow- ing popularity.

Intense love of the game by guys like these has turned the NFL on TV into a huge revenue source.

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TV money got real in this decade, too. In 1964, the NFL signed a two-year deal with CBS for $28.2 million. The AFL was in the fifth and last year of a deal with ABC worth over $2 million a year. The AFL then switched to NBC, which paid $36 million for five years. In 1966, the NFL and AFL agreed to merge in 1970, but to have the league champions meet at the end of the season right away. The first AFL-NFL World Championship Game was played at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum on Jan. 15, 1967. Green Bay of the NFL defeated Kansas City of the AFL 35–10. The Packers beat the Oakland Raiders the following year. The annual championship game eventually changed its name to the Super Bowl—a monicker it lived up to in January 1969. “Broadway Joe” Namath, the AFL New York Jets quarterback, boldly predicted a victory in Super Bowl III over the heavily favored Baltimore Colts of the NFL. The Jets won 16–7. The Super Bowl has since become America’s number- one sporting event.

Inside the NFL-AFL merger

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