9781422283042

ALL ABOUT PROFESSIONAL FOOTBALL I nside P ro F ootball M edia

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

I nside P ro F ootball M edia

by Ted Brock

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Series ISBN: 978-1-4222-3576-8 Hardback ISBN: 978-1-4222-3581-2 EBook ISBN: 978-1-4222-8304-2

First printing 1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2

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Cover photograph by Scott Eklund/AP Photo.

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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: Thanks, Congress! …….…….…….…… 6 Chapter 1: NFL Media History …….…….…….…….… 12 Chapter 2: NFL TV Now …….…….…….…….…….…… 22 Chapter 3: NFL and the Internet …….…….…….…… 36 Chapter 4: NFL and Social Media …….…….…….…… 48 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

The NFL and TV has become the perfect marriage between sports and entertainment. But it wasn’t an easy road to the top.

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T hanks , C ongress !

Words to Understand antitrust laws federal rules designed to prevent one company from controlling all or most of the businesses in a certain industry or area of business lobbied met with politicians to convince them of something you support public relations the process and system for telling—from its point of view—a company’s or an organization’s story to the public Well, that didn’t just happen overnight. Instead, the NFL’s domi- nance of the American media landscape owes everything to a polite gentleman with a year-round California tan in a perfectly tailored business suit. In 1960 hardly anyone expected Alvin “Pete” Rozelle, the general manager of the Los Angeles Rams, to be elected NFL Commissioner. Most of Rozelle’s background had been in sports public relations . But after graduating to the front office in 1957, he It might be fun to think National Football League media was born fully grown, not that long ago. Doesn’t it seem like every screen, device, and machine sends out NFL news 24 hours a day?

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made the struggling L.A. franchise a success in three years. After Com- missioner Bert Bell died during a Philadelphia Eagles game in late 1959, NFL owners held a meeting in early 1960 and found themselves deadlocked over Bell’s succes- sor. They finally compromised and picked the 33-year-old Rozelle on the 23rd ballot. Once in office, Rozelle aimed much of his energy toward unifying the NFL’s network television pres-

ence. It took an act of Congress—the Broadcast Act of 1961—to make it happen, thanks again to the magic of Rozelle’s PR skills. He lobbied on Capitol Hill, and the National Football League then signed a $9.3 million, two-year contract with CBS Television. A lot of that money was distributed evenly among the 14 teams. That even distribution part was huge. The NFL now could operate outside federal antitrust laws .

Pete Rozelle was the visionary who first merged the NFL and TV on a national scale.

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The new law also reinforced the “blackout rule.” TV viewers inside a 75-mile radius of an NFL game could not receive the telecast. That meant local fans had to be at the game to see their favorite team. Without theBroadcast Act, theNFL’smerger with the American Football League in 1966 never would have happened. Nor would each of today’s 32 teams be receiving $200 million a year from 2014 to 2022,

NFL TV coverage has gone from a few cameras in fixed positions to the dozens of mobile units that cover Super Bowls.

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thanks to deals totaling $28 billion between the NFL and the four major sports broadcast networks (and others such as NFL Network, DirecTV, Telemundo, ESPN Deportes, and WestwoodOne Radio). The Super Bowl—the crown jewel in the League’s treasury of content—rotates among CBS, Fox, and NBC. Super Bowl XLIX in February of 2015 drew the largest single-event viewing audience in television history: 144.4 million.

No stadium, no TV… no problem. NFL fans can watch games anywhere they have a wireless signal.

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The National Football League approaches its 100th birthday in 2020 as the undisputed heavy- weight champion of all entertainment media. It can afford to build its television and Internet empire with caution, even in a high-speed age. It likes to study meticulously every opportunity. On its smartphone.

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C hapter 1

Under Pete Rozelle’s leadership, the NFL greatly expanded its TV offerings, while making tons of money from the networks.

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NFL M edia H istory

In the National Football League’s first 40 years, its media power and presence looked nothing like the colossus we see on our tele- vision, computer, and mobile screens today. The NFL was born in 1920, in the long shadow of college football. The first network radio broadcast of the NFL championship came in 1934. That was almost a decade after the 1925 Rose Bowl became the first college game heard coast to coast. The first NFL telecast went to fewer than 1,000 homes, on an experimental station in New York City. Network television first carried the NFL Championship Game in 1948. After grinding its way through the

Words to Understand dementia a mental disease that includes symptoms of serious memory loss and confusion folksy acting in a “down-home” or traditional way, often by someone who is not actually that way fray a conflict

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Great Depression and World War II, pro football still was a decade behind the curve. In the 1950s, a patchwork of na- tional and local television outlets brought the pro game to American homes, most- ly in plain black and white. One network,

Early NFL history

Dumont, entered the fray as a major player early in the decade, then went out of business well be- fore the 1960s. In December of 1958 came the watershed event: NBC-TV’s nationwide telecast of the 1958 NFL Championship Game between the Baltimore Colts and the New York Giants, with its riveting sudden-death overtime finish. Its national and dramatic success announced professional football’s tremendous marketability. Six decades later, it has become the Big Bang of NFL media. Massive buzz generated by TV, radio, and print media provided the kindling. Advertising and market- ing executives soon exploited the NFL’s potential. That meant a spike in the value of television rights. The jump inpro football’spopularitybecameastrongsellingpoint for the American Football League, which began play

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