Bowling for Dollars

February 5, 2024?

Dear Leaders,?

Super Bowl week in the USA, a time for non-stop talk about football and interest by otherwise casual fans here and in many other countries.? What started as a way to settle a fierce rivalry between two leagues has become a massive event that is part of a larger sports behemoth dominating the American landscape throughout the year. ?Like any other success story, it took leadership to make it happen, and through a combination of vision, intransigence, understanding, and willingness to compromise, we have a sports and entertainment empire that brings us this spectacle every year.??

The National Football League traces its origins to a 1920 agreement to bring organization and common rules to what was a very rough and tumble sport that was not well regarded or attended.? College football and baseball dominated the American sports scene, but team owners and coaches saw a professional football league could be much more.? As teams came and went, the league became more established in larger cities and set a structure leading to a championship game at the end of every year.??

Pro football remained a lesser sport until the 1950s when television exposure gave it the visibility it needed to grow in popularity.? Those who saw this would increase revenue took full advantage but weren’t willing to share the growing pie.? After being rebuffed on bringing an expansion team into the league, Texas oilman Lamar Hunt met with several other aspiring team owners who decided for form their own league and began playing in 1960.? The haughty NFL team owners tried ignoring them, but as the American Football League grew in popularity, and secured a lucrative television deal of their own, it became too much to ignore.?

Despite official distancing between the leagues, there were gentlemen’s agreements and unwritten rules about honoring player contracts and drafting of college players, but when the NFL first broke the code in signing an AFL player, the rival league called their hand and raised by poaching several NFL stars.? Seeing that continued competition was not in their best interest, the senior league realized they would have to make a deal with the no longer upstarts.? Dallas Cowboys executive Tex Schramm contacted Lamar Hunt, and they met secretly to hammer out a merger agreement, for when you need to make a deal, there is no better way to make it happen than to put two Texans together, as the mutual respect and adherence to a code that rests on a promise and a handshake being binding makes it happen.? (For legal purposes, they still required a written contract.)? ??

The two leagues agreed to merge in four years, keeping their separate schedules in the interim, but added a game for the two champions to meet at the end of the season for the AFL-NFL World Championship Game that became known as the Super Bowl.? (To my international audience, I acknowledge the oddity of calling it a world championship when no other countries are involved.)? The first game was not even a sellout, and tickets went for about eight dollars.? Over the years, this grew into an increasingly larger event that now dominates popular culture in the winter, with A-list musical acts playing the halftime show, and cheap seats starting around $6,000 [sic]. ?The NFL overall has grown to be the most dominant sport in America, with revenues in the $18 billion range, and events that go well beyond the season to keep it in the public eye.??

The leadership to turn a rag-tag group of little regarded teams into a massive conglomerate that is reaching into more parts of the world took many facets from toughness to humility.? The vision to grow the sport beyond its small city roots to a bigger stage, give it rules and organization, and put it on the national stage made the NFL successful enough that others wanted in.? Conversely, the obstinance of these same executives and owners resulted in their failing to realize that a larger league would mean more for them rather than less.? Those with the audacity to buck the system and start a new league proved that diligence, patience, savvy, and a bit of good fortune can bring success.? A dose of chagrin and a sense of reality made possible the merger that not only established the pre-eminence of professional football on the American landscape, it also gave us one of one of the greatest extravaganzas in sports and entertainment.?

As you enjoy the game, think beyond the leadership of coaches and quarterbacks on the field, or executives and owners in their luxury boxes, and look to the leadership that got you to where you are today to envision something larger, or taking the risk to try something different.? Maybe you won’t draw 150 million viewers worldwide or rake in untold billions of dollars, but you can gain enough yardage to score and win.??

Sincerely,

Tim?

PS:? To my friends and colleagues down under, I concede that our brand of football pales in comparison to the Australian game.? To those who sniff that what we call soccer is a much larger sport, it is, but Americans discovered that you can carry and throw the ball to greater effect, and that if someone is standing in front of the goal, he can be taken out.?

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