Known since as the Greatest Game Ever Played, the images from that game-Unitas masterfully leading his team down the field, the physical charisma of Huff, the heroics of Ameche-built a passion for the game that would grow throughout the rest of the century. In a game that went into sudden-death overtime, Johnny Unitas, Alan Ameche, Roy Berry, Sam Huff, and Frank Gifford became household names. But the league entered a new realm on December 28, 1958, when a nationwide audience watched the NFL Championship Game at Yankee Stadium between the Baltimore Colts and New York Giants. The ratings were enough to draw attention from other networks, and NBC upped the ante in 1955, becoming the official televised home of the NFL Championship Game-and paying $100,000 to the league for the privilege. The following year, the DuMont Network paid the league $75,000 to televise the 1951 NFL Championship Game nationally. In 1950, the Los Angeles Rams and Washington Redskins had all their games televised, while other teams were able to strike separate deals that would ensure at least some of their games were on television. While baseball was distrustful of television, the NFL embraced it.
And it had the stars needed to rival baseball: Johnny Unitas, Sam Huff, Paul Hornung, and Jim Brown all joined the league within a four-year span in the late 1950s and went on to become authentic American pop culture archetypes, larger-than-life characters who loomed over the sports landscape.Īnd most importantly, the owners had television. They had larger-than-life coaches like Vince Lombardi and Paul Brown, square-jawed Midwestern men of honor who put team above everything in the quest for a title. They had owners who were willing to pour cash into their product.
#INSIDE THE BLUEPRINT PROFESSIONAL#
By 1959, they were able to stand side by side with Major League Baseball as a viable professional entity.Īnd why not? They had more money than most third-world countries. Bell had guided it through a difficult stretch that included a challenge from the All-American Football Conference, as well as a period of unprecedented growth that had made a motley collection of owners who were teetering on the brink of financial ruin into a unified group of wealthy individuals. Under Commissioner Bert Bell, the league had a stable hand at the rudder. At the end of the 1950s, there were few American institutions as well established as the National Football League.
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