History: It Was Only A Matter Of Time
By: Jason Arcuri
As North American society sought a return to a sense of normalcy post-WWII, both the television and professional sports industries found themselves in the similar position of looking to expand their market presence. For television, this meant challenging the dominant entertainment stranglehold held by radio over consumers. However, by promoting itself as "a 'home theatre' that brought spectator amusements into the living room" (Spigel, 2001, p.386), TV created a niche which clearly differentiated itself as an alternative to radio. At the same time, professional sports leagues were also looking to challenge certain barriers within their industry. Though they were undoubtedly the top spectator activity, the pro sports industry worried that they were becoming too reliant on specific groups of devoted followers; therefore, it sought to expand its fan base amongst the masses. With both looking to establish new audiences, television and pro sports formed a seemingly natural partnership.
While major league baseball was immediately able to take advantage of this association, pro football did not experience similar early benefits. Essentially, the main reasons for this were that football's mainly "blue-collar" fan base generally preferred the live, stadium experience of the game and that they simply could not afford access to a television set. However, even after TV became more accessible during its period of rapid expansion in the mid-1950s, pro football was still unable to boost its audience. For many observers, it took the broadcast of the thrilling 1958 NFL championship game to reverse this trend. Settled in sudden-death overtime, the game was credited for establishing an entirely new television audience and a multitude of new football fans.
Riding this new sense of
fanfare into the 1960s, pro football experienced two major developments.
First, led by its outspoken and charismatic commissioner Pete
Rozelle, the NFL negotiated its first TV contract with CBS in
1962, ensuring that all regular season and
playoff games would be broadcast to a national audience (Patton,
1984, p.56). Despite the move being unprecedented in itself,
Rozelle simply could not rest on these laurels; outdoing only himself,
he negotiated a new two-year deal with CBS in 1964 for an astounding
cost of $28.2 million (Powers, 1984,
p.178). Providing the NFL with tremendous power and leverage,
this financial windfall allowed Rozelle to negotiate a takeover
of the rival American Football League (AFL) in 1966.
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