5 CHAPTER Building the NFL Cleveland Browns running back Jim Brown makes a play in a 1958 game Many potential owners were interested in getting their own NFL teams at the time 1 Lamar Hunt had an idea in the late 1950s The son of an oil tycoon wanted to bring a professional football team to his hometown of Dallas Texas So he went to the National Football League NFL He was hardly the only one interested at the time The league had been around since 1920 But for years pro football had been in the background Major League Baseball MLB was the most popular sports league In football the college game was king After all most of the early NFL teams were limited to small cities in the Midwest Even boxing track and field and horse racing were more popular than the NFL
6 That had begun to change though By the 1940s most NFL teams were in big cities And in the 1950s TV was becoming a bigger part of US culture More and more people were buying TVs They tuned into the black-and-white shows for news and entertainment In 1958 they began tuning in to pro football too Baltimore Colts fullback Alan Ameche scores the winning touchdown in the famous 1958 NFL Championship Game
7 The NFL Championship Game was on December 28 NBC TV decided to broadcast the contest between the Baltimore Colts and New York Giants It was the first pro football game to be shown nationally Fans were treated to an exciting game The Colts finally won 23 17 in overtime An estimated 45 million fans watched The game became known as the Game of the Century Pete Rozelle realized the importance of that game He would become NFL commissioner in 1960 Under Rozelle’s leadership the NFL would set up its first national TV deal That deal helped set a foundation on which the league would grow Many others sensed this potential growth too Hunt was one of them So in the late 1950s he tried get a new team for Dallas Then he tried to buy the NFL’s Chicago Cardinals Each time the NFL said no The 12-team league was an exclusive club Its owners wanted to keep it that way Hunt wasn’t satisfied with that answer So he led a group of eight owners in starting a new pro league The American Football League AFL began play in 1960 Its teams were spread across the country Two AFL teams even played in cities that already had an NFL team The other six teams were in new markets
