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The assignment is to read the case study titled “The NFL’S 110-Billion media rights deal” which begins on page 131 of the attached document titled “sports business PDF”, and to write an analysis of the case. I have also attached another document titled “gentlemen, we will chase perfection analysis ” which is an example of a a case study analysis from earlier in the semester. This example also includes the attached grade and comments from the professor.
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BSLW 6609.01
The Business of Sports
Professor Warren Zola
Fall 2023
CPID 1504099
BSLW 6609.01: The Business of Sports (MAIN CP),
Zola – Fall 2023
Boston College
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BSLW 6609.01: The Business of Sports (MAIN CP), Zola – Fall 2023
Table of Contents
“Gentlemen, We Will Chase Perfection”: The Extraordinary Success of the National
Football League (NFL) by Arcand, Sebastien; Ethier, Stephane; Facal, Joseph
1
Small-Market Teams and Big Stars: The Milwaukee Bucks and Giannis
Antetokounmpo by Elberse, Anita; Ruffin, Melcolm
19
Deflategate and the National Football League by League Iansiti, Marco; Snively,
Christine
47
Malcolm Turner at Vanderbilt by Fubini, David G.; Barnett, James
69
Negotiating a New Agreement (A): The NFLPA and NFL Owners by Frost, Ann C.;
Patterson, Justin
89
Negotiation Exercise (Roles B-G) Handout Instructions
97
Discovering Hidden Gems: The Story of Daryl Morey, Shane Battier, and the
Houston Rockets (A) by Frances X.; Perlberg, Matthew
99
Nike, the NBA, China, and Free Speech: A Zone Defense by Tao, Zhigang; Xie,
Grace; Orr, Ellen
119
The NFL’s $110-Billion Media Rights Deals by Elberse, Anita; Warner; Warner,
Elizabeth
131
Steve Kerr: Coaching the Golden State Warriors to Joy, Compassion, Competition,
and Mindfulness by Gino, Francesca; Huizinga, Jeff
151
Pete Carroll: Building A Winning Organization through Purpose, Caring & Inclusion
by Gulati, Ranjay; Breitfelder, Matthew D.; Burke, Monte
171
Coach Knight: The Will to Win by Snook, Scott A.; Perlow, Leslie A.; Delacey, Brian
J.
205
Coach K: A Matter of the Heart by Snook, Scott A.; Perlow, Leslie A.; Delacey, Brian
J.
219
Bibliography
231
CP/O 1504099
BSLW 6609.01
Professor Zola
HANDOUT VOUCHER
Fall 2023
Purchase of this certificate entitles you to
receive your roles and handouts for in-class
exercises.
Please present this certificate to your instructor
in order to receive your in-class materials.
Name:
Sku 027792831
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Volume 14
Issue 1
March 2016
“Gentlemen, We Will Chase Perfection”: The Extraordinary Success
of the National Football League (NFL)
Case 1, 2 prepared by Sébastien ARCAND, 3 Stéphane ÉTHIER,4 and Joseph FACAL 5
We are a bunch of fat cat Republicans who vote socialist on football.
– Art Modell (1925-2012), former owner of the Cleveland Browns and
Baltimore Ravens
Any dummy can make money operating a pro football club.
– Al Davis (1929-2011), former owner of the Oakland Raiders
At the start of every year since 1967, the Super Bowl marks the close of another professional
football season and crowns the champion. 6 Over the years, this event has taken on huge
proportions, becoming not only the most viewed sporting event on American television, but also
the most widely watched show, all categories combined. The 2015 final, Super Bowl XLIX, drew
an average of 114.4 million viewers during the broadcast in the United States alone, hitting a peak
of 120.8 million viewers in the final minutes of the game, not counting the people watching in
commercial establishments. 7 This marked a new record. In the history of American television, the
21 most viewed shows have been… the 21 editions of the Super Bowl. 8
1 Translation from the French by Andrea Neuhofer of case #9 40 2016 002 “‘Gentlemen, we will chase perfection’ ou la fabuleuse
réussite de la National Football League (NFL).”
2 This analytical case study is based on publicly available data drawn from the sources indicated in the footnotes and listed in the
bibliography at the end of the case.
3 Sébastien Arcand is an associate professor in HEC Montréal’s Department of Management.
4 Stéphane Éthier is a Ph.D. student at HEC Montréal.
5 Joseph Facal an associate professor in HEC Montréal’s Department of Management.
6 The first four editions of the Super Bowl pitted the respective champions of two rival leagues against each other: the National
Football League and the American Football League. Since the merger of these two leagues in 1970, from Super Bowl V to the
present day, the champions of the League’s two conferences have faced each other in the final game of the Super Bowl. The term
Super Bowl wasn’t actually coined until 1969, on the occasion of Super Bowl III. The official name of the first two finals was the
AFL-NFL World Championship Game. The names Super Bowl I and Super Bowl II were given retroactively to the finals of 1967
and 1968.
7 F. Pallotta, “Super Bowl XLIX posts the largest audience in TV history”, CNN.com, February 2, accessed February 9, 2015.
8 “The End Zone”, The Economist, January 31, 2015, p. 26.
© HEC Montréal 2016
All rights reserved for all countries. Any translation or alteration in any form whatsoever is prohibited.
The International Journal of Case Studies in Management is published on-line (http://www.hec.ca/en/case_centre/ijcsm/), ISSN 1911-2599.
This case is intended to be used as the framework for an educational discussion and does not imply any judgement on the
administrative situation presented. Deposited under number 9 40 2016 002T with the HEC Montréal Case Centre, 3000, chemin de
la Côte-Sainte-Catherine, Montréal (Québec) H3T 2A7 Canada.
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“Gentlemen, We Will Chase Perfection”: The Extraordinary Success of the National Football League (NFL)
Dark and Light
Lurking behind the extraordinary commercial success of the National Football League (NFL),
however, lies a somewhat dark side. In October 2014, the head of the NFL, Commissioner Roger
Goodell, under intense pressure, announced a new policy of tougher penalties for players involved
in incidents of domestic violence. 1 This policy was developed in the wake of the Ray Rice scandal.
A star player for the Baltimore Ravens, Ray Rice was initially suspended for two games after
surveillance camera images in an Atlantic City casino showed him dragging his spouse, Janay
Palmer, across the floor. Later, a second video released by TMZ showed the punch delivered by
Rice minutes earlier that had rendered the young woman unconscious.
This led to the NFL’s decision to suspend Rice indefinitely. Management subsequently terminated
his contract with the team. The League was sharply criticized for its initial leniency toward Rice.
Commissioner Goodell claimed that the League hadn’t seen the second videotape when it imposed
its first sanction. Sixteen women senators wrote a letter to Commissioner Goodell saying they were
“shocked and disgusted,” wherein they demanded an investigation into the handling of the events
and the adoption of a zero-tolerance policy by the NFL. Commissioner Goodell eventually
acknowledged his mistakes:
My disciplinary decision led the public to question our sincerity, our commitment, and whether we
understood the toll that domestic violence inflicts on so many families. I take responsibility both for
the decision and for ensuring that our actions in the future properly reflect our values. […] I didn’t get
it right. Simply put, we have to do better. And we will. 2
The inquiry, which was headed by former FBI director Robert S. Mueller, found no evidence that
the NFL was aware of the second video, but that the matter as a whole should have been handled
with greater rigour. A few months later, in an ultimate bid to save what was left of his image and
career, Ray Rice made the following public declaration:
Dear Baltimore,
This is not a farewell or goodbye. The last seven years that my family and I have spent in Baltimore
have by far been the best of our lives. From the bottom of my heart, I thank you all for the love and
support you’ve shown my family and I throughout my football career. We’ll always be grateful for the
love we’ve received from all of our fans and supporters, and for winning a Super Bowl. To all the kids
who looked up to me, I’m truly sorry for letting you down, but I hope it’s helped you learn that one
bad decision can turn your dream into a nightmare. There is no excuse for domestic violence, and I
apologize for the horrible mistake I made. I hope you can find it in your heart to forgive me, and I hope
to make a positive difference in people’s lives by raising awareness of this issue. Thank you, Baltimore
Ravens, for all you have done for my family and I. I’m very grateful to Steve Bisciotti, Ozzie Newsome,
John Harbaugh, and everyone at 1 Winning Drive. I love you all very much, and I’ll always be proud
to say I played for the Baltimore Ravens. Thank you. 3
No other team has hired Rice since these events.
1 A. Howard, “NFL unveils new personal conduct policy”, MSNBC.com, October 12, 2014, accessed September 28, 2015.
2 Associated Press, “Roger Goodell admits mistake on Ray Rice, introduces new policy”, New York Post, August 28, 2014, accessed
September 29, 2015.
3 Original quotation taken from G. Mihoces,
“Ray Rice apologizes to Baltimore Ravens fans in a statement”, USA Today Sports,
February 13, 2015, accessed September 30, 2015.
© HEC Montréal
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“Gentlemen, We Will Chase Perfection”: The Extraordinary Success of the National Football League (NFL)
It would be possible to draw up an endless list of both famous and not-so-famous NFL players who
have had run-ins with the legal system. That list would include: Adrian Peterson (beating of his
four-year-old son), Michael Vick (20 months in prison for participating in an illegal dog-fighting
and gambling ring), Ben Roethlisberger (sexual assault), Plaxico Burress (illegal carrying of a
firearm, with which he accidentally shot himself), Ray Lewis (accused of murder, he agreed to
testify against two co-accused in exchange for less serious charges), to mention only a few. In
September 2014, USA Today compiled a list of 713 arrests of NFL players since 2000, including
85 for domestic violence. 1 In relation to the total number of players, these figures are below the
average for the general population, but each arrest attracts extensive media coverage and must be
handled by a league concerned with protecting its image.
In truth, the NFL has faced a slew of controversy over the years. In 2012, League authorities
revealed they had proof that, between 2009 and 2011, the New Orleans Saints had operated a
system of bonuses for players who succeeded in injuring opposing team players. The League’s
rules specifically prohibit this type of “compensation,” but the existence of wide-spread practices
of the sort, to which team managements turn a blind eye, was well-known and nothing new. The
scandal, which became known as “Bountygate,” came under public scrutiny when it became clear
that the practice, far from being informal, occasional and involving only players, had in reality
been planned, implemented and supervised by the Saints’ coaching staff. The sanctions imposed
by the League were among the most severe in its history. Head coach Sean Payton was suspended
for the entire 2012 season. Defensive coordinator Gregg Williams, who initiated the system and
was its main operator, was suspended indefinitely. Other members of management and several
players also received heavy suspensions and large fines. Several of those involved appealed against
their convictions, and there were many legal twists in the case.
There were other scandals as well, and although not all were as sordid, the League was nonetheless
forced to react. In 2007, the New England Patriots, one of the League’s most successful teams,
were severely sanctioned for filming the coaches of an opposing team during a game in a bid to
decode the signs used to give instructions to players. It was discovered that they had done this often
in the past. The affair was dubbed “Spygate.” More recently, the same New England Patriots were
accused of deliberately deflating balls used by the offence during the American Football
Conference championship game against the Indianapolis Colts on January 18, 2015, in an effort to
make the balls easier to handle. The quantity of air in footballs is strictly regulated. The team
pleaded negligence without malice. The affair, which was baptized “Deflategate,” generated a lot
of ink in the run-up to Super Bowl XLIX.
None of this, however, detracts from the fact that the world’s most successful professional sports
league makes for a fascinating object of study. The NFL does not disclose its financial reports
publicly, but one of its 32 teams, the Green Bay Packers, is registered as a publicly owned, notfor-profit organization owned by some 112,000 shareholders and is thus required to disclose its
financial results. In 2013, the Packers declared US $187.7 million in national revenue – meaning
the revenue that the teams pool together and share, including broadcasting rights, sponsorship deals
and ticket and merchandise sales 2 (t-shirts, baseball caps, etc.). If we multiply this figure by the
1 M. Martinez and P. Riojas, “NFL’s past penalties for domestic violence, a different story”, CNN.com, accessed January 11, 2015.
2 I. Ejiochi, “How the NFL makes the most money of any pro sport”, CNBC.com, accessed December 26, 2014. Without going into
too much detail, teams also earn significant “local” revenue that is not included in the revenue-sharing agreements.
© HEC Montréal
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“Gentlemen, We Will Chase Perfection”: The Extraordinary Success of the National Football League (NFL)
total number of teams (32), the overall figure is US $6 billion in annual “national” revenue. In
2010, Commissioner Roger Goodell declared that the League’s aim was to reach $25 billion in
annual national revenue by the year 2017.
The broadcasting deals alone signed with the various television networks earned the NFL
US $4.065 billion in revenue in the 2012-2013 season, while in the same year major baseball
(MLB) earned $803 million in broadcasting revenue, basketball (NBA) earned $930 million and
NASCAR auto racing earned $560 million. 1 In August 2014, Forbes estimated the average value
of an NFL team to be around US $1.4 billion, representing a jump of 23% over the previous year.
Sitting at the top of the pyramid, the Dallas Cowboys were estimated to be worth $3.2 billion last
year, making it the second most valuable sports team in the world, behind the Real Madrid soccer
team, at US $3.4 billion. 2
The Organization
In 1970, the National Football League (NFL) was divided into two conferences: the American
Football Conference (AFC) and the National Football Conference (NFC). Each conference is
divided into four divisions: East, West, North, and South. Over the last few years, each team has
played 16 regular-season games, with the top teams advancing to the play-offs. Each team has a
maximum of 53 players, only 45 of whom can play per game.
Teams can recruit players in three ways. 3 The first method is the college football draft, whereby
each club, starting with the team that finished last in the previous season and ending with the
champion, takes turns choosing a player over seven rounds. The system is based on the principle
that the advantage given to weaker teams will result in a greater competitive balance throughout,
making for a more entertaining and suspenseful show. Selected players are obliged to sign a
contract with the team that chooses them; otherwise, they can opt not to play for one year in order
to wait for the next draft, but this never happens. Teams can also hire what are known as “free
agents.” A player is a free agent if he hasn’t been drafted or if he has been in the League for at least
four years and his contract has expired. Finally, teams can also acquire players by making
exchanges with other teams.
In the United States, whether it’s football, baseball, basketball, hockey or soccer, professional
sports teams have three main sources of revenue: television broadcasting rights and broadcasting
on other media; revenue generated by merchandise sales and sponsorships using the NFL brand;
and sales of tickets and various products sold in the stadiums (food, beverages, etc.). Out of a
concern for parity, revenue derived from television and media broadcasting is shared equally
among the NFL’s 32 teams. Revenue from ticket and merchandise sales on game days are divided
between the home team (60%) and the visiting team (40%). On the other hand, revenue derived
1 J. Vrooman, “The Economic Structure of the NFL”, p. 12, in The Economics of the National Football League: The State of the
Art, K.G. Quinn (ed.), Sports Economics series, Management and Policy, New York, Springer Verlag, 2012.
2 M. Ozanian, “The NFL’s Most Valuable Teams”, Forbes.com, August 20, 2014, accessed January 22, 2015. In a separate ranking
published by Forbes in July 2014, 30 NFL teams ranked among the top 50 most valuable professional sports teams in the world.
See K. Badenhausen, “The World’s 50 Most Valuable Sports Teams 2014”, Forbes, accessed January 22, 2015.
3 The complex issue of player recruitment and compensation is explained clearly in B. Hall and J. Lim, “A Note on Incentives in
the NFL”, Harvard Business School Case 902-129, January 23, 2002.
© HEC Montréal
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“Gentlemen, We Will Chase Perfection”: The Extraordinary Success of the National Football League (NFL)
from naming rights and the highly lucrative corporate boxes is not shared. Currently, revenue from
broadcasting on TV and other media accounts for nearly half of the NFL’s total revenue, although
income from corporate boxes and naming rights has increased sharply in the wake of a construction
boom that has resulted in a new generation of ultramodern stadiums since the 1990s. 1
Also with a view to ensuring parity, since 1993, teams have had to respect a salary cap. Managing
this cap is extremely complex: the exorbitant salaries paid to the best players inevitably leave less
money to attract and retain other players. If a high-priced star fails to perform as expected, team
management cannot simply make up for it by giving more money to other players. This cap has
also led teams to use various combinations of salary and performance incentives to pay players,
with the player receiving additional amounts only if he meets the preset performance targets, as
well as offering contract signing bonuses. Contrary to other professional sports teams, an NFL team
can release a player before the end of his contract without having to pay him the whole amount of
the contract. In short, from the perspective of an NFL player, the only amount he is actually
guaranteed to receive is the signing bonus, which explains the huge amounts consented to the best
players when they sign a new contract. Player contracts are generally negotiated on their behalf by
an agent who receives a maximum of 3% of the money paid to his client. As a result, competition
between agents to represent the highest-paid players is fierce. The film Jerry Maguire (1996),
starring Tom Cruise, paints a hilarious and caustic portrait of the ultra-competitive world of these
agents and their clients. It’s estimated that player salaries account for approximately 65% of teams’
operating costs.
An NFL player’s career is exceptionally short, with the average career lasting a mere 3.8 years due
to the sport’s extreme violence. Since 1968, players belong to an officially recognized union that
negotiates collective bargaining agreements (CBA) on their behalf. Under the current contract,
players receive 55% of all revenue generated by the broadcasting of games across all media; 45%
of the revenue generated by the entity NFL Ventures, which centralizes all income from
sponsorships and sales of tickets and other products; and 40% of “local” revenue, which
encompasses all revenue not covered by the revenue-sharing agreements between the 32 teams. 2
The Early Days
In the beginning, no one could have foretold the extraordinary success that professional football –
based on the English game of rugby – would have in the United States. Its emergence dates to the
early 1870s. The first standard set of rules was officially established in 1876, but these have been
changed countless times since. The sport turned professional at the end of the 19th century. In 1892,
William “Pudge” Heffelfinger was the first player to be paid money ($500) in exchange for his
talents on the field. On the eve of World War I, there were a number of small professional leagues
scattered across the North-East and Midwest of the U.S. Bidding wars, attempts to steal the best
players from rival teams and a general lack of organization resulted in the first efforts to create a
unified league: in 1920, the American Professional Football Association was born. In 1922, it
became the National Football League (NFL).
1 See J. Alcàcer and M. Furey, “The Globalization of the NFL”, Harvard Business School Case 711-455, October 25, 2012.
2 These data are taken from I. Ejiochi, “How the NFL makes the most money of any pro sport”, CNBC.com, accessed December 26,
2014.
© HEC Montréal
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“Gentlemen, We Will Chase Perfection”: The Extraordinary Success of the National Football League (NFL)
Many of the first teams were from smaller or mid-sized towns, such as the Canton Bulldogs, from
Ohio, the Muncie Flyers, from Indiana, or the Racine Cardinals from Wisconsin. At the time,
university football drew the biggest crowds, often filling giant stadiums to capacity. By the early
1930s, the surviving teams, with the exception of the Green Bay Packers, began to migrate toward
larger urban centres in the East and Midwest, such as Pittsburgh, Chicago, New York, Cleveland,
Boston, etc. The first national final between the champions of the Eastern and Western divisions
took place in 1933. And, in 1935, Commissioner Bert Bell convinced the owners to accept the idea
of a draft whereby teams would take turns picking from among the most promising young college
football players. The sport rapidly gained popularity. In 1946, the Cleveland Rams moved to Los
Angeles, giving the NFL a foothold on the West Coast of the United States.
However, with success came competition. Another league, the All-American Football Conference,
played its first season in 1946 and briefly rivalled the NFL, but it went bankrupt in 1950. Three of
its teams – the Baltimore Colts, Cleveland Browns and San Francisco 49ers – joined the NFL,
strengthening its position. In 1956, a majority of players signed a membership card giving the
National Football League Players Association (NFLPA) the right to represent them. However, for
a long time, this association, against which the team owners fought tooth and nail, acted more like
a body relaying players’ grievances to club management rather than a union negotiating working
conditions on their behalf. The 1958 final between the Baltimore Colts and the New York Giants
at Yankee Stadium attracted 30 million spectators. Many see this as the NFL’s entrance into its
golden age.
The Pete Rozelle Era
In 1959, Commissioner Bert Bell died of a heart attack. His successor, Alvin Ray “Pete” Rozelle,
a public relations specialist and former general manager of the Los Angeles Rams, is credited with
having put in place the business model that still largely dominates today.
Rozelle quickly understood that ticket sales would likely account for less and less of the League’s
revenue going forward, and that the future lay in television contracts. He moved the NFL’s head
office from Philadelphia to Madison Avenue, New York, home to the largest advertising agencies
and the headquarters of all the major TV networks. Up to that point, each team had been responsible
for negotiating telecasts of its own games. But Rozelle convinced the owners that it would be in
their long-term interest to share the proceeds of a single, collective broadcasting contract. However,
this put the NFL in the crosshairs of U.S. anti-trust laws. In 1961, he persuaded the U.S. Congress
and President Kennedy to pass a law legalizing collective broadcasting contracts for professional
sports leagues. In 1962, CBS became the first network to sign such a contract with the NFL.
Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, Rozelle would prove to be a master at creating bidding wars
between TV networks upon the expiration of each contract. In 1963, he piloted the creation of NFL
Properties Inc., a business arm that was responsible for advertising and merchandizing. The
following year, he created NFL Films, whose avant-garde use of music, close-ups and slow-motion
shots went a long way toward building the mythology of American football.
This march toward modernization was not a painless process, however. In 1960, a group of
businessmen, several of whom had been denied a franchise in the NFL, started a rival league, the
© HEC Montréal
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“Gentlemen, We Will Chase Perfection”: The Extraordinary Success of the National Football League (NFL)
American Football League (hereinafter AFL). This league brought several innovations, such as
installing giant screens in stadiums and allowing teams to include players’ names on their jerseys.
A fierce rivalry soon developed between the two leagues, with each vying to attract the best college
prospects and win airtime for their games. At one point, the NFL attempted to counterattack by
installing teams in cities that already had an AFL team. In Dallas, for example, the NFL’s Cowboys
competed with the AFL’s Texans.
After six years, it became obvious that both organizations were losing out, and talks were initiated
for a merger of the two leagues. The first step was to organize a contest between the winner of each
league’s championship game in order to crown an overall champion (Super Bowl I, II, III and IV).
This process lasted from 1966 to 1970, at which point the two leagues were officially combined to
form a new, expanded NFL. In return for his commitment to leading the merger negotiations,
Rozelle scored another victory when, in 1966, he won approval from U.S. Congress to grant the
NFL, as a separate entity overseeing professional teams, the status of a not-for-profit organization,
similar to a chamber of commerce, thereby exempting it from paying taxes. 1
In terms of the sport of football itself, the 1960s will forever be associated with the Green Bay
Packers, who won the championship in 1961, 1962, 1965, 1966 and 1967, as well as with their
legendary coach Vince Lombardi, whose name graces the trophy awarded each year to the winner
of the Super Bowl. An icon of popular American mythology, Lombardi, a native of Brooklyn and
the son of an Italian immigrant, was an assistant coach in college football for years before getting
his chance at the professional level. For some, he is the epitome of the self-made man who started
out with nothing and remained humble, while others see him as embodying a troubling obsession
with winning at all costs. Several of his sharp and epic statements have become famous:
I firmly believe that any man’s finest hour, the greatest fulfilment of all that he holds dear, is that
moment when he has worked his heart out in a good cause and lies exhausted on the field of battle –
victorious.
Or:
Gentlemen, we will chase perfection, and we will chase it relentlessly, knowing all the while we can
never attain it. But along the way, we shall catch excellence.2
In the finalized merger, the new entity kept the name NFL, which had a longer, more established
history, but it would be misleading to think that the NFL merely swallowed its younger rival. The
negotiations were arduous. Three NFL teams (Pittsburgh, Cleveland and Baltimore) joined the 10
AFL teams (San Diego, Oakland, Kansas City, New York Jets, Buffalo, Houston, Denver,
Cincinnati, Boston and Miami) to establish the American Football Conference (AFC). The 13
teams of the former NFL (Washington, San Francisco, St. Louis, Philadelphia, Minnesota, Dallas,
New York Giants, Atlanta, Chicago, Detroit, Green Bay, Los Angeles and New Orleans) formed
the National Football Conference (NFC). This new version of the NFL was thus made up of 26
teams, including two teams in New York. In 1976, the league added the Seattle Seahawks and the
1 The tax-exempt status applied to the NFL’s headquarters in New York, which managed television contracts, the key driver of the
entire operation. The teams, which were considered businesses, had to pay taxes, but since they were private, with the exception
of the Green Bay Packers, they were not required to disclose how much they paid to the public purse.
2 See
http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/32550-gentlemen-we-will-chase-perfection-and-we-will-chase-it, accessed
September 26, 2015.
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“Gentlemen, We Will Chase Perfection”: The Extraordinary Success of the National Football League (NFL)
Tampa Bay Buccaneers. On the field, the 1970s were dominated by the Pittsburgh Steelers, who
were crowned the champions of Super Bowl IX (1974), X (1975), XIII (1978) and XIV (1979). In
the 1990s, they were joined by the Jacksonville Jaguars, the Carolina Panthers and the Baltimore
Ravens. The Houston Texans, who played their first season in 2002, were the last team admitted
to the League to date. Over the years, several teams relocated to different cities for various reasons.
For example, today’s Tennessee Titans were formerly the Houston Oilers. The St. Louis Rams used
to be based in Los Angeles. The Oakland Raiders moved to Los Angeles, but then later returned to
Oakland. The former Baltimore Colts are now based in Indianapolis.
In addition to recovering its monopoly with the merger in 1970, the other trend that contributed to
the NFL’s tremendous growth in this decade was the explosion in the popularity of television. The
three major U.S. networks at the time (ABC, NBC and CBS) decided to significantly boost airtime
devoted to sports in general. The launch of Monday Night Football on ABC in 1970, in particular,
marked a veritable revolution.
CBS was already broadcasting some games on Monday evenings, but with disappointingly low
audience ratings, the network was considering throwing in the towel. There was no great interest
from NBC. A young producer who worked for ABC, Roone Arledge, was one of the only people
who saw the potential of football on Monday evenings, provided that it was presented in a radically
different format. Since ABC was trailing the other networks and had little to lose, it decided to
obtain the television broadcast rights to Monday evening games. Arledge’s main idea was that the
games had to be presented less as a sporting competition and more as a human drama; they had to
tell a story, especially in order to attract female viewers. In an interview, he explained his view
bluntly:
What we set out to do was get the audience involved emotionally. If they didn’t give a damn about the
game, they might still enjoy the program. 1
In other words, the principle was to apply the producing and directing techniques used in television
series and film to the broadcasting of football games. Arledge brought in more cameras and
mounted them on trucks and helicopters. Handheld cameras made it possible to shoot close-ups of
players and their reactions. Thanks to better sound technology, the TV audience could hear the
sound of hits and the sometimes raunchy comments of players and coaches. He made greater use
of slow motion and split screens. Suddenly, people were able to see the blood, sweat and tears up
close, as if they were there. And to comment on these never-before-seen images, the network
brought in a trio of commentators, including, notably, Howard Cosell, a glib-tongued and
opinionated New Yorker, and Don Meredith, a former player with a heavy Texan accent, who
assumed the role of the laid-back dry wit. An amazing chemistry grew between these
commentators, who were at once knowledgeable, funny, irreverent and acerbic. No one had ever
seen or heard anything like it in televised sports, and the success was immediate, huge and lasting.
CBS and NBC resigned themselves to giving up Monday nights to ABC. The show became a
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