1960s After
Bert Bell's death in October , the 33-year-old Rozelle was the surprise choice for his replacement as NFL commissioner. According to
Howard Cosell in his 1985 book
I Never Played the Game, the owners took 23 ballots before settling on Rozelle as NFL Commissioner at a January 26, 1960, meeting. When he took office following the season, there were twelve teams in the NFL playing a twelve-game schedule to frequently half-empty stadiums, and only a few teams had television contracts. The NFL in was following a business model that had evolved from the 1930s. One of Rozelle's early accomplishments was helping the league adopt profit-sharing of gate and television revenues. The revenue-sharing was a major factor in stabilizing the NFL and guaranteeing the success of its small-market teams. Another important contribution was Rozelle's success in negotiating large television contracts to broadcast every NFL game played each season. In doing so, he deftly played one television network against the other. In early 1962, Rozelle was re-elected to a five-year contract to remain as commissioner, with a salary continuing at $50,000 per year. Less than five months later, he was granted a $10,000 bonus (for ) and his annual salary was increased by $10,000 to $60,000.
John F. Kennedy assassination After the
assassination of President John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963, Rozelle wrestled with the decision of whether to cancel that Sunday's games. Rozelle and White House press secretary
Pierre Salinger had been classmates at the University of San Francisco, so Rozelle consulted with him. Salinger urged Rozelle to play the games, so he agreed for the schedule to proceed. Rozelle felt that way, saying: "It has been traditional in sports for athletes to perform in times of great personal tragedy. Football was Mr. Kennedy's game. He thrived on competition." After their win over the
Philadelphia Eagles in
Philadelphia, players on the
Washington Redskins asked Coach
Bill McPeak to send the game ball to the White House, thanking Rozelle for allowing the games to be played that weekend, saying that they were "playing...for President Kennedy and in his memory." There were players and news outlets that disagreed with the decision, and Rozelle subsequently thought it might have been wiser to cancel those games. The
American Football League (AFL) and
most major colleges did not play games that weekend. Citing his "aptitude for conciliation" with the league's owners, his work in expanding the NFL, and his crackdown on player gambling,
Sports Illustrated named Rozelle their "
Sportsman of the Year" for 1963.
The AFL By , the rival
American Football League obtained a new
NBC-TV contract and had signed a new superstar in
Joe Namath. As the leagues battled to sign top talent, bonuses and salaries grew dramatically, especially after a series of "raids" on each other's talent, both signed and unsigned. The leagues agreed to a merger in 1966. Among the conditions were a common draft and a championship game played between the two league champions first played in early 1967, the AFL-NFL World Championship Game, which would eventually become known as the Super Bowl. Rozelle led negotiations with AFL and NFL executives to
merge the two leagues. In October 1966, he testified in front of
Congress and convinced them to allow the merger. Rozelle played an important role in making the
Super Bowl the most watched sporting event in the United States. Due to television contracts, the AFL and NFL operated as separate leagues until 1970, with separate regular season schedules, but they met in the preseason and in the championship game. Although Rozelle nominally remained the NFL commissioner, he was given broad authority over both leagues after AFL Commissioner
Al Davis was forced to resign and ultimately replaced by an AFL
President subordinate to the NFL Commissioner. During this time, the NFL Commissioner's office came to resemble that of the
Commissioner of Baseball and Rozelle unofficially became known as the
Football Commissioner although that was never an official title. Meanwhile, the AFL expanded, adding the Miami Dolphins in 1966, and the Cincinnati Bengals in 1967. Also during this period, the NFL added the Atlanta Falcons in 1966, and the New Orleans Saints in 1967. In 1970, the AFL was absorbed into the NFL and the league reorganized with the ten AFL franchises along with the previous NFL teams Baltimore Colts, Cleveland Browns, and Pittsburgh Steelers becoming part of the newly formed American Football Conference (AFC), with all of the remaining pre-merger NFL teams forming the National Football Conference (NFC). By 1970, the newly reconstituted NFL stood at 26 teams.
1970s In 1970, Rozelle proposed his week-night
prime time television concept,
Monday Night Football, to
Roone Arledge, then the president of
ABC Sports. After selling his idea to ABC,
Monday Night Football premiered in September 1970 with the
Cleveland Browns against the
New York Jets; the Browns won the game, 31–21. The program is still broadcast today.
Monday Night Football aired on ABC for 36 seasons (1970–2005). Except for the 1998 season in which games aired at 8:20 p.m. Eastern Time, games aired at 9:00 p.m. Eastern Time. The first broadcast announcing team was
Don Meredith,
Howard Cosell, and
Keith Jackson. In 2006,
Monday Night Football was moved to ABC's sister network
ESPN. The NFL expanded by two more teams in 1976, with the addition of the
Tampa Bay Buccaneers and
Seattle Seahawks; this brought the league to 28 teams, which would stand as such for the rest of Rozelle's tenure as commissioner. He enacted in 1963 and was the namesake of the
Rozelle rule which required a team signing a
free agent to compensate that player's former ballclub with other players and/or draft selections and that he was the lone arbiter in determining the compensation package. Exercised only four times, the rule was declared a violation of
antitrust laws by Judge
Earl R. Larson in
Mackey v. National Football League on December 30, 1975. The plaintiffs had successfully contended that the rule deterred teams from signing free agents out of fear of not knowing the compensation that would have to be surrendered.
1980s in the early 1980s In the 1980s,
Al Davis, owner of the
Oakland Raiders franchise, sued the NFL in order to relocate the team to Los Angeles. Rozelle represented the NFL, testifying in court to block the Raiders' move. Ultimately, the NFL lost its court case with Davis, and the Oakland franchise moved to Los Angeles in
1982. The tension between Rozelle and Davis, who had wanted to be NFL commissioner, was apparent throughout the case. In January 1981, just after the case was settled, the Oakland Raiders won
Super Bowl XV and Rozelle as commissioner was tasked with handing the
Super Bowl Trophy to Davis. The Raiders moved back to Oakland in 1995.
Influence Under Rozelle the NFL thrived and became an American institution, despite two players'
strikes and two different competing leagues. He retired as commissioner on November 5, . By the time of his resignation, the number of teams in the league had grown to 28, and team owners presided over sizable revenues from American broadcasting networks. Rozelle's legacy of equalization has been felt not only in the NFL, but also in the
Australian Football League, the major
Australian-rules football competition. In 1986, The AFL Commission adopted a policy of equalization based on the method pioneered by Rozelle in the NFL. It is because of this decision that expansion clubs have been able to survive, as well as older clubs with smaller support bases. An example of this is the 1996
AFL Grand Final between
North Melbourne and the
Sydney Swans, two teams with small supporter bases.
Honors Rozelle was inducted into the
Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1985 while still serving as its commissioner. The NFL's annual
Pete Rozelle Radio-Television Award was established in 1989 to recognize "longtime exceptional contributions to radio and television in professional football", and is awarded annually by the Pro Football Hall of Fame. In 1990, the league instituted the Pete Rozelle Trophy to honor the
Super Bowl MVP, first awarded in the season at
Super Bowl XXV on January 27, 1991. A month after Rozelle's death in December 1996, the NFL honored his legacy with a decal on the back of the helmets of the teams competing in
Super Bowl XXXI. In 1990, Rozelle received the Golden Plate Award of the
American Academy of Achievement. He was honored with the "Lombardi Award of Excellence" from the Vince Lombardi Cancer Foundation in 1991. For his contribution to sports in Los Angeles, Rozelle was honored by
Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum commissioners with a
"Court of Honor" plaque at the Coliseum. ==Personal life and death==