Rozelle: From compromise candidate to commissioner nonpareil

NEW YORK — For a compromise candidate not even under consideration when the voting began, Pete Rozelle sure achieved a lot as NFL commissioner.

Indeed, the man who led the NFL from 196089 generally is regarded as the best league boss in sports history — not just in pro football.

“He did more for professional football and the NFL than any other sports executive has done,” Wellington Mara, then owner of the New York Giants, said of Rozelle.

Rozelle’s predecessor, Bert Bell, helped popularize the league, but its following still lagged behind the college game. Bell died in October 1959 of a heart attack while at a SteelersEagles game in Philadelphia, and NFL owners gathered three months later to elect a new commissioner.

Initially, there were three candidates, none named Rozelle. Austin Gunsel temporarily had taken the post after Bell’s death and was backed by several longtime owners. 49ers counsel Marshall Leahy was supported by a group of newer owners. Lions President Edwin Anderson also was in consideration.

The voting — and backroom politicking — began. It didn’t cease through 20 rounds and nearly a week of balloting. Then Rams owner Dan Reeves, and Browns owner Paul Brown sought to break the deadlock by proposing LA’s general manager, the 33yearold Rozelle.

Suddenly, there was movement as Brown pushed for Rozelle and persuaded others to elect him. On the 23rd ballot, they did.

“I was totally shocked,” Rozelle said, “because I was so young and because they’d considered so many other people who had so much more experience in football than I.”

But he was the man, and very quickly he rewarded the owners’ faith by building the NFL into America’s No. 1 sport.

“He was a man of vision; boy, did he have vision,” former quarterback and congressman Jack Kemp said. “Could he see things the rest of us could not see.”

Immediately so in his new job, too. Rozelle approved league expansion to Dallas for the 1960 season and for Minneapolis in ‘61, a cause championed by one of the NFL’s founders, Bears owner George Halas.

Rozelle fought back challenges in court from the rival AFL, then years later oversaw the merger of the leagues.

He recognized the need to centralize television contracts — each team was negotiating its own deals when he assumed office — evenly split the money, and keep games on free TV, reaching agreement with CBS for two years of coverage for $9.3 million. That began the most lucrative source of NFL revenue, while also ensuring a significant broadcast presence that, today, has become an overwhelmingly dominant one.

When that deal was threatened by legal action, Rozelle lobbied in Washington for an antitrust exemption, which became the Sports Broadcast Act. Soon, every franchise was splitting a gold mine.

Rozelle also approved scheduling Monday night games, getting another network involved in 1970 when the leagues merged. ABC launched “Monday Night Football,” something the commissioner had sought for years, recognizing the boost it could provide his league.