Ben Gilbert

I mean, they would put like one camera up on the 50 yard line and they wouldn't do like any microphones and they would just be like, all right, this is the game.

And maybe they'd have some commentators.

And all the way through the 50s, it wouldn't really be a particularly large revenue line.

But as it did start to grow, everyone's negotiating individually.

It ended up being the case that the New York Giants were making $200,000.

And this is in 1959 on their TV deal.

The Packers were making zero.

I think the Packers were making 5K.

But there's like a lot of demand for that.

And it's funny because now we refer to this as a blackout.

But at the time, because they were only selling to local affiliates, it's not that it was a blackout.

It's that your local TV station only had the contract to broadcast the away games.

There was nobody within your antenna's reach that was broadcasting that game when it was at home.

So was this a national broadcast event?

Importantly, this is not the Super Bowl.

David and I aren't being coy by not calling it that.

Like, that is not what this was.

And we're still missing about half the teams that will end up competing for the Super Bowl.

Right.

Competition does create the best product.