Ben Gilbert

So they're sort of squeezed in the middle where, like, people don't care enough yet, but they also have a competitive threat.

And so Roselle is having to do some innovative things.

David, didn't he, like...

hire writers in-house at the NFL to craft the storylines and then send those to all the reporters who were too busy to actually go to NFL games because they didn't respect the NFL enough.

But maybe if we send them the stories, then they'll tweak them a little bit and publish them.

Yes.

So this is a perfect lead into what happens in 1961, right after Rozelle is on the job, that would change the face of football forever.

Their $1.3 million a year deal.

So finally, after wrangling and politicking with the ownership group... And the reason there's politicking is because Cleveland, Pittsburgh, and Baltimore actually will end up losing money in the short term on this.

Because Roselle is pitching on, I'm going to go negotiate us a big group deal.

And they're all three saying, we already have very good deals locally.

We're very popular teams.

We're in great football cities.

No.

No.

But ultimately, they do say yes.

And it really speaks to the thing that has made the NFL successful, which is saying no to growing my slice of the pie to grow the greater pie.

Over 3x the AFL deal.

But this is the very first question where you say, well, what is a monopoly?

And what is antitrust?