Ben Gilbert

And I think at the end, I want to discuss, are they getting a good deal today?

But everyone was getting a pretty good deal here because the fan base was growing so much more quickly and the number of viewers was growing so much more quickly than these deals could get renegotiated.

And the AFL, to put a finer point on what you're saying, they had a shoot the moon strategy.

They wanted to come out of the gate with a bang.

They wanted to burn real hot.

and under the right circumstances, have that go really well for them.

And they had the exact right circumstances.

It was the boom of TV in America.

So they could do things like go sign Joe Namath for the Jets to a gigantic contract and just have New York and half of America fall in love with him and turn him into a superstar that benefited the league.

Yep.

We'll take second place when there's a bunch of sad people willing to throw money at second place.

Even though it's like less than half the per year amount.

I honestly, I only knew it because I saw him on a Brady Bunch episode.

It's like this cultural touch point where Joe Namath was so big that he actually appeared on a Brady Bunch episode.

And that's super unusual for a sports star in that day.

He's also a heartthrob.

There's like millions of teenage women in America throwing themselves.

That's exactly what I was going to say.

Well, continuing that thread from earlier where I was talking about how CBS had this hole in their schedule and everyone was skeptical that sports would fill it, everyone thought sports were a very male thing.

And especially as sort of brutish of a sport as football, they didn't think it would do well...