Ben Gilbert

And so when the league discussions were sort of going on about it, he proposed Super Bowl.

But Pete Rozelle hated it.

But it came out in some press interview, and then they just ran with it.

And then it was out of the league's control.

And he's so right.

That seems like one of the obvious playbook themes here is every time you think you just got beat by some other football team or entity or personality, it ends up being so good to raise the profile for the game that everybody wins.

It turns out the answer is most of the time, everybody just keeps winning.

Well, and this is kind of the debate today between the new group of owners and the old group of owners.

The original owners are so steadfast in, this is about football, and we make a great entertainment product, but there's football at the core.

And the thing that they're all a little bit nervous about with the new group of owners who are so excited about building these unbelievable businesses and taking on more and more sponsorships and sponsoring team jerseys and on-field sponsorships and building the spectacle around every game.

And what if we had a Super Bowl halftime show at every game?

It's like, are we not a football product anymore?

Are we some kind of entertainment franchise that has lost its way?

And I think that's the interesting dichotomy between owners these days.

How far is too far?

This feels like it's going to be a big package.

And this is where the genius starts of the NFL realizing we don't have to just sign one contract.

And for anybody who's looked at the contracts today, there's a lot of contracts.

And there's pretty much not a TV distribution company that is not distributing some little shard of what the NFL has carved up.

But them realizing here in 1970, we don't just have one deal to sign.