David Rosenthal

And one of the things that they figure out is, oh, television broadcasts depress the gate at home, but there's strong demand in local markets to see the team's away games when they're traveling.

And so for the first few years, that's the main model of television broadcasts of the NFL is just showing away games.

So this becomes a pretty meaningful revenue stream, even though, as you say, it would be a long time before TV would surpass the gate in revenue for the NFL.

By the end of the 50s, the league as a whole, with all the 12 separate contracts, was making over a million dollars in TV revenue annually, whereas at the beginning of the decade, it was less than $100,000.

And it also becomes clear that certain football games...

There's like a really big audience on TV for them.

In particular, the 1958 NFL championship game known as the quote greatest game ever played between the Giants and the Colts led by Johnny Unitas, a sudden death overtime dramatic win garners 45 million TV viewers across the country, including President Eisenhower.

national broadcast of the NFL championship game that year.

But 45 million viewers.

This was unprecedented.

There is a huge opportunity for professional football and television.

Yes.

Which, once again...

The NFL was not the one to totally recognize.

Totally.

So in this case, as the 50s draw to a close, once again, just like towards the end of World War II and the end of the 40s, there were a whole bunch more cities and ownership groups that wanted in.

There's a clear business opportunity and there are only 12 teams at this point in the NFL.

But once again, the NFL owners are kind of dragging their feet.

They're like, we don't really want to expand.

Maybe we'd be open to the Chicago Cardinals.