David Rosenthal

Anybody else they were considering would have been of a different generation, wouldn't have understood the new America in the late 50s and early 60s.

Like, these were all old folks who were running the league at this point in time.

But Pete...

Nobody better embodied everything about America in the 50s and 60s.

Like, young families, suburbs, West Coast, Los Angeles, television, PR, advertising.

And as GM of the Rams for only two or three years, the Rams were not a successful team on the field, even during his tenure, but he makes them into the most profitable team in the league.

They actually start making a lot of money because he gets it right there in the second biggest TV market in America, in LA, a very wide geographically spread out market where people want to watch football games on TV, right?

He opens up a Rams merchandise store.

He partners with Roy Rogers Inc.

The actor Roy Rogers had like a white label merchandise brand to bring actual high quality branded Rams jerseys, hats, mugs, etc.

That becomes a huge revenue line for the Rams that nobody else has.

So he's got the right background here.

And he comes in.

This is pretty crazy.

I mean, this is a very volatile, charged situation with a lot of elder and opinionated folks around the league that he's going to have to deal with.

And within a year, he completely changes the NFL.

So the first thing he does when he comes in as commissioner is he...

ratifies an expansion plan for the NFL to meet the AFL.

Remember, one of the big reasons why Hunt and the AFL owners started the league in the first place is they wanted to bring pro football to more cities.

The NFL was dragging its feet.