David Rosenthal

But fortunately for the NFL, they were very, very, very wrong about that.

Lucky.

Yes.

They choose, as the compromised dark horse candidate, 33-year-old general manager of the Los Angeles Rams, former public relations intern...

Compton College graduate Pete Rozelle to be the new young commissioner of this league in crisis.

And it was totally brilliant.

I mean, A, Rozelle grows into this just incredible leader, visionary who does so many things that we're going to enumerate now for the league, for the game, for television, for America.

But it was so not the owner's intention, they had to go to this compromise candidate and this young person who most people hadn't heard of.

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.