Keepers of the Flame: NFL Films and the Rise of Sports Media

Chapter 3. The NFL's Smithsonian

chaPTer 3 The NFL’s Smithsonian Those [NFL Films] archives constitute the soul of professional football, the stored treasures of football’s wine cellar. —Steve Sabol1 Atanygiventime—dayornight,duringtheseasonornot—onewouldbehard pressedtoscanthroughthe televisionchannelsforlongwithoutencountering atleastonerepresentationoftheNationalFootballLeague—fromtheuplifting playerprofilesfeaturedonnetworkpregamepackagestocommercialsthatuse footageofmuddiedplayerstomarketlaundrydetergent.Indeed,since2003the NFLNetworkhasensuredtheleague’sconstantpresenceoncableTV.Muchof this footage derives from NFL Films’ cameras. Before it is edited into an NFL Films production or sold to other media outlets, this material passes through the world’s largest sports film archive. NFL Films’ archive consists of two main parts that serve overlapping functions .First,thereisafire-proof,temperature-controlled(setatfifty-fivedegrees Fahrenheit), limited-access vault that houses and safeguards nearly all the film the company has generated and purchased since Blair Motion Pictures’ beginning .2 Second,thearchivefeaturesafilmlibrarythatorganizescopiesoffootage for inclusion in the company’s productions and for sale to clients. Attached to the film library is a small print library filled with almanacs, media guides, magazines, and books to help producers fact check and to provide them with additional historical, cultural, and institutional context. At the most basic level, archives are sites where materials are stored and organized for future use. However, these collections—even those that do not 80 chaPTer 3 sell or lend materials—are not simply repositories. Archives are selective in their collection, arrangement, and distribution of materials. As Allan Sekula claims,“archivesarenotneutral;theyembodythepowerinherentinaccumulation , collection, and hoarding as well as that power inherent in the command of the lexicon and rules of language.”3 The materials archives acquire, the care with which they store contents, and the conditions under which holdings can be circulated or even discarded are all determined in part by the organizations that define their purposes and regulate their operations.4 Two complementary functions guide the NFL Films archive’s practices. First,itstoresthecompany’sfootageandacquiresadditionalmaterialsrelevant to the league. NFL Films’ publicity materials, productions, and the discourses surrounding the company repeatedly emphasize the archive’s importance to preservingandchroniclingtheNationalFootballLeague’shistory.Theyusethe mammoth collection to position NFL Films as the league’s official and most effective historian. Aside from storing footage, the archive prepares it for use in NFL Films’ productions and for sale to its many clients. Like most archives, it organizes materialsbasedonthedatewhentheywerecreatedandthesubjectmatterthey feature (teams, players, games, etc.). But this private collection also explicitly arranges holdings according to how well they complement the mythology NFL Films constructs. It suppresses footage that might reflect negatively on the league and encourages the use of material that augments and will help to sustaintheinstitutionalidentityNFLFilmspromotes.Itensuresthatthecompany ’sproducerswillonlybeabletochoosefromfootagethathasalreadybeen designated unproblematic and potentially thrilling. Moreover, it guarantees that the footage NFL Films sells will not compromise the league’s brand. The NFL Films archive thus plays a crucial role in the company’s efforts to create, circulate, and control the National Football League’s image. Football’s Wine Cellar Steve Sabol once claimed that NFL Films has made professional football the most thoroughly documented human endeavor in history.5 He pointed to the company’s enormous archive, which contains over 100 million feet of film in 50,000 cans, as proof of that comprehensiveness.6 Although Sabol’s boast is an overstatement characteristic of the professional mythmaker’s penchant for embellishment, it illustrates the archive’s intended function as a site where the league’s visual history is housed and organized. 81 The NFL’s Smithsonian When asked to explain the priorities that guide the company’s archival operations, Steve Sabol deferred to his father’s background as an overcoat salesman. After manufacturing its overcoats, Big Ed’s company would never throw away leftover material. “They figured you don’t throw this scrap away,” Sabol claimed. “It could be used as a pocket, it could be used as a liner, it could be used as a collar. So we [NFL Films] never threw anything out.”7 As Sabol’s analogy implies, NFL Films assumes that each frame of film has potential value and ought to be kept indefinitely. The archive does not literally hold every bit of film that has run through the company’s cameras—a feat that is as impossible as it is impractical. Regardless, NFL Films publicizes the archive as comprehensive and uses the collection to position itself as the official steward of pro football’s past. The archive’s centrality to constructing this identity is partly built through thevalueNFLFilmsassignstothefilmmedium.SinceitbeganasBlairMotion Pictures,thecompanyhasuseditspracticeofshootingNFLgamesexclusively on 16mm color film stock—a technology Steve Sabol touted as more “reflective ” than videotape—to distinguish itself from other sports media outlets.8 The...