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Introduction The history of the National Football League unfolds across time, in many dimensions , carried along by those forces that have shaped modern American history. It was the product of forces transforming twentieth-century America into a consumer society pursuing leisure. It was a product of changing technologies: the automobile, radio, television, and the Internet. It was the product of the willingness of government at all levels to subsidize sport. It benefited from an increasing concern over issues of masculinity in a sedentary world, and from expressions of masculinity through vicarious violence. Above all it was the product of any number of individuals who understood how to manipulate and exploit these forces. The NFL has had its ups and downs, its champions and its critics, and a great deal of internal turmoil. Through it all the league survived and prospered to become both an obsession and the new national pastime. NFL commissioner Pete Rozelle is at the center of this history, a force in his own right who took the NFL to its position of prominence. In many ways he was simply the right man in the right place at the right time. All of the NFL’s achievements and problems seem to pass through Pete Rozelle. Those who came before him set the stage, and those who followed him rearranged the scenery. This is the story of a struggle to build a successful sports business by entrepreneurs with large egos who grasped for power and markets. It is the story of success and failure and the creation of a national obsession. This history seeks to place the history of the NFL within the larger context of American social, economic, and technological history. There have been a number of written histories of the National Football League. They have varied in purpose and quality, but all have offered something to fans and to others who might be interested in professional football. Crepeau_text.indd 9 7/1/14 11:29 AM x I n t r o d u c t i o n These histories record the memories of participants in the league, draw on the vast amount of periodical literature on the NFL, and build on a combination of sources both primary and secondary: court records, congressional testimony, legislation, and many other public documents. What I hope to offer is a synthesis of this work and a general history of the league. There are two other important pools of information from which I have drawn. Recent years have brought a growing treasure trove of academic scholarship on sports, ranging from a focus on economics, to government policy, to social and labor history. In addition there is a growing body of biographies, some with an interpretive edge, pertinent to the history of the NFL. Amateur and professional analysis, widely varying in quality, is available on the Internet. ESPN, HBO, and the NFL Network have made the materials of NFL Films available to the average fan and researcher. NFL.com, NFLPA.com, and Superbowl.com offer massive amounts of information. Despite the selfserving character of some, the official histories and autobiographical publications in both print and electronic form are valuable in clarifying events. Although at times it may not seem so, I have the highest regard for the skills and talents of those who built the NFL. I do not share the awe with which the NFL is held by a sometimes fawning public and media. Nonetheless I retain a sense of wonder at the incredible success of the NFL, now clearly the most powerful organization in American sport. It is important to remember that the National Football League is a football league. Professional football is a game of beauty and violence played by highly talented athletes who provide the public with an extremely popular form of entertainment. When human activities of any kind are performed at a very high skill level, at times approaching perfection, these actions inspire us. That is true on the football field as it is true elsewhere. This history is divided into three large sections containing several chapters each: The Formative Years, the Rozelle Era, and the New NFL. It initially follows the traditional chronological form of organization. In the Formative Years the three chapters correspond roughly to four time frames: from the late nineteenth century through World War I and the decade of the 1920s, the period of the Great Depression and World War II, and the postwar period and decade of the fifties. The largest...

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