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

by Travis Vogan

Overview

NFL Films changed the way Americans view football. Keepers of the Flame: NFL Films and the Rise of Sports Media traces the subsidiary's development from a small independent film production company to the marketing machine that Sports Illustrated named "perhaps the most effective propaganda organ in the history of corporate America."
 
Drawing on research at the NFL Films Archive and the Pro Football Hall of Fame and interviews with media pioneer Steve Sabol and others, Travis Vogan shows how NFL Films has constructed a consistent, romanticized, and remarkably visible mythology for the National Football League. The company packages football as a visceral and dramatic sequence of violent, beautiful, graceful, and heroic gridiron battles. Historically proven formulas for presentation—such as the dramatic voiceovers once provided by John Facenda's baritone, the soaring scores of Sam Spence's rousing background music, and the epic poetry found in Steve Sabol's scripts—are still used today.
 
From the Vincent Price-narrated Strange but True Football Stories to the currently running series Hard Knocks, NFL Films distinguishes the NFL from other sports organizations and from other media and entertainment. Vogan tells the larger story of the company's relationship with and vast influence on our culture's representations of sport, the expansion of sports television beyond live game broadcasts, and the emergence of cable television and Internet sports media.
 
Keepers of the Flame: NFL Films and the Rise of Sports Media presents sports media as an integral facet of American popular culture and NFL Films as key to the transformation of professional football into the national obsession commonly known as America's Game.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780252038389
Publisher:	University of Illinois Press
Publication date:	02/12/2014
Edition description:	1st Edition
Pages:	256
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.10(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Travis Vogan is professor of journalism and mass communication and American studies at the University of Iowa. He is the author of numerous books on sports, media, and culture, most recently The Boxing Film: A Cultural and Transmedia History.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments vii

Introduction: NFL Films and Pro Football 1

1 Creating and Sustaining Americas Game 35

2 More Movies than News 58

3 The NFL's Smithsonian 79

4 The Shakespeares of Sports Films 99

5 Keeping the Flame in the Broadcast Era 127

6 Cable, NFL Media, and NFL Films' Dinosaur Television 150

Conclusion: The Persistence and Obsolescence of NFL Films 175

Notes 189

Bibliography 217

Index 233

Editorial Reviews

"Vogan is able to conclude that by NFL Films' "manufacturing pro football's significance" the average fan was "taught" how to watch football, eventually leading to the replacement of baseball as "America's Pastime" with NFL football as "America's Game."—Journalism History

"Keepers of the Flame is the definitive study of major-league media subsidiaries in the United States. It merits wide readership by historians of sports, media, and journalism."—Sport History Review


"A readable and interesting book with a lot of descriptive history. Recommended."—Choice

"Keepers of the Flame is an insightful and deeply-researched interrogation of the cultural, economic, and institutional forces that allowed a small production company to become regarded as 'perhaps the most effective propaganda organ in the history of corporate America.'"—Sport in American History

"Keepers of the Flame is an impressive book that advances the historical body of knowledge concerning sports media. Vogan writes clearly, with a highly accessible style. . . . highly recommended."—Journal of Sports Management

"NFL Films changed the way we thought not just about football, but, in many ways, about film. We televise sports in countless ways, from IMAX cameras to our iPhones, and no one does it as well as them. Travis Vogan captures why NFL Films is important and tells a vivid, smart tale of how they've survived, and thrived."—- Will Leitch, author of Are We Winning? and God Save The Fan, senior editor Sports On Earth, founder Deadspin

"A well-conceived, persuasively argued, and consistently illuminating account of the most important and influential producer of sports films. Keepers of the Flame: NFL Films and the Rise of Sports Media is exactly the book we need to understand the significance of NFL Films over its roughly fifty-year history. Vogan's discussions of its archives and of the relationship between art and commerce are particularly original, enlightening, and provocative."—Michael Oriard, author of Brand NFL: Making and Selling America's Favorite Sport

"Keepers of the Flame represents a significant, original contribution to the field of sports and media studies. Vogan's history and analysis of NFL Films and its cultural significance makes expert use of a variety of voices, from scholars to professional memoirs, popular press sources, interviews with NFL Films executives, and close analysis of films and programs."—Victoria Johnson, author of Heartland TV: Prime Time Television and the Struggle for U.S. Identity

From the Publisher