Birth of the New NFL: How the 1966 NFL/AFL Merger Transformed Pro Football

by Larry Felser

Overview

The year 1966 marked the birth of the National Football League as we know it, when owners in the NFL and the upstart American Football League agreed to an unprecedented merger, to take place at the start of the 1970 season. They also agreed to play, beginning at the end of the ’66 season, a game between each league’s champion—a game that came to be called The Super Bowl.

The Birth of the New NFLtells the story of that historic season, leading to the game between the Green Bay Packers and the Kansas City Chiefs. It also tells the off-the-field story, the one between warring owners and cities—a story often more brutal than the one on the field. Larry Felser has interviewed the leading men of the day, from Al Davis and Jack Kemp, to Wellington Mara, Art Modell, Lamar Hunt, Gene Upshaw, Dan Rooney, and many others. He presents the struggles of top teams for the chance to represent their respective leagues in the biggest game ever, while also offering a behind-closed-doors view of the wheeling and dealing it took to reach the agreement.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781599217628
Publisher:	Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
Publication date:	09/16/2008
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	256
Sales rank:	906,744
File size:	1 MB

About the Author

Larry Felser is a former president of the Pro Football Writers of America. In 1983 he became the youngest winner of the McCann Award for distinguished writing about professional football and was elected to the writers’ wing of the Pro Football Hall of Fame. He covered first pro football game in 1957 and reported on the Buffalo Bills from their inception through 1960 for the Buffalo Courier-Express and from 1963 through 1976 for the Buffalo News. He was a sports columnist for the Buffalo News from 1977 through 2001, adding the title of sports editor in 1982. He wrote a football column for The Sporting News for 25 years and for Street & Smith's pro and college annuals for 25 years and has written articles for many other magazines, including Pro Football Weekly.

Table of Contents

Foreword   Ernie Accorsi     vii
Introduction     xi
The Preliminaries     1
Harry and Pete     11
The Neighbors     22
The Ace     32
Brooklyn Al     41
The NFL Owners in Shock     50
Show Them the Money     53
Texas Showdown     62
Cease Fire     70
A New Challenge     76
The AFL Contenders     85
Manny Celler's Goal-Line Stand     94
The Semifinals     102
The Precursor     114
Vince's Crusade     120
Goliath Beats David     131
Unfinished Business     139
Thin Revenge     148
Triumphant Exit     157
Mickey Mouse Roars     167
The Convincer     186
Aftermath     205
Team Relocation and League Expansion     214
Evolution of the National Football League (1959-2008)     215
Acknowledgments     224
Index     227
About the Author     236

Editorial Reviews

Some historical topics seem to be of perennial interest. The American Football League (AFL) had a major impact on the expansion of professional football in the 1960s. Although this expansion has been much covered, Felser offers a fresh perspective. Beat man for the Buffalo Bills from the start in 1960, he witnessed the struggles and triumphs of the insurgent league. While his book is ostensibly about the AFL-NFL merger, he supplies a great deal of informed background on the AFL in a delightful account that underscores how the competition between the two leagues created a better game by the end of the Sixties. For all libraries.

—John Maxymuk

Library Journal