How the NFL became America’s game

“MNF” solidified the concept that pro football games were a vital weekly happening. And this limited exposure — compared to nightly action in the NBA, NHL and Major League Baseball — infused the action with a must-see feel, bumping up the value and the ad rates.

“In almost every other sport,” Theismann said, “there are so many more games, so people say, ‘I don’t need to go to this basketball game tonight,’ or ‘I don’t need to watch this baseball game.’ If you miss an NFL game, you miss a lot.”

Invading prime time swelled the national NFL audience and cultivated fresh fans.

“It brought a whole new person into the watching of football, and that was women,” said Gil Brandt, vice president of player personnel for the Dallas Cowboys from 1960 to 1989. “Look back at pictures of NFL game crowds in 1960 and ’61. There are very few women in the stands. Now, it’s one-third to almost half.”

Indeed, the Cowboys — telegenic, tough and cool — sat at the epicenter of this football-TV renaissance. Their shotgun offense was football poetry. Their sidelines were graced by the Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders. Their frequent appearances on “Monday Night Football” earned them the title “America’s Team.”

With fans spread across the country, the Cowboys epitomized the bond between a franchise and its loyal boosters. They were the first team, Brandt said, to offer mail-order merchandizing, selling hats and wristbands.

“No matter how much of a business entity it became,” Ganis said, “the NFL never lost site of the tremendous passion of its fans.”

In the modern game, fans still to connect with the NFL’s brute action and to some of the sport’s well-crafted subtleties, Ganis said. Generations of Americans were raised during the Cold War, enjoying the instant gratification of the car culture and the TV dinner. At its heart, football is about physically seizing your opponent’s land while protecting your own turf — all while waiting for the sudden explosion of a 70-yard bomb. This morality play mirrors our American childhood. It also sells.

And it explains, Ganis said, the mass attraction to football at home and the fact that the game hasn’t resonated as deeply beyond our borders.

“It goes back to a significant degree to what drives the passions of American sports fans,” Ganis said. “We are a culture that grew up on a certain amount of conflict. We are a nation raised with an interest in physical confrontation, man against man.”

What’s more, the NFL is stocked almost exclusively with U.S.-born players, while the rosters in baseball, basketball and hockey are gaining a global flavor. That adds to the almost patriotic fervor that many fans hold for pro football, Theismann said.

“Football is totally American,” Theismann said. “It’s all about Americana.”

The NFL built on those heartland values by emphasizing team over individual. On the field, the league cracked down on the players’ “look at me” celebrations, penalized them for removing their helmets. In the front office, they created a brand around the teams as compared to the NBA, which runs on an economy fueled by superstars: Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson, LeBron James, Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O’Neal, to name several.

“In pro football, players come and go. They get injured, traded, become free agents,” Ganis said. “So the NFL very intelligently focused its brand on team logos.”

That high rate of turnover — the average NFL career lasts about four years — also influenced labor relations. With NFL players here and gone so quickly, the union is weaker than those in other sports. That, in turn, helped hatched a healthy partnership between previous commissioner Paul Tagliabue and the players, Ganis said.

“Tagliabue found a way to create leadership and work with the union in a way that was mutually beneficial instead of a zero-sum game,” Ganis said.

The last work stoppage in the NFL came in 1987. In that period, however, the league staged games by bringing in replacement players.

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A new collective bargaining deal was signed in 2006. With so many billions of dollars up for grabs, it almost defies logic that NFL labor talks have been defined not by greed and ego, but by negotiation and cooperation.

“Ownership understands the value of the player. But the players, having been through strikes before, know that ownership really doesn’t need them,” Theismann said. “Ownership could possibly rebuild the league reputation and the star power.

“Labor and management understand the value of working together as opposed to being polar opposites,” Theismann said. “They see that maybe at some point you have to give up a little more, but the paramount thing is the success of the brand.”

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