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January 31, 2004
BIG LEAP: NFL has left 1959 in the dust
BY LENOX RAWLINGS
HOUSTON
Owner Jerry Richardson sat under the retractable roof of Reliant Stadium, where his Carolina Panthers will play New England for the NFL championship Sunday night.
The roof, designed to provide natural light and fresh air when fickle Texas weather permits, drove the stadium's construction cost beyond $400 million. When Richardson strapped on his simple Baltimore Colts helmet for the 1959 title game, the entire NFL wasn't worth $400 million.
"To see what the NFL was in 1959 when I won the championship as a player and to see what it is today, none of us could have seen what all of this has become," Richardson said.
Leagues change. Priorities change, driven by necessity. The big-time local rodeo thrived next door in the Astrodome, which was called "The Eighth Wonder in the World" upon completion in the 1960s.
The eighth wonder dropped to 80th as time and roaches marched on. These days, the Astrodome doesn't even make the list of Also Receiving Votes, a domed dwarf beside tall and versatile Reliant. The Astrodome remained a contender longer than you might imagine. It's air conditioned, and those bronco busters wouldn't step near a cow chip without coolant taming the environment.
Partly in deference to cowboys and the money they generate, Houston went retractable. In another sense, the NFL also went retractable.
Bud Adams, the owner of Houston's former NFL franchise, grew weary of chasing the stadium dream and moved to Tennessee. The NFL didn't abandon the huge market in the football-crazed state for long, approving the concept of an expansion team. There was the matter of a fee, which the Houston Texans' owner assumed would hold firm at $500 million.
Bad assumption, owner Bob McNair discovered. The NFL expansion committee dispatched vital members Richardson and Bob Kraft of New England to massage a new deal. They wanted an extra $100 million.
McNair balked. He couldn't swallow the bump without added value. Richardson, Kraft and other NFL movers shook the value tree and a Super Bowl fell out of the sky. McNair accepted the deal, which eventually led to Richardson and Kraft transporting their teams to the Super Bowl under McNair's retractable roof.
"I think it's a rare coincidence," McNair said. "They were the two owners that basically I negotiated with as we were acquiring the franchise. The last piece of the deal was the Super Bowl because the price that was being discussed was more than my digestive tract could handle."
His stomach and his wallet endured the big gulps, and now Richardson can happily fill his ears with expansion timetables and visions of a glory train arriving by the ninth season. With the Super Bowl's excesses all around him, Richardson can also draw comparisons with the NFL extravaganzas of his youth.
In the days before ends were called wide receivers, Richardson lined up outside the tackles and ventured downfield as one of quarterback John Unitas' reliable targets. He caught a touchdown pass that day in 1959, and the Colts beat the New York Giants in the title game for the second straight season.
The first showdown, an overtime thriller in Yankee Stadium, was widely anointed "The Greatest Game Ever Played," an overstatement artistically but an accurate assessment historically. Because of the game's television exposure, the NFL kicked off its surge from second-fiddle pro league to a dominant force that far eclipsed baseball in TV ratings.
Baltimore held the rematch in Memorial Stadium, then the relatively young home of the baseball Orioles and Colts.
"The love that Baltimore had for the Baltimore Colts was unsurpassed in any of the pro teams that I'm aware of," Richardson said. "I was on that team. They loved us, and we loved the fans. It was a small city, but the magical part of this Super Bowl is no greater than it was in that city for the Baltimore Colts on that day."
The memory lingers as the pressure of winning the 38th Super Bowl intensifies.
"As a player, that was pretty spectacular, to have a chance to play in the NFL world-championship game," Richardson said. "But I'm trying to stay calm and enjoy this and not burn myself out, to be upbeat and happy on Sunday, which I'm sure I will be."
He'll also still be rich, the product of hard work, shrewd decisions and repeated success in the fast-food business. Fans with access to Super Bowl tickets will be a little poorer: $500 for most tickets, $600 for the upscale seats.
When the NFL and AFL first clashed in Los Angeles in 1967, the ticket scale ranged from $6 to $12. Green Bay's 35-10 victory over Kansas City drew 61,946 customers, many of whom fled as the rout mounted. The Super Bowl didn't return to Memorial Coliseum until Jan. 14, 1973, when 90,182 watched the Miami Dolphins complete an unbeaten season against Washington.
The next January, the eighth Super Bowl landed in Houston. The Dolphins won a second straight title against Minnesota.
Tickets cost $15 at breezy Rice Stadium, where no one had a roof overhead or an inkling that the Carolina Panthers would ever exist.
• Lenox Rawlings can be reached at lrawlings@wsjournal.com