The Innovator Behind "The Super Bowl" - and More

      I love the “back stories” of professional sports – the business tales of how franchises ended up in particular cities, how players negotiated contracts, why certain teams have certain nicknames, how trades were negotiated among teams, etc.  And I love any story of a smart entrepreneurial innovator, too.  So when I can combine the two – that, as Seinfeld's Kenny Bania would say, “is gold, Jerry, gold!”

      And so it was that Lamar Hunt, the owner of the Kansas City Chiefs of the American Football League was, in 1966, sitting in a room with fellow professional football owners, contemplating the name that should be given to the just announced football championship game that would ultimately pit Hunt’s Chiefs against the Green Bay Packers of the National Football League.  Hunt had frequently watched his children playing with one of the hot commodities among Kids of the Sixties – a highly-charged, super-high bouncing spherical toy called the Super Ball, and he suggested – by his own admission somewhat kiddingly – that the name of “the big game” could be, “The Super Bowl.”

     Hunt himself considered the name a bit corny and felt it could be improved upon, but before long, Hunt’s pet term had gained momentum among sportswriters, commentators and players alike.   And thus – you have Lamar Hunt, and the Wham-O Corporation to thank for the term, “The Super Bowl.”  If nothing else, this information might help you if the subject comes up on a trivia night. 

     Lamar Hunt’s contributions to what has become America’s most popular sport go far beyond the branding of the name for the event that is the biggest spectacle in American sports.

      Lamar Hunt was the kind of innovator and entrepreneur I wish I’d known. 

      The son of oil magnate H.L. Hunt, Lamar, at age 26, was in 1958 a polite, studious-looking yet determined young man who longed to bring the National Football League to his hometown of Dallas.    His initial foray was with the Wolfner family of Chicago –owners of the financially-troubled Chicago Cardinals.  No deal, said the Wolfners to Hunt’s request to purchase the team.  After all, they’d received solicitations from a number of other wealthy sportsmen – Bud Adams in Houston, a group from Minneapolis and another from Denver – and in each case the answer to those who wanted to purchase the Cardinals also was a firm, “no thanks”.

      Dismayed but not deterred after numerous meetings with the Wolfners, Hunt approached then-NFL Commissioner Bert Bell with an idea to acquire an expansion NFL team.  Again, the answer was no.  Hunt made a similar request of powerful George Halas, the owner of the Chicago Bears.  Halas was no more accommodating than Bell toward Hunt’s quest to become a member of the NFL fraternity. 

       In meeting after meeting, the answer was no.  And then, a light went on.  If the NFL wouldn’t allow a new team of his to be part of the professional football “club”, Hunt would simply create “a league of his own”.    Those other NFL suitors in Minneapolis, Denver and Houston were contacted and courted, along with others in New York City, and Los Angeles.   Drawing up league bylaws on American Airlines stationery while on a flight from Miami back to Dallas, Lamar Hunt created The American Football League. 

      And this is the part of the story I really love.  Hunt was such a stickler for detail and such a skilled relationship-builder that even as he completed his organizational plans and had potential owners in other AFL cities locked up, he went back to Bert Bell to ensure the final, definitive answer to his quest for an NFL team.  (Ironically Bell, fearful of being slapped with congressional anti-trust penalties, actually ADVOCATED for the new league in a congressional hearing in the summer of 1959).

     And thus the American Football League was born - a product of Lamar Hunt's determination and creative thinking.

     I loved the old AFL because it was so innovative and it “upset the apple cart” of the old boys league NFL.  It was the AFL that first featured names on the backs of player jerseys.    The AFL pioneered using stadium scoreboard clocks to keep track of time, instead of the archaic practice of having a referee on the field use a stopwatch.  The AFL employed a 14 game schedule, and introduced the two-point conversion, both innovations at the time.   And of course, there was the fan-friendly, wide-open style of the AFL.  Long before Aaron Rodgers was even born, Daryle Lamonica was lighting it up for the Oakland Raiders of the AFL.

     There are many, many reasons behind the popularity of the National Football League, and in particular Super Sunday.  As you are watching Sunday, (and you know you will) please pause – if even for a moment – put down the Buffalo Wings and beer, and remember the innovative Lamar Hunt, who was a big, big reason why the big game is so popular.

     Thanks for reading, as always.