Super Bowl or Super Scam?

     To this day, although it's difficult for me to admit, the NFL has a hold on me. It could be a lot worse, I was once addicted to major league baseball as well. At least now I have a solid seven months (8 months or more in some years) away from the madness.

     I can easily trace the cause. I grew up in a major league town, Baltimore. As a kid my dad and I (the only thing I ever had in common with him) watched all the Colts (Baltimore at that time) and Orioles games. My younger brother wasn't infected by the disease. He had other interests, lucky for him.

     Unfortunately, Baltimore had winning teams throughout the 60-70's. Otherwise I might have had other interests. As proof, I haven't followed baseball since 1997.

     I'm straying a bit from the subject, which was the NFL. First, I'll sum it all up in one profound statement from my younger brother Tony (who still lives in Baltimore) to one of his neighbors. To give you the proper context, this neighbor is a pretty typical NFL fan (fan-atic) who, one Sunday after the Baltimore Ravens won their game, was absolutely ecstatic (I know, I've been there myself)!

     My brother, in answer to his hysteria, calmly said to him, “The Ravens won the Super Bowl a few years ago. Did you get your check yet? I know I haven’t received mine.” When he relayed the story it had a profound impact on me and my thinking. Not only about the NFL, but about everything in our lives. Every “team”, the Democrats, the Republicans, etc. This set the tone for what follows.

            As I’ve gotten older I realize that this disease (the NFL) has gone beyond just the big cities. I have the occasion to meet and talk with a lot of people from all over the country, from big cities to small towns as part of my business. It seems that most (at least 80%) adult males and quite a few adult females from small towns across the country have some favorite NFL team.

            For example, here in Raleigh, where they’ve never had a professional football team, most adult males over 40 are Washington Redskins fans (the closest team geographically). If they’re from the greater Raleigh area and under 40 they’re likely Carolina Panthers fans. The NFL certainly knows how to market, they wouldn’t dare call them the Charlotte Panthers!

The Scam Within A Scam

            Many people think that NFL games are fixed. I will candidly tell you that I’ve been on both sides of football wagering. Over the years I’ve bet a lot of money (both legally and “illegally”) on football games, particularly pro football. I also took bets (yes, I was a bookmaker) for four years in total.

            Because of this, I’ve done a lot of research into handicapping and the idea that pro football games might be fixed.  My conclusions are simple - - well, maybe. Do I think that all or most pro football games are fixed? No. Do I think that the Super Bowl champions are predetermined each year? No. Do I think that individual, particularly key games (from the standpoint of promoting the NFL are concerned) have been and will continue to be fixed? Absolutely, no question about it.

            Before I go on, let me explain. Wagering on pro football is an enormous business. Both legally and “illegally”. Not only do bookmakers earn a great deal of profits, you have touts (typically offshoots of the bookmaking industry itself, you pay them to tell you who to bet on) making enormous profits!

            Keeping this in mind, most bettors are suspicious to begin with (and rightfully so, look at the world we live in). Although the typical betting public gets up in arms and complains about a bad call or a game too close for comfort, in general they keep betting. If every game were fixed it would be pretty easy to catch on and eventually the betting industry would fall apart. In fact, I would safely say that 98% of the games are on the up and up. From both a betting and non-wagering fan base, it would be suicidal to “fix” games on a regular basis. However, I’m certainly not saying that the NFL operates in an honest manner by any stretch of the imagination. I’m simply saying that it’s not in their financial interest to fix games (most of the time).

            With this said, I’ll give you two cases of fixes that made a lot of money for the team owners. One is fairly inconsequential, the other crucial to the NFL!

            The first involves the San Francisco 49ers and the De Bartalo crime family. San Francisco was playing the NY Giants on a Monday night game in the early 90’s. The 49ers were favored by 5 points. At the end of the game, with the 49ers ahead by 4 points, they could easily have run out the clock, but instead they kicked an “unnecessary” field goal. Unnecessary unless you had money on San Francisco. I watched that game (and had money on San Francisco, so I watched until the end) and remember Dan Dierdorf commenting (sort of off-hand) that the field goal only meant something if you considered the spread. How right he was.

The “Greatest” Game Ever Played

            My second example goes back to the year I was born. For some reason, it’s still called The Greatest Game Ever Played. It certainly wasn’t when you consider all of the great finishes since then, but there might be another reason why it’s still referred to that way.

            This game is the famous (or infamous) 1958 NFL Championship Game between the Baltimore Colts and the NY Giants. This game is extremely suspicious for quite a few reasons and it’s funny that the then owner of the Colts, Carroll Rosenbloom, was instrumental in another extremely pivotal game (to come next).

            Let me digress for a moment and say that from all that I’ve read and researched, I would be willing to wager that more games were fixed in those days. It’s a simple matter of economics. The owners, players, and referees made a whole lot less money. Case in point, Alex Karras was suspended from the Detroit Lions for “point shaving”. He was a premier player in those days. If he was caught (and it came to national attention), you can be sure it was only the tip of the iceberg.

            Back to the game. As any football fan over 40 knows, the Baltimore Colts defeated the NY Giants in overtime by a score of 23 to 17. However, it wasn’t that simple.

            After the Colts kicked a tying field goal to send the game into overtime, the Giants won the coin toss and of course elected to receive the ball. After three and out the Giants punted to the Colts. The Colts drove eighty years in 13 plays and scored a touchdown on a one yard plunge by Alan Ameche (probably the most famous photograph in Baltimore is a picture of Alan Ameche running through a hole big enough to fit a small car).

            But, here’s the kicker (pun intended). The Colts had a second down and goal from the Giant’s 8 yard line. I ask those readers who know anything at all about football to stop for a moment and assess the situation. Your team has the chance to win the NFL Championship (biggest event in football at that time). You’re on the 8 yard line of your opponent. You now have two downs to try and make a field goal to win the game outright! The downside is that if you miss both attempts, your opponent gets the ball very deep in their own territory and your defense has already held them to 3 and out on their previous possession. Not to mention holding them to only 3 points the entire second half.

            What would you do? One thing I doubt that you’d do is exactly what the Colts did, threw a pass for 7 yards to their one yard line!

            So what’s my point?

            It’s a well-established fact that Carroll Rosenbloom, the Colts’ owner, was a known bettor. In fact, he had been in trouble with the NFL before (refer to Interference by Dan Moldea). There was a considerable amount of gossip around that Rosenbloom had a lot of money on his own team to win. So much so that he actually drove up the spread from 3 ½ to as high as 4 ½ points. Like many others, he had people bet on the games for him. This is how word later gets out by the way.

            Here I’ll quote directly from the book Interference by Dan Moldea. He states, “Once and for all Rosenbloom did indeed bet on the game, and it was for a million dollars, which he split with a friend.

            Oddsmaker Bobby Martin confirmed the wager to me. ‘We knew that there was unnatural money showing up and driving the spread up,’ Martin said, ‘We ascertained that Lon Chesler and another guy were making bets for and with Carroll Rosenbloom. Chesler was known as a big gambler.'"

           This is a matter of record, but now you understand why the Colts decided to run in for the touchdown rather than kick a field goal. The answer becomes obvious. For those of you not familiar with football wagering, the favored team (in this case the Colts) had to subtract anywhere from 3 ½  to 4 ½ points from their final score in order for you to win your bet (if you bet on the Colts). Therefore, a field goal just wouldn’t cut it, even if it was the obvious choice to win the game.

            It would be a stretch of anyone’s credulity to imagine that the Colts’ decision to go for the touchdown rather than a field goal was anyone’s decision other than Carroll Rosenbloom’s. However, it brings up a lot more questions. For example, why did Rosenbloom bet so heavily on his own team ($1 million was a lot of money in 1958) when they were favorites? Why were the upstart Colts, with an unproven “walk on” quarterback, favored to begin with?

            This game was the very beginning of what is now the national sport! The main reason for this is that for the first time the game was televised around the country by NBC.[1][1] The Colts went out with an early lead 14-0. This created a tremendous comeback and excitement for a sport that was second fiddle to the national pastime, baseball.

            If all of this isn’t suspicious enough, when the Colts had the ball on the 8 yard line, a “fan” ran out on the field and caused a delay. He was found out to be an NBC employee ordered to create a distraction because the television feed had gone dead. The delay bought enough time for NBC to fix the problem.

            My father would roll over in his grave hearing this. This was some important game, but I ask you, was it really The Greatest Game Ever Player?[2][2] [3][3]

 Alan Ameche scoring winning touchdown in the 1958 NFL Championship.  Does the hole look suspicious to you?

Super Scam #III

            “I’ll have to admit, I don’t know how it was done and I have no concrete evidence, but I’m sure that Super Bowl III was “fixed.” This is a strange one (with an abundance of smoking guns). This time, the NFL wasn’t taking any chances. Let me explain what I mean.

In 1966 the AFL and NFL agreed to a merger. The two leagues would combine to form 25 teams, by 1969 this would expand to 26 teams and by 1970 to 28 teams. While maintaining their separate schedules through 1969, they agreed to play an annual AFL-NFL World Championship (later called the Super Bowl) between the championship teams of each league. They would officially merge in 1970 to form one league known as the National Football League. They would have two conference, the NFC made up primarily of old NFL teams and the AFC made up primarily (but not entirely) of old AFL teams.[4][4]

The potential money in TV contracts, not to mention Monday Night Football, apparel, pre-season, etc. etc. was enormous. Needless to say, there was a lot at stake.

The first two “Super Bowls”, which weren’t even called the Super Bowl, were won decisively by the NFL’s Green Bay Packers 35-10 and 33-14 over the Kansas City Chiefs and the Oakland Raiders, respectively.

Then came Super Bowl III. To give you a little personal perspective on this game, I was 11 years old and already a diehard Baltimore Colts fan. I remember the game starting at 1:00 EST with a very short (maybe half an hour) pre-game show. I can’t find out for sure, because it’s hard to find this information online. I do know for sure that the game started in the early afternoon because I watched it by myself, waiting for my father to get home from his shift with the Baltimore City Fire Dept. I remember him getting home near the end of the game and our house had the feel of a funeral parlor when someone dies a very untimely death.

At 11 years old, I was no football expert and I wasn’t even aware of the fact that the Colts were favored by 19 points over the Jets by game time! I just knew they were the home team and seemingly unbeatable by just about everyone in Baltimore and most everyone in the country.

So, how did the New York Jets manage to dominate the Colts in a 16-7 victory? A game that I do remember feeling like the Colts were never in. How was it that Joe Namath, the Jets quarterback, could and was publicly guaranteeing the Jets would win? How could a team go 11-1 and crush a very strong Cleveland Browns team 34-0 to win the NFL Championship, only to lose 16-7 to the Jets (who squeaked by the Oakland Raiders in what some still say may have been a fix)? [5][5] How could a defense that allowed the fewest points in the NFL (144, still a record for a 14 game season) and the second ranked offense combine for a 16-7 loss?

The answer is simple, they couldn’t.

It’s awfully ironic that the Colts were involved in two major seminal games in the history of NFL expansion and money.

Bubba Smith, the Colts star defensive end and probably the most dominant defensive player in either league, didn’t buy it. In fact, I recall him going on talk shows with film ready to show anyone who would listen that something wasn’t right. He was actually a very nice, quiet, honest guy and eventually he gave up his project, not wanting to indict his coach or teammates. But, he knew something didn’t smell right. In a Playboy interview, Smith said, “That Super Bowl game, which we lost by nine points, was the critical year [emphasis added]. The game just seemed odd to me. Everything was out of place. I tried to rationalize that our coach, Don Shula, got out-coached, but that wasn’t the case. I don’t know if any of my teammates were in on the fix.”

Not only did it give credibility to the AFL teams in the fans’ eyes, it further opened the NFL’s doors to the TV networks. They alone finance football to this day! Former Cleveland Browns star defensive back Bernie Parrish said, “Considering other devices imposed by TV’s needs to lift fan interest and raise advertiser’s prices, perhaps it [referring to the 1969 Super Bowl] was too good to be true.”

Here are some other interesting tidbits. The game was broadcast by NBC with Curt Gowdy handling the play by play. Gowdy later called it the most memorable game he ever called because of its historical significance. Interesting. It was the first time celebrities appeared for the ceremonies (I know this is difficult for anyone under 30 to imagine).

Anyone who watches even the official highlights can see that Earl Morrall made some incredibly bad decisions. In one case he threw an interception at the Jets’ 2-yard line! In another case, Colts wide receiver Jimmy Orr was wide open near the end zone. Morrall didn’t see him and instead threw a pass to running back Jerry Hill that was intercepted by Jets safety Jim Hudson (ironically, or is it, Morrall, using the same play, completed a pass to Orr for a touchdown against the Atlanta Falcons earlier in the season!) Even Bill Curry, the Colts center said, “I’m just a linesman but I looked up and saw Jimmy wide open””

With all of that said, I believe this one started all the way at the top with the NFL. There was nothing left to chance and one of the strongest persisting rumors is that Joe Namath had the Colts defensive signals. With that information he would have been able to beat just about any defense. And, he would’ve needed it to beat the Colts’ defense![6][6]

The Aftermath

In 1970 three NFL teams (the Baltimore Colts, Cleveland Browns, and Pittsburgh Steelers) agreed to join the ten existing AFL teams. Together these teams formed what is now known as the American Football Conference (AFC). The other 13 (that number again) NFL teams became the National Football Conference (NFC). The Super Bowl (now a national holiday!) features the champions of the AFC and NFC. It might also be interesting to note that the two minute warning also came into existence (to allow for commercial breaks when interest in the game has peaked).

Something you won’t read in the mainstream media is how the three owners of the NFL teams were compensated for moving their teams to the newly-formed AFC. Carroll Rosenbloom (Colts), Art Modell (Browns), and Art Rooner (Steelers) all received $3 million in what were called indemnity fees. The supposed reasoning was that they might lose a few dollars in revenue because of the move. Are you kidding me?!?

I’ve read and studied the pros and cons of this particular game. To me, the evidence (both concrete and circumstantial) weighs heavily in favor of a fix. There was simply way too much at stake for the NFL in future profits. In order to fix the game, the favored team must lay down in some fashion. The most likely candidates and certainly the most questionable people in that game were quarterback Earl Morrall and head coach Don Shula of the Colts. Not so ironically, they both benefited considerably in the next couple of years.

So here I am January 15^th, 2009 waiting for the AFL and NFL Championships this Saturday. I’ll be watching and probably betting (legally, of course).

Phil Solesky is a copywriter, author of three books including Compliance is Bullshit! Expert sports prognosticator since 1973 and owner of an insurance recruiting and lead organization. Phil welcomes any comments (good, bad or otherwise) at phil.solesky@thecharterhousegroup.com

Charterhouse Affiliate