Rozelle Pete

American sport publicist for the USF before he became the Los Angeles Rams publicist in 1957. He was named Commissioner of the NFL on 26 January 1960 at a salary estimated as over $200,000 a year. Rozelle ruled the NFL for 29 years, overseeing the leagues merger with their rival AFL plus the creation of the Super Bowl, 1967. Genial and balding, he was a shrewd promoter of his sport. For example, he invented the Super Bowl and sold the rights to the first game to two networks, NBC and CBS, forcing them to compete for viewers. Rozelle invented Monday Night Football (along with ABC Sports chief Roone Arledge). He loved floats and glitter and marching bands. As a bottom line, he was an iron-willed tycoon who created the business model for all of professional sports. He welded the owners of the new, expanded NFL into a cartel. By 1998, the combined revenues of the NFL and the franchises were nearly $4 billion, a far cry from the worth of less than $20 million when Rozelle had accepted the job as commissioner. Rozelle married twice; he and his second wife had five children between them. He died of brain cancer at age 70 on 6 December 1996 at his home in Rancho Santa Fe, California. Link to Wikipedia biography Read less