Gunzlingr
06-17-2003, 08:05 AM
By PAUL DOMOWITCH
pdomo@aol.com
IN THE BEGINNING, there was just a father, a son, a projector, a reel of film and a puddle of cocktail sauce.
In 1962, a frustrated Philadelphia overcoat salesman by the name of Ed Sabol and his son Steve paid the NFL $3,000 to film the league's championship game between the Green Bay Packers and New York Giants. Held the premiere of the highlight film of the Packers' 16-7 victory at Toots Shor's restaurant in Manhattan.
"Halfway through the screening, a waiter knocked the cord out of the wall and the projector went flying," Steve Sabol says. "We had all the top sports writers from that era there to watch it. Dick Young, Red Smith, Hugh Brown from the Bulletin. And there was our film, laying in this big pile of cocktail sauce.
"Thank God for [NFL commissioner] Pete Rozelle. He saved us. The minute it happened, he went up to the front, turned the lights on and held a press conference while we were wiping the cocktail sauce off the film and rethreading it."
Technology has come a long way since then. So has the popularity of the NFL. Back then, baseball was McDonald's and pro football was Bob's Big Burger. Forty-plus years later, thanks in no small part to the inspired filmmaking of the Sabols and their venture, NFL Films, the NFL is, far and away, the most popular professional sports league in America.
This fall, the league will take another significant step in its evolution when it launches its own television channel, the NFL Network. The channel, like the NFL Sunday Ticket package, will air on DirecTV, but is expected to be on most cable systems within a year or two.
more (http://www.philly.com/mld/dailynews/sports/6105269.htm)
pdomo@aol.com
IN THE BEGINNING, there was just a father, a son, a projector, a reel of film and a puddle of cocktail sauce.
In 1962, a frustrated Philadelphia overcoat salesman by the name of Ed Sabol and his son Steve paid the NFL $3,000 to film the league's championship game between the Green Bay Packers and New York Giants. Held the premiere of the highlight film of the Packers' 16-7 victory at Toots Shor's restaurant in Manhattan.
"Halfway through the screening, a waiter knocked the cord out of the wall and the projector went flying," Steve Sabol says. "We had all the top sports writers from that era there to watch it. Dick Young, Red Smith, Hugh Brown from the Bulletin. And there was our film, laying in this big pile of cocktail sauce.
"Thank God for [NFL commissioner] Pete Rozelle. He saved us. The minute it happened, he went up to the front, turned the lights on and held a press conference while we were wiping the cocktail sauce off the film and rethreading it."
Technology has come a long way since then. So has the popularity of the NFL. Back then, baseball was McDonald's and pro football was Bob's Big Burger. Forty-plus years later, thanks in no small part to the inspired filmmaking of the Sabols and their venture, NFL Films, the NFL is, far and away, the most popular professional sports league in America.
This fall, the league will take another significant step in its evolution when it launches its own television channel, the NFL Network. The channel, like the NFL Sunday Ticket package, will air on DirecTV, but is expected to be on most cable systems within a year or two.
more (http://www.philly.com/mld/dailynews/sports/6105269.htm)