Back
in the late 1950s a New Orleans business man named Dave Dixon was
working hard on getting the City of New Orleans an NFL franchise. Little
did he know that 6 years down the road the NFL commissioner Pete
Rozelle would need a favor from officials from the state of Louisiana to
push through his NFL-AFL merger.
A Little Quid Pro Quo
At
the time there were two competing football leagues. With that system in
place if a player was drafted by both leagues he had bargaining power
to play one against the other to get the best pay possible. Combining
both leagues into one would swing the power back over to the owners by
having only one team making an offer and if the player wanted to be a
pro without having to move to Canada he would have to take that offer.
The
problem that was posed with this is even though both leagues saw the
advantages to this, combining them into one big league would create a
monopoly which at the time was only legal for utility companies. Well
that is if you do not have the law modified to fit your needs.
Pete
Rozelle approach Dave Dixon on the matter and said "Dave what can you
do to help". Dave sent the public relations manager David Kleck, who
represented him to Hale Boggs of Louisiana who at the time was the house
majority whip, to meet with Mr. Boggs on the matter.
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| U.S. Rep Hale Boggs (D-LA) 2 |
The
deal that was made was that the NFL grant the City of New Orleans a
franchise in exchange for Congress voting to grant an exemption to the
NFL for running a monopoly. The exemption got past the people who would
vote against it by being attached to a budget bill. The bill was backed
by Russell Long of Louisiana who at the time was the Senate finance
committee chairman.
It
was approved in October of 1966 and on November 1st 1966 Pete Rozelle
traveled to New Orleans to announce the City of New Orleans was granted
an NFL franchise. If you're not Catholic, November 1st happens to be All
Saints Day and thus the team was named the New Orleans Saints. The
first owner of the Saints was a wealthy Texas oil man named John Meacom
Jr. he chose the colors Black and Gold because oil is nicknamed black
gold. As you can see we in New Orleans are very fortunate to have an NFL
franchise. It was only because the NFL commissioner needed a favor that
we were granted one. It is even better that 43 years later our team
became world champions.
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Now that you got a little history on the New Orleans Saints you can read more at Saints Stuff.
Dan
Delaney is a lifelong resident of the New Orleans metropolitan area and
long time Saints fan. He was a fan before being a Saints fan was cool.
You can learn more about the New Orleans Saints by going to his website now!
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