Lesson and its rejected soundly. Its difficult to see. John hope franklin who read let the race made it happen. So many figures on the africanamerican side of the ledger are seen as the race person so what you are giving to me selection i dont want to hear. I think it will have to happen on an individual level. People have to fill comfortable talking about race before we can expect alito to come in. Host joy theres an old saying theory is a great. You have given us a whole lot of green today which we are very appreciative. Thank you very much for your wisdom and your knowledge and the book is Nicholas Alan johnson fracture, barack obama, the clintons and the racial divide. I encourage everyone to read it. Thank you it was wonderful. Thank you. Host subsix subseven is a book written by professor subeight. Why are you talking about nfl football at freedom fest in las vegas . Guest thats a question i asked myself to mark organizes this event which i had never heard of called me a few months ago and said let me tell you about freedom fest and i would like you to come and talk about what is the National Pastime. Book all, baseball, basketball, soccer and i asked them last night why me . Yet gone on the internet and he said he wanted someone and something other than the political stuff. So that is how i wound up here. When he called me i thought why not . This is not my politics but why not . Host is football the National Pastime . Guest ive decided it out to be a national obsession. I think it is reached that level particularly in the last decade. Host how . Guest its become a 365 day year topic for massive numbers of americans rate you listen to sports talk radio no matter what time of the year what time of the day and what time of the night someone is talking about football and particularly about nfl foot wall. The nfl has understood the ability to get into that mindset and to extend it. In the sense that they have created sort of pseudoevents to fill the offseason. There is no longer an offseason in the nfl. Once the super bowl is over but the combines began in from the combine to go to the draft. The free draft, draft, draft analysis in the go from that to the camps and then from the camps to the training camps. The season opens any good of the season cycle and then they get to the playoffs, the super bowl and it starts over. Its all year long and draft that started in 1935. It was considered an interesting event. Nobody ever thought too much about it and at some point espn said we would like to televise the draft. He said why . That started and of course then it grew and fans started showing up dressed in uniforms. They started screaming and yelling. Their approval or disapproval at a particular draft choice. Now its a tonight and i say night time Primetime Television event. My other favorite is the traditions and that is they have a Television Special when the schedule comes out. They talk about for an hour. Its unbelievable. Host in your book you write nfl leadership mastered the world of television dominated governments at federal state and local levels and created a cartel behind the facade of devotion to the Free Enterprise. Lets start with television. Guest television is the key to its first real the nfl was growing some just prior to the war. It came from the mid30s to their late 30s beginning to grow and the work was the pawn. It came out the war and they are very optimistic about where they are going in the late 40s and the 50s so much so that their other entrepreneurs who start the second leg which then merges with the nfl. 1960 theres another leak the fl which will merge with the nfl and become the new nfl. All of this growth and development is really a absolutely parallel to the growth of television in america. If you chart out the number of Television Sets in america the number of people who had access to television in america and you churro line from 1947 to 1965 and then he took the nfl growth and development from 1947 to 1965 they would run absolutely parallel. Thats not an accident. Television and football were made for each other. The canadian sociologist media expert marsha mcluhan talked about how baseball was a radio game and put all was a Television Game and it absolutely is. To the point now if you watch a Football Game where is the best place to watch and nfl game . On your bigscreen tv in your house. The second best seat in the house is the thirdbest seed somewhere else. The fourth best seat at the stadium. The stadium is such a disappointment now because there are periods where nothing is going on. There is commercial time and replay time and timeouts for this and that. And whats going on . I want my replace. I want my analysis but im not getting them. Host dominated state and local government. Guest if you look at some of the key points of the nfl one it is the coming of the blackout which the Justice Department objected to and then back off of and the Sports Broadcasting act of 1961. Then you have the merger and the merger was going to be stopped in the House Judiciary Committee by emanuel summers who felt that he had gotten run out by the nfl blackout issue. They went into the congress and they talked to russell long and the congressman from louisiana who are powerful figures and they could in fact move it through both houses that would in fact legalize the merger. And what did russell long get for that . The saints came marching in of course. And there were some Great Stories around that. Thats another example of how the government refused. Local governments, state governments essentially on franchise locations in teams may be moving threatening to move unless they get a stadium, promising to move somewhere else if they get a stadium, these kinds of games going on at of course they still go on. What would the nfl do without los angeles . They would be terrible. Now you can and its very effective. You have that aspect of dealing with local government. Local government subsidies and then theres another interesting aspect of this and that is something from the senate or the house he would go to powerful senators and say do we really need this or that and we will try to bring you a franchise for your state or district or whatever. And howard baker from tennessee he got flipped on this by rozelle i dont know how many times. Finally after rozelle and baker but thats the kind of thing they did. They would promise expansion with no intention of doing an expansion. So thats part of it and then the tax breaks. Host [inaudible] guest most owners if you talk to them and rozelle was very good at this, always talked about the wonders of the American Economy and the football owner says innovators and how it was really the Free Enterprise system which allowed them to develop the way they developed. In fact what they had was the power of the cartel, not a monopoly but they controlled markets. They controlled product location. They controlled product exposure through television. It was a wonderful sort of arrangement and nobody touched that so they describe it in terms of randomized but it wasnt. It was absolute genius. Roosevelt was an amazing figure. Host who is Steve Roselle . Guest he was a guy who came out of Southern California in Northern California originally and in public relations. He migrated down to l. A. , got into the administrative staff with the rams worked his way through that and became general manager. After rozelle died of a heart attack in 1960, 59 or 60 the owners were looking for a replacement and they couldnt agree on one. The one on for several months having meetings, discussions and they couldnt come up with some on everyone could agree on and finally two or three got together and said there is this guy roselle who we all know and who we like. 35 or 36 years old. I think everybody can agree. Mero was one of them. Who else . Howl is and the ownership of pittsburgh. I think they were all involved and they finally brought roselles name before the next league meeting. Everybody looked around the room instead yeah hes the guy. Thats how he got the position. Let me tell you bought his first move. When rozelle came in he moved the office is to manhattan, not just to manhattan hes place them strategically it will distance from the television are are offices and madison avenue offices. Host it are the owners the board of directors in a sense . Guest for her while roselle when the league started to grow when they saw the kinds of things he was able to achieve this power kept growing and growing and as with all people who are dependent on others to stay in office at some point power begins to recede a bit and to irritate some people in the room and over time the power begins to recede. The key thing in roselles decline was al davis and the Los Angeles CountyColiseum Commission on the movement of the open movement to los angeles. That opened up the possibility that other teams could move and they started moving rapidly. Roselle fought that because you want to control of where those franchises were going to be. I think since roselle, the commissioners really serves pretty much at the well of the ownership and the commissioners job essentially was to keep the owners on board and somehow keep the owners moving in one direction and its a difficult job. There are huge egos and they all thought they could run the league and should be running the league. But no one trusted another so they needed a commissioner to shepherd them. And that goodell has done a less good job of that i think although again goodell has survived all the recent issues and difficulties because he did do things. He got a longterm labor settlement which enabled them to get a longterm Television Contract that brought in billions of dollars. Next year each team will begin the season with 200 16 million in the bank for television alone. Nothing else, just television. If you think you can make a profit on that . I think so. After one of the early contracts he said and the idiot could make money with running a foot all season and he was right, many did. Host Richard Crepeau we often hear the nfl as a tax exempt organization. Guest thats not true. They have a nonprofit status and they dropped that nonprofit status recently and that is where the taxexempt notion came from. The thing is they have paid some taxes. It made no difference whatsoever it was one of those interesting talking points if you wanted to hammer the nfl. Host what is your day job . Guest what is my day job . I have been at the university of florida where ive been for 40s plus years and modern american history. I teach two semesters in the history of american sport and i take the course with another guy called the history of the literature baseball and baseball is my first love. This is my third love. Hockey is second. And then the nfl. Actually the nba. Host how did you get involved in sports history . Guest i grew up in an era where sports was really important. My father was involved in sports all of his life. He played baseball and he was a pitcher and could throw a knuckleball. He started working and at some point in his career probably in his