Jack Chevalier—whose tire of choice was almost certainly the Polyglas—wrote a column forIn Maine, one sportscaster reported the formation of clubs where “groups of between six and 12 people band together to watch the football game at either a favorite pub or in someone’s home.” At his own house, he said, “10 men each bring in six-packs and settle down for the evening’s entertainment.” That apparently wouldn’t fly with one insurance salesman in Long Beach who built a $3,000 den so no one would bother him on Mondays. He knew that games on a third network would get the league another fat check every year. Baseball was too slow, hockey too cluttered. The New York Giants host the Pittsburgh Steelers Monday at 7:10 p.m. In reality, though, Rozelle was the driving force. Cosell was presumably making his way back up from the field; Meredith’s quiet is a mystery.Namath's 1970 opener: 298 passing yards and one TD...but three picks, too.Three days later, during a Giants-Eagles Monday nighter in Philadelphia, Meredith got a new test all right: Cosell, after slurring his way through a halftime segment that ended with him pronouncing the City of Brotherly Love’s name asIt was light, it was unforced, and it allowed everyone’s personality to come through.Finally, over cocktails—lunch at Toots Shor’s, dinner at 21—Arledge and Rozelle settled on $25.2 million over three years for the Monday-night rights. “We knew if anyone could melt into wallpaper, Stan was the man,” Scherick told SI in 1970. “Last year they were talking that I was gonna get in,” he says. So Scherick found ABC’s plainest-looking employee—his name was, naturally, Stanton Frankle—and gave him the envelope. He had believed he pulled off a coup in 1964 when he found a loophole he thought would allow him to broadcast a doubleheader each weekend. At the end of the first quarter ABC aired anBut in reality, women were watching.

But fans showed up—in one of those Monday games, in 1964, Detroit drew the biggest crowd in its history—leading Rozelle to push forward.Read more of SI's Daily Covers stories hereBut the exchange that most clearly validated Arledge’s tinkering had come a few minutes earlier, during a lull between plays.Right around the time Collins was being administered his smelling salts on ABC, over on NBCFor all the talk of the three-man booth, a strange thing happened once the game started: No one except Jackson spoke until after the Jets received the kickoff, went three-and-out and punted. They have a great affinity. “A lot of it was anti-Semitism,” Arledge toldIt was the kind of thing a viewer just didn’t expect to see in those days, when one of the (mostly) unwritten tenets of broadcasting the NFL was to shield the viewer from anything that might portray the game in a negative light. But while Arledge was intent on breaking the mold, he had to concede that with Meredith and Cosell he’d need someone to play traffic cop, not to mention actually describing what happened on the field. When CBS submitted an offer with a similar doubleheader plan, effectively sealing the deal, Arledge was convinced that commissioner Pete Rozelle had played favorites and tipped off CBS.Atkinson unretired only a few days later, and, before kickoff in Cleveland, Cosell arranged for an interview with both Jets players.
And this we will do!”Frankle, in the end, made it unscathed, and he lingered near the back of the room until NCAA officials announced that bids were due. )Now that he had the network’s first big rights deal, Scherick needed someone to run the broadcasts, so he hired a young producer away from a competitor. It knew that NBC’s director, Tom Gallery, liked to carry multiple bid envelopes on these occasions. Monday Night Football All-Time Commentators (1970-present) Monday Night Football All … As the season wore on,Even though he doesn’t remember it, the game has always been huge for Collins, the only member of the NFL’s 1960s All-Decade Team who hasn’t yet been inducted into the Hall of Fame.