Pete Rozelle wasn’t wrong about much during his visionary 30-year tenure as NFL commissioner, particularly when it came to shepherding what would become a mutually beneficial and staggeringly lucrative marriage between the league and television.
So it’s amusing now, with the NFL Draft such desirable programming that it now airs on three broadcast networks over three days, to remember his skepticism when ESPN president Chet Simmons requested to televise the draft beginning in 1980.
Rozelle, Chris Berman recalled to The Atlantic a few years ago, was skeptical about who would watch such a thing, which he likened to reading the phone book.