George Halas wanted an NFL team in Dallas, and in 1960 the influential founder of the Chicago Bears helped Clint Murchison get one.
Less than 10 years later, a league that for decades piggybacked geographically on baseball went from 16 to 26 franchises in a merger with the rival American Football League, making plans to get even bigger on its way to replacing America's pastime as the country's favorite sport.
Television fueled the success of both leagues in the decade before their 1970 merger, and expansion that pushed pro football into the deep South grew out of assurances from then-Commissioner Pete Rozelle that AFL franchises could stay in their existing cities.