Famed NFL Commissioner Pete Rozelle, who ushered the gridiron game into its modern era, steps down after nearly three decades as the league’s innovative administrator
On March 22, 1989, Pete Rozelle retired as the Commissioner of the National Football League after serving in the role since 1960. His impact on the game and the league was immeasurable, and he’s considered one of the best commissioners in the history of North American sports, due to his vision and persistence.
When Rozelle took over, the NFL was financially unstable, uneven in popularity, and heavily overshadowed by baseball. By the time he stepped down in 1989, the league was becoming the most powerful sports enterprise in the United States. He centralized TV negotiations so that the league marketed itself as a single national product, all its teams shared television revenue equally, and small-market franchises could survive and compete.
However, Rozelle’s greatest achievement was orchestrating the 1966 merger agreement between the NFL and its rivals, the American Football League. Then, he helped push the title game between the two, the Super Bowl, to become the highest-rated television broadcast in the United States every year.
When Rozelle retired in 1989, he left the NFL as the most profitable sports league in America, a national broadcast empire, and the number-one sports brand in the general public’s mind. He didn’t didn’t just run the league — he invented the modern business of football.
Pete Rozelle was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1985, while still serving as commissioner, which shows just how influential and transformational he was viewed.
