AFL-NFL merger was X-factor in building popularity of Super Bowl

The Super Bowl didn’t emerge as America’s preeminent cultural sporting event through the work of just one executive, owner, coach or any one of great performances from the world’s best athletes.

To be sure, it took a collective effort of stars of every sort to become as integral a part of the social fabric as baseball, hot dogs, apple pie and Chevrolet. And throw Elvis in there, too.

It’s one mostly forgotten man, however, who might have had the most significant impact on what would become the spectacle of the Super Bowl.

Pete Gogolak. A kicker.

What in the name of Scott Norwood?

Gogolak’s defection from the AFL’s Buffalo Bills to the NFL’s New York Giants led to the most significant event in Super Bowl history: the merger.

Gogolak’s move was legal but violated an unwritten agreement between the two leagues not to tamper with the other’s players. The deal completed, NFL owners feared a raid by the AFL and a widening bidding war between the two leagues that would make financial losers of everybody.

George Halas was said to be irate with the Giants. Meanwhile, the San Diego Chargers started nosing around three Giants players. Defensive tackle Alex Karras got a seven-year deal out of Detroit to stop his flirting.

“We started talking seriously [about the merger] after the Gogolak affair,” Max Winter, then the owner of the Minnesota Vikings, said at the time. “That’s what triggered it. I think it was inevitable. It was good common business sense.”

On June 8, 1966, the leagues announced a merger.

In addition to a common draft for first-year players that owners hoped would bring down skyrocketing bonuses that for some had reached a much as $450,000, representatives of the league announced the champion of each respective league would meet in an “AFL-NFL World Championship Game.”

That game would become Super Bowl I.

Gogolak, Hungarian born and Cornell educated, was the first soccer-style kicker in pro football, and remains the Giants’ all-time leading scorer.

His legacy is much bigger, though.

Though another signing and defection by a different player likely would have occurred, it was Gogolak who fueled pro football peace and shaped the history of the Super Bowl.

A look at 49 other significant events, players and executives who made the Super Bowl America’s foremost sporting pageant:

49 Jim Lee Howell: The NY Giants coach was the mentor to defensive coordinator Tom Landry and offensive coordinator Vince Lombardi. It might be legend, but one visitor to the Giants headquarters claimed he saw Landry studying film in one room, Lombardi drawing plays on a board in another and Howell reading a newspaper in a third room. If true, that would be a quite a contribution to Super Bowl history.

48 As graceful as a Swann: Pittsburgh’s Lynn Swann caught four passes for 161 yards and a touchdown, including two of the most acrobatic catches ever in a victory over the Dallas Cowboys in Super Bowl X. Twice, Swann and QB Terry Bradshaw victimized cornerback Mark Washington with an improbable 53-yard catch in the second quarter and later a 64-yard TD grab down the sideline.

47 Hank Stram: Stram was ahead of his time, offensively and defensively, according to Len Dawson, and raised the game “to a higher intellectual plane” to the point of an “academic discipline,” said author Ron Smith. In Super Bowl IV, Stram was the first Super Bowl coach to wear a microphone for NFL Films ... for $1,000.

46 Mean Joe Greene: The North Texas great had commercial appeal for Coca-Cola because he was the most dominant player on one of the most dominant defenses in Super Bowl history. “Hey, kid, catch!”

45 Wellington Mara: The New York Giants owner, head of the richest team in the biggest market in the league, made perhaps the most significant contribution to the Super Bowl by agreeing to a revenue-sharing plan that allowed smaller-market teams in Pittsburgh and Green Bay to compete on equal financial footing. His action led the Rams and Bears to join him.

44 Superdome: The opening of the Louisiana Superdome in New Orleans was a game-changer in 1975, giving the Super Bowl a quasi-regular indoor site in a great city that offered walkability and proximity to hotels. The Cowboys’ victory in 1978 was the first of seven Superdome Super Bowls.

43 Dion Rich: Perhaps the Super Bowl’s best fan, but definitely its greatest shyster. Rich donned wigs, fake glasses, mustaches and beards — whatever — to successfully sneak into the Super Bowl 35 times without paying. He also made it onto the field 22 times, including helping lift Tom Landry in triumph after Super Bowl XII.

42 Whitney Houston: The pop star’s stirring rendition of the national anthem in Super Bowl XXV in 1991 as American troops battled in the Gulf War should have put even Scott Norwood’s missed kick in perspective. It didn’t, but she set the standard.

41 Art Rooney: The Steelers owner was symbolic of the Super Bowl’s prolific gambling traditions, building a nest egg — which he would convert into the team — after winning $300,000 one weekend at the racetrack in 1936.

40 The drama of controversy and scandal: Over 50 years, Super Bowl week has whetted appetites with soap-opera drama that kept fans entranced. Consider a few:

▪ The week of Super Bowl IV, NBC reported that Kansas City QB Len Dawson was among players who would be summoned to testify at a federal investigation into sports gambling. Dawson admits to a casual acquaintance with an arrested gambler but is cleared of any wrongdoing.

▪ Oakland’s Barret Robbins, who played at TCU, disappearing the night before XXXVII caused widespread concern.

▪ In the early morning hours before Super Bowl XXXIII, Atlanta’s Eugene Robinson, presented the Bart Starr Award the day before for “high moral character,” is arrested for soliciting an undercover police officer for oral sex.

▪ Ray Lewis’ connection to a murder in Atlanta after Super Bowl XXXIV tainted a Hall of Fame career.

▪ Bad boy Jim McMahon of the Bears showed what some say was his best side in mooning a television helicopter the week of Super Bowl XX in 1986.

39 The Gatorade shower: The first time we saw the sports cultural phenomenon was Harry Carson, et al., dousing grouchy Bill Parcells after the New York Giants defeated Denver in Super Bowl XXI.

38 Super Bowl Shuffle: The Bears returned to glory with perhaps the best team in Super Bowl history with a dominating victory over New England in Super Bowl XX. But it was a rap song performed by the team’s zany cast of characters — Jim McMahon and Refrigerator Perry, among them — that was seared into memory.

37 Leon Lett: The play had no significance on the outcome of the game, but Lett’s premature touchdown celebration went down in the annals as a top contender for most boneheaded play in the Super Bowl history.

36 His own man: Steve Young, seeking to escape the shadow of his predecessor, Joe Montana, does it with a Super Bowl-record six touchdown passes in San Francisco’s fifth championship, a 49-26 victory over San Diego in Super Bowl XXIX.

35 Robert Kraft: Under his leadership, the owner of the New England Patriots has overseen construction of one of the NFL’s top dynasties and credited for negotiating labor peace with players in 2011. “Without him, this deal does not get done,” said Jeff Saturday, NFL Players Association board member. “He is the man who helped us save football.”

34 Art Modell: Persona non grata in Cleveland after moving the Browns to Baltimore, Modell left his mark on the league and Super Bowl as the NFL’s chief negotiator with television networks that generated almost $10 billion in 31 years. Monday Night Football? His brainchild.

33 Jerry Jones: Though a three-time winner, Jones is often criticized as a general manager. But he has been a difference maker as an owner in the selection of Paul Tagliabue as commissioner and a driving force in bringing Fox and its billions in television contracts on board when it appeared the league would have to make financial concessions to CBS and NBC.

32 Charles Haley: The harassing defensive end was the final piece of the puzzle for the Cowboys’ 1990s dynasty. No one has won more Super Bowl rings than the Hall of Famer, who gave offensive linemen sleepless nights.

31 It wasn’t easy: The lovable losers that were the New Orleans Saints showed that absolutely anybody — even the Vikings and Bills — can win the Super Bowl after finally ending years of fan torment with triumph at Super Bowl XLIV.

30 Marcus Allen: Allen’s 74-yard run became an NFL Films instant classic in Oakland’s 38-9 victory in Super Bowl XVIII. Taking a pitch from quarterback Jim Plunkett, Allen heads for a wall of Redskins defenders on the outside, but cuts back and in and shoots straight up the middle for a large chunk of the MVP’s 191 yards.

29 Agony of defeat: The Cowboys have won five Super Bowls, but, like Dwight Clark’s catch in the 1981 NFC Championship Game, Jackie Smith’s drop in Super Bowl XIII is one fans can’t stand to watch. Worst yet, the photo of Smith lying in the end zone is one of the most iconic images in Super Bowl history.

28 Commercials: The commercials for many are as good or better than the main event. Since Apple’s 1-minute spot based on George Orwell’s 1984, we’ve seen everything from talking Clydesdales to financial-planning infants. They’re network money makers, too: Last year, a 30-second spot went for $4.5 million.

27 The Jacksons: The King of Pop transformed the Super Bowl halftime show in 1993 and in doing so opened the TV audience to an entire new demographic ... the non-football fan. No one, particularly the FCC, will forget Jackson’s sister, the Queen of Drop, in Super Bowl XXXVIII. Last year, the game attracted 114 million viewers, while the Katy Perry halftime show brought in 118 million.

26 Media day: The Super Bowl’s best promotional might be media day the week of the big game. It’s here that the NFL’s personalities can show off their best natures. And knowledge. On the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, faithful follower Reggie White offered an interesting interpretation: “He was healing the sick, and the doctors got mad. He was raising the dead, and all the funeral-home directors got mad.”

▪ In the days of the more impromptu media availabilities, the Cowboys’ Thomas Henderson alleged that Terry Bradshaw couldn’t spell cat if you spotted him the “C” and the “T” while explaining why the Steelers’ QB had no chance in reading the Doomsday Defense.

▪ If the Super Bowl was the “ultimate” game, “how come they’re playing it against next year?” difficult Cowboys running back Duane Thomas wanted to know.

25 Super Bowl XII: The game included a few Super Bowl benchmarks. The first Super Bowl game played in the Superdome represented the biggest jump in TV viewers — almost 16 million — from the year before in the game’s history. The game between Dallas and Denver was also the first to be played in prime time, and the only time the game has had co-MVPs.

24 John Madden: A Super Bowl winner as a coach, Madden’s voice — and that of his partner, Pat Summerall —became synonymous with the NFL’s championship game.

23 Al Davis — Just win baby. A player, coach, general manager, AFL commissioner and thorn in the NFL’s side. “The fire that burns brightest in the Raiders’ organization is the will to win.”

22 A wild-card winner: The 1980 Oakland Raiders became the first wild-card team to win the Super Bowl, defeating Philadelphia at the Superdome, only days after the release of the hostages in Iran. That game also completed the comeback of Jim Plunkett, essentially unheard of since winning Rookie of the Year in 1971 until Dan Pastorini broke his leg in 1980.

21 Tex Schramm: Don Shula said the Cowboys president, Schramm, who led the NFL’s side of merger talks, “had as much, or more to do with the success of professional football as anyone who has ever been connected with the league.” Schramm was also instrumental in the NFL’s playoff format, suggesting the merged league create three divisions in each conference and wild cards.

20 Terry Bradshaw: The Hall of Famer was the Super Bowl’s first great winner — mostly at the Cowboys’ expense — winning four in six years, but he has also made a mark as an television analyst.

19 Tom Landry: One of the game’s great innovators, Landry built the Cowboys into America’s Team and a perennial power and annual Super Bowl contender. The Cowboys played in five Super Bowls under Landry and won twice.

18 Jerry Rice: The most celebrated receiver in NFL history made his mark in Super Bowl XXIII with records for receptions and receiving yards in a game and he sealed his MVP performance with a game-tying 14-yard TD plus several big catches on the 49ers’ game-winning drive over Cincinnati.

17 Giant upset: The Giants, huge underdogs against the undefeated Patriots, pulled off perhaps the Super Bowl’s biggest upset on the back of WR David Tyree, who pulled down Eli Manning’s jump ball thrown down the middle of the field. Tyree held the ball with one hand against his helmet as he fell backward and secured it with both hands as he hit the ground.

16 Doug Williams and history: Everybody promptly forgot Doug Williams was the first black quarterback to start a Super Bowl when he led Washington to 35 points in the second quarter of a blowout victory over then-snakebit Denver in Super Bowl XXII. The ’Skins’ second-quarter points output is a Super Bowl record.

15 Steelers the first with four: Pittsburgh won its fourth title in the 1970s, rallying in the fourth quarter for a 31-19 victory at the Rose Bowl in Super Bowl XIV. Down 19-17, QB Terry Bradshaw hit John Stallworth for a 73-yard TD that put the Steelers up for good.

14 Hair raising triumph: Jimmy Johnson was so happy with his first title in Super Bowl XXVII that he could offer no defense when Emmitt Smith upset the coach’s always perfectly coiffed head, a moment emblematic of the start of the Cowboys’ 1990s dynasty.

13 A yard but a mile away: Tennessee had visions of snipping the St. Louis Rams in the last seconds of Super Bowl XXXIV in 2000, but Kevin Dyson, who hauled in a pass from Steve McNair, was tackled a yard short of the goal line by LB Mike Jones as time expired.

12 Bill Walsh: One of the Super Bowl’s great coaches, Walsh, father of the West Coast offense, studied the leadership of Civil War and WWII generals to hone his own skills. But, his greatest achievement might not be his three Super Bowl titles, but that he did it at San Francisco, a perennial loser.

11 Lamar Hunt: He has been called a visionary in going head-to-head with the NFL in 1960, but it was a child’s toy, the Super Ball of a bored chemist, that became the namesake for the NFL’s championship game. By Super Bowl III, the name was a keeper.

10 Pete Rozelle: The NFL honors the Super Bowl MVP with the Pete Rozelle Trophy, in honor of the man who took a bush league with 12 teams and a staff of four full-time employees and a Kelly Girl temp and built it into the most dominant sports league in the history of sport.

9 John Elway: Elway was on one of those lists, “greatest player never to win  ...” until Super Bowl XXXII, as Denver upended the Packers 31-24 in his fourth Super Bowl appearance, his will to win personified in a dive for a first down that lifted Elway, then 37, off the ground and his body in a helicopter spin. The moment, though, lost some of its shine when Elway turned in an MVP performance and second consecutive championship the next year as he went into retirement a winner. Before Peyton Manning, 39 in Super Bowl 50, Elway was the oldest QB to start in the big game.

8 Vince Lombardi: The preeminent coach of his era, Lombardi remains the face of the blue-collar Green Bay Packers, champions of Super Bowl I and II and namesake of the Super Bowl trophy.

7 It’s a Super Bowl par-taaaay: Seldom-used TE Max McGee didn’t expect to play in Super Bowl I, so he got after it on the town the night before in Los Angeles, staying out until dawn. The Packers, though, did need him, and he responded by leaving the Chiefs with a terrible hangover after hauling in two TD passes.

6 Just getting started: The Patriots were two-touchdown underdogs to the Rams, but stunned the NFL community with a 20-17 victory. Adam Vinatieri’s 48-yard field goal — the first Super Bowl winning kick since Jim O’Brien’s against the Cowboys — as time expired was the difference in New England’s first title in 2002.

5 Bill Belichick: Like Lombardi, Belichick is the best coach of his era, but he is as noted for controversy and scandal as being a master strategist and winner of four Super Bowls in six appearances.

4 Joe Montana: One of the game’s best performers, Montana, one of two players to win, as the primary quarterback, a national college title and a Super Bowl title, closed his career with a Super Bowl-best 127.8 passer rating, going 4-0 and having never thrown an interception in 122 attempts.

3 Tom Brady: He’s loved and despised not only because of what he has accomplished but the circumstances surrounding his triumphs. Say what you will, the field leader of the Patriots’ dynasty is a winner with four titles in six tries and holds seven Super Bowl passing records.

2 Dolphins — perfection personified: Miami’s perfect season remains the standard for every Super Bowl victor, despite The Ugliest Pass Attempt in Super Bowl history. Thank you, Garo Yepremian, who is to Super Bowl special teams gaffes what Mario Mendoza is to batting in baseball.

1 Joe Namath guarantee: The audacious quarterback goes bold, guaranteeing the Jets, 18-point underdogs to the Colts, victory in Super Bowl III. That declaration and a picture of Namath leaving the field holding his index finger high are iconic.

This story was originally published February 5, 2016 at 5:17 PM with the headline "AFL-NFL merger was X-factor in building popularity of Super Bowl."