AFL Spring Meetings 1953

 

AFL INKS NEW DEAL WITH DUMONT

After the previous year’s deal with DuMont to broadcast select games and the championship last year, the AFL and the DuMont Network have agreed to a 2 year deal that will see more select games be broadcast nationally on the DuMont Network. DuMont will once again televise the championship games for the 1953 and 1954 seasons, as well as 9 Saturday night games per year and the semi-finals on Thanksgiving that were a part of the new deal. These Saturday night games will be the first time that any football game will be televised from coast-to-coast in prime time, with networks out west finally being included as part of the broadcasting deal. The AFL’s gamble to go to television before any of the other leagues is a bet that is greatly paying off. AFL players are becoming household names in locations outside the league’s footprint, especially growing the Northeast, where the league’s popularity is surpassing both the NEFL and the NYPL. If the league’s popularity can spread this fast, then the AFL is on the right track to success. 


COLUMBUS TO RELOCATE TO WASHINGTON

The Columbus Buckeyes would be no more after the 1952 season. After a middling mix of results and ticket sales and playing second fiddle to the University of Ohio, owner Randolf Durant decided that Columbus would not last as a professional city for much longer. Durant put the team up for sale after the 1951 season, leaving the team’s future to whoever buys out the team. The winning bid was from Bernard McCullough, a prominent real estate developer from Norfolk, VA. He had built himself up from nothing and his company became the largest real estate firm in the Tidewater region, and had a part-time ownership stake in the Southern Football League’s Richmond Patriots before the entire league went under during the Second World War. Wanting to get back into football, he placed the winning bid on the Buckeyes, and instead of moving the team to his home market, he wanted to move the team to Washington, D.C., and share the stadium with the city’s baseball team, the Washington Senators, which he had also purchased in 1947. The Buckeyes name would be gone, and McCullough wanted the team to undergo a change to better suit the nation’s capital. While he did not have exact details on what the new team would be named, he assured the fans of the new team would not have to wait long to reveal the team that they would root for. The other owners welcomed McCullough to the meetings with open arms, with former owner Randolf Durant saying one last goodbye to the league as he symbolically transferred his position on the Owners Council to McCullough. After the pop and circumstance was over, the owners introduced the main issue on their docket for these meetings.


AFL-NEFL MERGER

The potential merger of the AFL and NEFL was going incredibly smooth going into the league meetings in February. AFL commissioner Donovan Hasenkamp was joined by Boston Rebels owner Frank Goldstein, and NEFL president and Boston Bards owner Robert McNamara in Chicago to finalize the merger options between the two leagues. Negotiations were going to be tense, as fans and players from both Boston teams were very vocal in opposition of the merger. Many Rebels and Bards players did not want to be put on the “lesser” team, knowing that Goldstein wanted to put all the best players of the two teams. Goldstein and McNamara were also at odds with each other, having greatly differing views on the NEFL’s future. Most other NEFL teams were also in opposition of the merger, with the Boston teams bringing a majority of the league’s revenue. Losing their breadwinners would be a catastrophic loss to the league, and the other owners threatened to not participate in the 1954 season unless something was done to prevent the league from collapsing financially. When the three intervened with the other 7 owners of the AFL, it was made clear that the original merger option would not be the best option due to player backlash. Goldstein proposed that instead of the merger only one of the Boston teams get in. Detroit owner August Riddle brought up that this was effectively the same as the merger proposal, only that one of the teams would get promoted and the other stuck in the NEFL. McNamara shot down Goldstein’s idea after that, and it was back to the beginning of how Boston would be integrated into the league. McNamara presented the idea that this Boston team start from scratch, making it an expansion team co-owned by McNamara and Goldstein to begin in whichever year the AFL approves. This would be the final expansion proposal, and was put to the vote among the owners, with McNamara abstaining since it was his proposal. Even if he would be able to vote, it overwhelmingly passed among the owners in a 7-2 majority, with only Tri-Cities owner Bert Hester and Goldstein being the only dissenting votes. Hester did not like that there was a city furthest east that would complicate travel costs for his small market team, and Goldstein because he did not want to co-own a team in a city that he felt was prestigious enough to join the AFL. He went on a tirade after the vote, cursing and condemning the owners for barring his prestigious Boston Rebels and his great players from the greatest league he has ever seen. Hasenkamp had enough of Goldstein, and threw Goldstein out of the meeting room, telling him that he would no longer be a part of negotiations with the league. Nearly half an hour passed by with the owners getting into a screaming match and alerting the press to the Blackstone Hotel. Hasenkamp denied any interviews at that time, only stating “It’s not the first time someone from Boston has caused a commotion in this country.” With tensions higher than they had been, the owners (minus Goldstein, who was prohibited from entering) decided to reconvene the following day to finalize the merger proposal. The following day, the owners met to discuss the next most pressing issue: what to do with the remainder of the NEFL. McNamara did not want to just fold the remainder of the league or leave it as is, but could not figure out a solution to the league. Several hours passed until Washington owner Bernard McCullough proposed that the NEFL become a minor league to the AFL. McCullough’s Washington Senators in the NBL were one of the first teams to utilize a farm system, and their development of talent is the primary reason they were able to win multiple World Series titles in recent years. It was more unprecedented for a football league to have a feeder league, as college had been the sole place where players could develop talent before going pro. McCullough did not want to end the college-to-pro pipeline that had existed since the beginning of pro football, but more as a place where players that weren’t good enough to join any professional league to develop their skills in order to attract professional teams to sign with. After hours of debate between owners, which was thankfully more civilized without Goldstein in the room, the NEFL would become the development league for the AFL in a narrow 5-4 vote. The teams’ affiliations would be determined at a later date once Boston joins the AFL. The former Boston teams would fall to the  NEFL and McNamara to decide. McNamara said he would bring it up with the NEFL owners, but more likely than not the two Boston teams would relocate to smaller markets to accommodate for the league’s change to a feeder league.  In some consolation, Goldstein would become the new president of the NEFL when the Boston team would be added to the AFL, although there was plenty of pushback from the other owners after his outburst. After a long day cooped up in the hotel’s conference room, Donovan Hasenkamp finally walked out and began talking with the press about the league’s future. 


The final proposal is as follows:

  • An expansion team will be created in Boston, to be owned by Robert McNamara.

  • The new Boston team will be made up of players from all existing NEFL teams, in which an “expansion draft” will occur prior to the team joining the AFL.

  • The NEFL will become the development league for the AFL, which will begin the same year the new Boston team is established in the AFL. Team affiliations are to be determined.

  • The two former Boston teams in the NEFL, the Boston Bards and Boston Rebels, will be relocated to other markets to be determined.


Hasenkamp stated later to the press that there would be no set date the expansion will take place, as he wants to have a second team join the league to accompany Boston. He did want this merger to take effect in the next 5 years, but wanted to find another suitable location for a team for Boston to join with. “Knowing how our league is growing,” Hasenkamp said to the press, “it won’t be long until we get another team knocking on our door to join our league.”

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