美国国家橄榄球联盟（2026年更新版）

那时候，NFL只在大约八个城市存在。

The NFL was only in, what, I think, eight cities at that point in time.

要真正实现这一目标，你必须扩张。

To really realize it, you had to expand.

你必须进入更多的城市。

You had to be in a lot more cities.

全美各地——东海岸、中西部、南部、佛罗里达——都有富有的商人希望组建球队并加入NFL，但NFL的老板们对扩张毫无兴趣。

And there were wealthy business people in cities all across America, East Coast, Midwest, the South, Florida, who wanted to add teams and come into the NFL, but the NFL owners weren't interested in expansion.

没错。

Right.

而这八支球队中，红雀队如今位于亚利桑那州。

And those eight teams, the cardinals, of course, they're in Arizona today.

还有芝加哥熊队。

You got the Chicago bears.

还有绿湾包装工队。

You got the Green Bay packers.

纽约巨人队、底特律雄狮队、波士顿红皮队后来都迁到了华盛顿。

The New York giants, the Detroit lions, the Boston redskins had since moved to Washington.

你还有费城老鹰队、匹兹堡钢人队。

You've got the Philadelphia Eagles, the Pittsburgh Steelers.

在这一点上，至关重要的是，克利夫兰公羊队。

And at this point, and this is crucial, the Cleveland Rams.

是的。

Yes.

克利夫兰公羊队由富有远见的丹·里夫斯拥有。

The Cleveland Rams, owned by the forward thinking, Dan Reeves.

对。

Yes.

这是第一支没有解散而是搬迁的克利夫兰球队。

And this is the first Cleveland team that did not shut down, but instead moved.

因此，在美国其他城市有潜力的球队所有者群体，到了1944年，干脆就对NFL说：去你的吧。

So the other potential ownership groups in other cities across America that won football leagues, at a certain point, come 1944, they were just like, well, the hell with you, NFL.

我们自己创办一个联赛。

We'll go start our own league.

对。

Yep.

于是，1944年一个新的职业联赛成立了，叫做全美橄榄球联盟。

So a new professional league gets founded, the All America Football Conference in 1944.

AAFC。

The AAFC.

而且它拥有相当强大的实力。

And it's got some pretty serious firepower.

它由美国一位顶尖的体育记者创办，这位记者住在芝加哥。

It's organized by one of the country's preeminent sports journalists based in Chicago.

它得到了一些实力雄厚的拥有团体的支持，包括洛杉矶著名的好莱坞演员唐娜·米奇、旧金山、纽约、芝加哥和迈阿密的富商，他们还与传奇的俄亥俄州立大学教练保罗·布朗达成协议——当他从战争服役归来后，不会重返大学橄榄球界。

It's backed by some high power ownership groups, including the famous Hollywood actor, Donna Michi, in Los Angeles, wealthy businessmen in San Francisco, New York, Chicago, Miami, and they have reached a deal with the legendary Ohio State coach, Paul Brown, when he's coming home from the war from his service, that he is not gonna go back to the college game.

他将前往执教新成立的AAFC克利夫兰球队，这支队伍以他的名字命名，叫做克利夫兰布朗队。

He's gonna come coach the new AAFC Cleveland franchise named after him, the Cleveland Browns.

是的。

Yes.

这位改变了橄榄球运动的人，保罗·布朗。

The man who transformed football, Paul Brown.

这是现代NFL时代首次出现真正的威胁：两支职业橄榄球队在同一座城市竞争，人们非常想看这场比赛——克利夫兰公羊队和即将成立的AAFC克利夫兰布朗队。

And this is the very first time in sort of the modern NFL era where you have this real threat of two professional football teams that people really wanna see in the very same city, the Cleveland rams and the soon to be Cleveland browns in the AIFC.

是的。

Yes.

在这两支球队的正面交锋中，胜负已见分晓，赢的不会是公羊队。

And in a head to head war between those two franchises, the writing is on the wall of who's gonna win, and it's not gonna be the Rams.

丹·里夫斯认为NFL应该向西海岸发展，成为真正全国性的联盟，他想把公羊队迁到洛杉矶。

Now Dan Reeves thought that the NFL should be on the West Coast and should be truly national, and he wanted to move the Rams to Los Angeles.

但根据NFL的章程，搬迁球队必须获得所有老板的一致同意，而他们并不支持他。

But the NFL owners, by the bylaws, you had to have a 100% unanimous approval of all the owners to move a team, and they didn't want him.

这很有道理。

And it makes a lot of sense.

这些球队一直都在亏钱。

These teams have lost money forever.

我们正站在真正建立起一项盈利事业的边缘。

It's like, we're just on the precipice of having a real business here.

别逼我们去想办法让另外七支球队每六七场比赛就跑一趟洛杉矶。

Don't make us figure out how to get these other seven teams to LA once every whatever it is, six or seven games.

所以这场战争即将结束。

So now the war's ending.

AAFC和布朗队即将加入，而在1946年1月的NFL年度会议前夕，致命一击出现了。

The AAFC and the browns are coming in, and then the dagger comes right before the nineteen forty six NFL annual meetings in January.

丹·托平拥有NFL的布鲁克林道奇队，同时也是纽约洋基队的老板。

Dan Topping, who owns the NFL's Brooklyn Dodgers and also the New York Yankees, the baseball team.

于是，NFL中最具声望、最富有的老板转投了AAFC。

So, like, the highest profile, wealthiest owner in the NFL defects to the AAFC.

因此，一场重大危机爆发了。

So there's major crisis.

是的

Yep.

他们在一月份做的第一件事就是罢免了当时的联盟主席。

First thing they do in the January is they boot out the then commissioner.

所以老板们心想，好吧。

So the owners, they're like, okay.

为了领导这场斗争，我们不能让一个外部的人来担任。

To lead this fight, we can't have somebody from the outside.

我们需要从内部的老板群体中推选一位自己人，他能够团结所有人，对这种生存威胁做出协调一致的回应，于是他们任命了费城老鹰队的老板伯特·贝尔为NFL新任主席。

We need to draft one of our own from the ownership group here in the inside who's gonna be able to marshal everybody together and lead a coordinated response to this existential threat, they install Bert Bell, who is the owner of the Philadelphia Eagles, as the new commissioner of the NFL.

他立即被赋予制定应对AAFC的反击策略的任务，他们认为这需要做到三件事。

And he's tasked immediately with drafting a competitive response to the AAFC, and they decided it needs to be three things.

第一，他们必须到AAFC的地盘上去竞争，也就是在全国范围内，特别是西海岸和加利福尼亚。

One, they need to go meet the AAFC where they are, being nationwide and the West Coast and going to California.

第二，如果NFL想赢，就必须提供比AAFC更出色的产品，场上的比赛质量要更高。

Two, the NFL, if they're gonna win, they need to put out a superior product, a better game on the field than the AAFC.

第三，他们需要比AAFC做得更好，或者至少在向美国民众宣传方面做得一样好。

And then three, for the first time, they need to do a better job than the AAFC, or at least as good a job at actually telling America about it.

他们必须去传教。

They have to go proselytize.

他们必须赢得球迷，赢得消费者的心与认同。

They have to go win fans and win consumers' hearts and minds.

所以第一点和第三点基本上都是由丹和公羊队负责的。

So fronts one and three are basically all handled by Dan and the Rams.

因此，贝尔一上任为专员，就立即推动批准公羊队迁往加利福尼亚。

So immediately after Bell comes in as commissioner, he orchestrates approval for the Rams to move out to California.

这样做很明智，因为当1946赛季正式开赛时，克利夫兰新成立的布朗队在主场首战就吸引了六万名观众，这比公羊队前一年整个赛季的总观众人数还多。

And it's a good thing they did because when play eventually starts in the 1946 season, the new Browns in Cleveland for their very first home game draw 60,000 fans, which is more than the Rams did for the entire season the year before.

是的。

Yeah.

保罗·布朗在克利夫兰备受期待。

Paul Brown was quite the anticipated figure in Cleveland.

他曾执教于俄亥俄州立大学。

He had coached at Ohio State.

他曾执教过一支海军球队，并且以擅长将球队打造成既精通战术智力层面、又具备身体素质的队伍而闻名。

He had coached one of the Navy teams, and he was sort of known for knowing how to whip a football team into shape who would have to know the intellectual side of the game as inside and out as the physical part of the game.

让球员熟记战术手册并参加书面测试，是他策略中至关重要的部分。

It was a huge part of his strategy to make people memorize the playbook and take written tests.

如果他们未能通过这些关于战术、规则和保罗策略的书面测试，

And if they failed these written tests about the plays, about the rules, about Paul's strategy

他就会把他们踢出球队。

He'd kick them off the team.

不管他们有多优秀。

No matter how good they were.

这是第一次有人真正审视这项运动，并意识到：没错，这是一项运动，但事实上，它也可以成为一门科学。

And it's the first time someone really looked at the game and said, sure, it's a game, but actually, this could be a science.

他几乎是第一个践行‘点球成金’理念的人。

He was almost like the first money baller.

他最早的一项创新是，他是首批真正开始回放录像、分析战术模式并手动统计数据的教练之一。

One of the first innovations he did was he was one of the first coaches to really review film and recognize patterns in plays and statistically manually tally.

我们要对付这支队伍和那支队伍时该怎么做，去年哪些战术有效，今年哪些无效。

Here's what we have to do against this team and that team, and here's what worked for us last year, and here's what didn't work for us this year.

保罗·布拉姆是第一位现代意义上的教练，

Paul Bram was the first modern,

不仅是足球教练，我认为甚至是美国整个体育界的第一位教练。

not just football coach, but I think sports coach period in America.

你知道，每个人都有缺陷，所以我们不该把他神化成救世主之类的人物。

And, you know, every human is flawed, so we shouldn't make him out to be the Messiah or something.

但他基本上是第一位开始推动球队种族融合的教练，认识到如果我们拥有最优秀的球员，我们就一定能赢。

But he was basically the first coach to start racial integration of the team and recognize that if we have the best players, then we're gonna win.

所以我们必须不计一切代价，把最好的球员聚集到我们的队伍中。

So we just need to do whatever it takes to get the best players on our team.

他做的另一件事是，全年都雇佣了一整支助理教练团队。

The other thing that he did, he employed an entire staff of assistant coaches year round.

我认为除了他之外还有六个人。

I think it was six people in addition to him.

其他球队都没有这样做。

No other team did that.

在种族融合方面，AAFC从一开始就打算成为一个融合的联盟。

And on the racial integration front, the AAFC was gonna be an integrated league from the beginning.

这本身就是一种反向定位。

That's counter positioning right there.

NFL，尤其是红皮队，并不热衷于这样做，但将公羊队迁至洛杉矶迫使联盟进行融合，因为公羊队想比赛的洛杉矶纪念体育场是公共所有的建筑，由洛杉矶纪念体育场委员会管理，就像现在一样。

The NFL and especially the Redskins didn't have a lot of interest in doing so, but moving the Rams to LA forces the league to integrate because the LA Coliseum, where the rams wanna play, is a publicly owned building, and it's controlled then as now by the LA Coliseum Commission.

当里夫斯和公羊队前来申请使用纪念体育场时，委员会说：好吧，我们可以允许你们在这里比赛，但我们不会允许任何种族隔离的主队使用我们的体育场作为主场，所以你们必须整合球队。

And when Reeves and the Rams come out to petition their case that they should come be allowed to play in the Coliseum, well, the commission says, okay, we'll let you play here, but we're not gonna allow any segregated home teams to use our stadium as their home stadium, so you're gonna have to integrate the team.

这时，公羊队的公关作用就显得至关重要了。

And this is where the public relations aspect of the rams becomes clutch.

呃。

Ugh.

公羊队在公关方面做得太棒了。

The rams were so good at PR.

所以，他们立刻就同意了。

So, a, they agree right away.

其次，他们还说，太好了。

B, not only that, they say, great.

我们会签下肯尼·华盛顿，他在战前曾是洛杉矶的英雄。

We'll sign Kenny Washington, who, before the war, had been a hero in Los Angeles.

他曾是加州大学洛杉矶分校橄榄球队的巨星，而这一切都得益于公羊队一位精明的年轻实习生皮特·罗塞尔，他帮助制定了许多这一策略。

He was a huge star for the UCLA football team, and all this was helped out by a savvy young intern for the Rams, one young Pete Roselle, who helps craft a lot of this strategy.

但先别急着谈皮特·罗塞尔。

But put a pin in Pete Roselle for the moment.

所以，让我们快速回顾一下目前的情况：你有NFL。

So for a quick review of where we are right now, you've got the NFL.

它是一个18支球队的联盟。

It's an 18 league.

公羊队刚从克利夫兰搬到洛杉矶，与此同时，AFC也开始比赛了。

The Rams have just moved from Cleveland to LA, and then you've got this AFC that's starting to play.

他们究竟是哪一年开始的？

What year do they actually start?

1946年。

1946.

和公羊队迁至加利福尼亚是同一年。

Same year that the Rams moved to California.

AAFC的球队名单包括我们之前提到的克利夫兰布朗队、纽约洋基橄榄球队、布鲁克林道奇队橄榄球队。

And the roster of AAFC teams is the Cleveland Browns that we've talked about, the New York Yankees football team, the Brooklyn Dodgers football team

这些球队都是从NFL叛逃出来的。

Which defected from the NFL.

是的。

Yes.

还有水牛城比森队、迈阿密海鹰队，这挺有意思的。

The Buffalo Bisons, the Miami Seahawks, which is interesting.

这和西雅图海鹰队没有任何关系。

That has nothing to do with the Seattle Seahawks.

他们只是重新使用了同一个名字。

They just reuse the same name.

旧金山四十九人队，洛杉矶公羊队。

The San Francisco forty niners, the Los Angeles dons.

所以你现在有了两支洛杉矶的球队。

So you've got two LA teams.

现在你有了一个AAFC球队和一个NFL球队，还有芝加哥火箭队。

Now you've got an AAFC team and a NFL team, and the Chicago rockets.

所以你有了NFL，还有这个新兴的AAFC，虽然只持续了四年，但却极大地改变了这项运动。

So you've got the NFL, and you've got the upstart AAFC that would only last four years, but would change the game quite a bit.

通过这种竞争，他们迫使NFL做了许多本来对NFL最有利、但如果没有竞争就不会做的事。

And by forcing this competition, they forced the NFL to do a bunch of things that really was in the NFL's best interest, but they wouldn't have done absent competition.

这是第一次我们真正学到了这个教训。

And this is the first time where we really learned the lesson.

人们会观看的足球比赛是最具娱乐性的比赛。

The football that people will watch is the most entertaining game.

是的。

Yes.

因为这一点对于进行这项实验来说可能并不明显。

Because this is something that would not be obvious, I think, for for running this experiment.

最具娱乐性的比赛是什么？

What is the most entertaining game?

是在场上最具竞争力的比赛。

It's the most competitive game on the field.

我们刚刚称赞了保罗·布朗和他的传奇球队，但他实在太厉害了。

And for all that we were just lauding Paul Brown and his legendary, the teams he coached, he was too good.

他的球队太强大了。

His teams were too good.

因此，布朗队赢得了全部四个AAFC冠军。

So the Browns end up winning all four AAFC championships.

他们在四年里只输了四场比赛，比赛变得无聊了。

They only lose four games in four years, and the game becomes boring.

没有任何悬念。

There's no drama.

布朗队一定会赢，这是板上钉钉的事。

It's a foregone conclusion that the browns are gonna win.

如果你的球队要对阵布朗队，他们在主场表现优异，但客场时，球迷们就会想：我干嘛要去呢？

If your team is playing the browns so the browns do great at home, but when they're on the road, they're like, well, the fans, like, why am I even gonna go?

没错。

Right.

看着我的球队被布朗队碾压。

Watch my team get destroyed by the browns.

我为什么要这么做？

Why would I wanna do that?

顺便说一句，作为一个现代布朗队的球迷，我长大后从未说过这些话。

By the way, those words have never come out of my mouth before growing up a modern browns fan.

嗯，现在的布朗队和过去的布朗队已经不一样了。

Well, the current browns are not the same browns as the old browns.

他们实际上是一样的。

They actually are the same.

重要的是，球队品牌和纪录都留在了克利夫兰。

Importantly, the franchise and records stayed with Cleveland.

巴尔的摩乌鸦队是一个始于九十年代的全新球队，并非从克利夫兰搬迁而来的队伍，尽管他们接管了整个管理层、球队和所有者。

The Baltimore Ravens are a brand new team that started in the nineties, not a relocated Cleveland team, despite the fact that they took the whole front office and team and ownership.

这真是NFL对历史的严重篡改。

That's some serious rewriting of history there by the NFL.

是的。

Yes.

所以，正如你所说，NFL从中吸取了教训：天啊。

So to your point, the NFL learns this lesson here of, oh my gosh.

我们很幸运，这种事没有在我们的联盟发生，但这并不是我们有意为之的结果。

We've been sort of fortunate that this didn't happen in our league, but it's really nothing intentional that we did.

我们并没有采取任何结构性措施来确保联盟中没有克利夫兰布朗队。

There's nothing structural that we did to ensure there was no Cleveland Browns in our league.

这完全是偶然发生的。

It sort of accidentally happened.

通过观察那种有一支绝对主导球队的无聊足球联赛的反例，我们现在必须将球队间的足够平等作为联盟的核心原则，以保持比赛的激烈竞争性。

And by observing the counterexample of boring football where there's one dominant team, it kinda has to become a core tenet of our league now to fight these other guys of enough equality between teams that it is always very competitive.

当时这甚至更重要，因为那时只有收音机，还没有电视。

It's even more important back then because there was radio, but there wasn't really TV yet.

尽管我们处于二战后时期，但战争结束后的头五年，电视在全美范围内的普及才刚刚开始。

Even though we're in the post World War two era, these first few years, five years after the war, the installed base of TV was just starting to roll out across America.

所以这仍然是现场观赛。

So this is still an in person game.

因此，职业体育的商业模式是门票销售和现场观赛的上座率。

And so the business model of professional sports was ticket sales, in person attendance at the games.

我认为，AAFC中布朗队占绝对主导的模式根本不可能成功。

I don't think the AAFC model of the Browns being dominant would work ever.

但至少在今天，你可以通过电视观看比赛。

But at least today, you could watch the games on TV.

他们会说：‘只要布朗队比赛，我一定会看。’

They'd be like, oh, I'm always gonna see a show when the Browns are playing.

但那时候可不是这样。

That wasn't the case back then.

你必须让观众走进球场坐满座位。

You had to get butts in seats.

那是你赚钱的唯一方式。

That was the only way you were gonna make money.

这形成了一个反馈循环。

Becomes a feedback loop.

如果你作为球队赚不到钱，就无力维持高水平的竞技表现，这会进一步打破竞争平衡。

If you don't make money as a team, you can't afford to put a quality level of play on the field, which further tips the competitive dynamic out of balance.

完全正确。

Totally.

如果你有一个联赛，能够确保比赛始终具有竞争力，那么从商业角度来看，这意味着什么呢？比如说，每个体育场有4万个座位，共有八支球队。

And if you have a league that figures out how to make sure that it's always competitive and when I say always competitive, what that translates into it from a business perspective is, let's say every stadium has 40,000 seats and you have eight teams.

这意味着每个周末你有能力售出16万个座位，而你的目标就是每个周末都卖出16万张票。

That means you have the capability to sell a 160,000 seats every weekend, and your goal is to sell 160,000 tickets every single weekend.

因此，你真正需要做的，就是确保每场比赛都精彩到值得人们亲临现场观看。

And so what you basically need is to make sure that it's always a great game to come watch.

正如你所说，商业模式主要依赖现场门票销售，而不是电视转播，这种情况一直持续到1977年。

And to your point that the business model is around the gate or ticket sales rather than TV, that actually stayed the case until 1977.

那是NFL首次从电视转播收入中获得的收益超过门票销售收入的年份。

That was the first year that the NFL made more money from television revenue than from ticket sales.

这比我们刚才讨论的时间段整整晚了三十年。

That is a full thirty years later than the time period we are talking about here.

我没想到竟然隔了这么久。

I didn't realize it was that long.

是的。

Yeah.

因为电视将会大规模介入。

Because television's gonna come in a big way.

但回到伯特·贝尔，这位新上任的NFL主席，他在带领NFL老板们对抗AAFC的过程中，有了这一重大洞察。

But back to Bert Bell, the newly drafted commissioner of the NFL, this is his great insight that he realizes as he's marshaling the NFL owners in the battle against the AAFC.

他将此奉为座右铭， literally 他们甚至为此拍了一部电影。

He adopts this as his mantra that literally I mean, they made a movie with this title.

在任何一个星期天，联盟中的任何一支球队都有可能击败其他任何球队。

On any given Sunday, any team in the league should be able to beat any other team.

他向老板们大力推动这一理念，并成功让他们都同意了，就像说：嘿。

And he pushes this through with the owners and gets them all to agree to this of, like, hey.

我们唯一能生存和繁荣的方式，就是达成共识：我们的任何一支球队都不能变得过于强大，以免重蹈克利夫兰布朗队的覆辙。

The only way we're gonna survive and prosper is if we agree that none of our teams can get so dominant that we end up with a Cleveland Brown situation.

是的。

Yep.

好的。

Alright.

各位听众，现在正是感谢我们节目的长期朋友Vanta的好时机，Vanta是领先的智能信任平台，帮助您自动化合规流程并管理风险。

Well, listeners, this is a great time to thank our longtime friend of the show, Vanta, the leading agentic trust platform that helps you automate compliance and manage risk.

大卫，我联系了克里斯蒂娜和Vanta团队，了解了他们最新的进展。

And, David, I caught up with Christina and the Vanta team to get the latest on this one.

不错。

Oh, nice.

是的。

Yes.

所以听众们，你们可能知道，Vanta最初专注于合规自动化，帮助公司获得SOC 2、ISO 27001、GDPR和HIPAA认证。

So listeners, you probably know that Vanta started by focusing on compliance automation, you know, helping companies get SOC two and ISO twenty seven zero zero one and GDPR and HIPAA.

他们的重大洞察是，可以构建一个系统，持续监控所有合规与风险状况，而不仅仅是在年度审计时才检查一次，从而让您始终对自身的安全态势充满信心。

Their big insight was they could build a system that would monitor all your compliance and risk continuously, not just once a year for your audit, so you can feel confident in your security posture all of the time.

但他们意识到，他们真正从事的业务是让客户更容易信任您。

But they've realized that the business they're really in is making it easier for you to earn the trust of your customers.

是的。

Yes.

没错。

Exactly.

所以当你开始扩展时，会面临更多的合规性和安全要求，以及更多的工具，这可能会变得非常混乱。

So when you start scaling, you end up with more compliance and more security requirements and more tools, which can get very chaotic.

Vanta 已经成为一位始终在线、由 AI 驱动的安全专家，能够与你一同成长。

And Vanta has become the always on AI powered security expert that scales with you.

正如他们常说的，他们是你会永远不需要雇佣的最棒的安全专家。

And as they like to put it, they are the best security hire you will never have to make.

这完全说得通。

Which makes total sense.

我的意思是，Vanta 已经远远超越了合规自动化，真正帮助你比自己单独做还要更好地建立客户信任，而这种信任正是促成交易的关键。

I mean, Fanta has really evolved beyond compliance automation to actually building trust with your customers better than you could on your own, and that trust is what closes deals.

是的。

Yeah.

这就是为什么像 Cursor、Snowflake、Replit、Linear、Ramp 和 Ryder 这样的全球增长最快公司都在使用 Vanta 来建立客户信任，并将审计时间减少了 82%。

Which is why the fastest growing companies in the world like Cursor and Snowflake and Replit and Linear and Ramp and Ryder use Vanta to build trust with their customers and spend 82% less time on audits.

这为他们的工程师腾出了大量时间，专注于增长。

That is a lot of time back for their engineers to focus on growth.

是的。

Yes.

所以，如果你的公司准备加入Vanta全球超过14,000名客户行列，只需前往 vanta.com/acquired，并告诉他们本和大卫在2026年推荐你来，你将获得1000美元的免费信用额度。

So if your company is ready to join Vanta's now more than 14,000 customers around the globe, just head on over to vanta.com/acquired and tell them that Ben and David sent you here in 2026, and you will get $1,000 of free credit.

那就是 vanta.com/acquired。

That's vanta.com/acquired.

好的。

Alright.

那么，大卫，NFL新任专员伯特·贝尔秉持着我们必须始终保持比赛竞争性的理念。

So, David, Bert Bell, the new commissioner of the NFL, adopts this mindset of we have to keep the game competitive always.

他们在结构上做了什么？

What do they do structurally?

任何星期天都可能发生。

Any given Sunday.

所以伯特和NFL做了两件事。

So Bert and the NFL do two things.

首先，他彻底改革了赛程安排方式。

First, he completely overhauls the way the schedule works.

过去，赛程就是随便定，嗯，随便安排。

So in the past, the schedule would be just like, yeah, whatever.

你知道，我们都会互相比赛，但顺序是随机的。

You know, we're all gonna play each other, you know, in random order.

他意识到赛程实际上是一个极其重要的战略工具。

He realizes that the schedule is actually an incredibly important strategic lever.

他查看了上一赛季的结果，将赛程安排为：上一赛季较弱的球队在赛季前半段相互对阵，而上一赛季较强的球队则彼此对战。

And he looks at the results from last year's season and arranges the schedule such that the weaker teams from last year play the other weaker teams for the first half of the season, and the stronger teams from the previous season play the other stronger teams for the first half of the season.

这样，他就能尽可能确保到赛季中期时，每支球队的胜率都大致接近五五开。

So that way, he can come as close as possible to guaranteeing that roughly everybody's gonna have statistically a relatively even fifty fifty record going into the midway point in the season.

因此，即使联盟内各队的实际实力差异很大，仍然会充满悬念，让人期待最终谁会夺冠。

So there's gonna be drama about who's gonna end up winning, even though the actual level of talent might diverge quite a bit within the league.

是的

Yep.

即使你是一支强队，如果你在赛季前几场比赛中只面对其他强队，到了赛季后半段你可能会有些伤病。

Even if you're a great team, if you've only faced great teams for your first several games, you're gonna be, a little banged up coming into the second half of the season.

直到今天，NFL仍然在这么做。

And the NFL still does this to this day.

我之前不知道这一点。

I didn't realize that.

对

Yeah.

这是让整个体系有效运转的一种关键巧妙手法。

This is like a kinda critical sleight of hand in making the whole thing work.

但这本质上是一种伪装。

But this is kinda like camouflaging.

如果背后存在竞争平衡问题，这只不过是在掩盖它而已。

If there is a competitive balance problem underlying everything, this is only camouflaging it.

你怎么解决这个问题？

How do you fix it?

是的。

Yep.

不过这时候还没有自由球员制度。

Well, there's no free agency at this point.

没错。

No.

确实没有。

There isn't.

这一点很重要，因为你无法直接签下其他球队合同到期的资深球员来提升自己的球队，你只能引进全新的新秀球员。

And that's important because there's no way to just go sign a veteran player whose contract with another team is up to make your team better, you need to get brand new rookies into the league.

这简直太荒谬了。

It's pretty ridiculous.

直到1993年，NFL才真正出现了自由球员的概念。

There actually wasn't a concept of free agency at all until 1993 in the NFL.

我知道，这太荒谬了。

I know, which is ridiculous.

于是，NFL和伯特想出了一个办法，通过选秀来挑选大学球员。

And so the NFL and Bert come up with the idea of having a draft of college players.

而且这不是普通的选秀，而是按照上一赛季球队排名的倒序进行，这样联盟中表现最差的球队就能获得下一届选秀的优先选人权。

And not just any draft, but a draft in reverse order of where you ended up in the standings in the previous season so that the worst teams in the league get the first picks for the next season's draft.

而且，在进行选秀的过程中，我们一再看到职业联赛对大学联赛的尊重，因为美国社会本身就非常推崇大学体育。

And also, in doing the draft, we just continue to see over and over and over again the pro game having reverence for the college game because America has reverence for the college game.

这种观念就是：我们会仔细观看大学橄榄球比赛，然后设立一个特定的日子，在这一天，我们才有资格从这些比赛中挑选球员进入我们的联盟。

It's this idea that we will watch the college football game very carefully, and then we will create a day where on that day, that is when we will be eligible to go and pull the people out of that game and into our league.

围绕这件事衍生出的虚假仪式感真是令人惊叹。

And it's incredible the, artifice that grows up around this.

哦，今天有五千万人观看这个活动。

Oh, 50,000,000 people watch this thing today.

我的意思是，我们之前看过一些YouTube视频和研究资料，比如几年前泰勒·斯威夫特曾出席在纳什维尔举行的NFL选秀。

I mean, we were watching YouTube videos and research of, like, Taylor Swift was at the NFL draft a few years ago when it was in Nashville.

这简直是个盛大的活动。

Like, it's huge event.

实际上，当ESPN在1979年和1980年开始转播NFL选秀时，这成了它的第一个重大突破。

It was actually the first big coup for ESPN when ESPN started in 1979 and 1980 was televising the NFL draft.

太聪明了。

Genius.

因此，排定赛程和逆序业余选秀这两个要素构成了伯特·贝尔在NFL战略中的核心，这一策略自那以后一直延续至今，核心就是联盟优先。

So these two elements, stacking the schedule and then the reverse order amateur draft form the nucleus of Burt Bell in the NFL strategy that it's had ever since, which comes down to league first.

联盟优先，球队其次。

League first, team second.

是的。

Yeah.

他们还做了一件结构性的事情，那就是创建了一个共享的门票收入池。

And there is a structural thing that they did too, which was to create a shared pool of ticket revenue.

这60%的收入归我所有，因为我是主队。

60% of that revenue, I get to keep because I'm the home team.

在那个历史早期阶段，另外的40%会归客队所有。

And at this point in history, super early on, it was that the other 40% would go to the visitors.

随着时间推移，联盟逐渐调整了这种结构，让这40%进入一个共享池，再平均分配给其他球队，以更强化这种共享理念。

Over time, the league would evolve a structural thing so that 40% went into a shared pool that got divided among everyone else to sort of lean in harder to this shared mindset.

这发生在如今电视转播收入共享制度出现之前。

And this is sort of before the, TV revenues that are shared today.

所以，大卫，也许现在是时候谈谈电视对NFL的影响了。

So, David, maybe this is a time to talk about television's impact on the NFL.

正如我们所说，AAFC只存在了四年。

So as we said, the AAFC only operates for four years.

布朗队太占优势了。

The browns are too dominant.

AAFC在四年后解散了。

The AAFC folds after four years.

来自AFC八支球队中，只有三支加入了NFL，分别是布朗队、四十九人队和巴尔的摩小马队。

Only three teams of the AFC's eight come over to the NFL, the browns, the forty niners, and the Baltimore colts.

当然，现在他们是印第安纳波利斯小马队。

Who are, of course, now the Indianapolis colts.

我们现在就在这里。

Here we are now.

这是五十年代的开端，电视的普及基础已经建立。

It's the dawn of the fifties, and television installed base is here.

因此，在1946年，也就是战后第一年，美国售出了7000台电视机。

So TV set sales in America in 1946, the first year after the war, were 7,000 TV sets sold in America.

1947年，美国售出了14000台电视机，市场翻了一倍。

In 1947, there were 14,000 TV sets sold, so the market doubled.

1948年，美国售出了172000台电视机，此后销量呈指数级增长。

In 1948, there were a 172,000 television sets sold, and it only grew exponentially from there.

哦，我喜欢你查了这些数据。

Oh, I love that you looked this up.

到五十年代初，美国已有两千五百万户家庭拥有电视机。

By this point in the early fifties, there are 25,000,000 homes in America with a television set.

天啊，从NFL的角度来看，历史是不是因为一个关键转折点而彻底改变了？

Man, did history turn on a knife point for the NFL's sake from their perspective?

幸好AAFC成立了，迫使NFL做出竞争性回应，推动扩张、改变比赛方式，并开始培养这种联盟至上的理念。

Like, thank god, a, the AAFC went into business and forced the NFL into a competitive response to expand, to change the game, and to start to discover and understand this league first mentality.

是的。

Yep.

而且，幸好到了四十年代末、五十年代初，NFL击败了AAFC，从此NFL成为美国职业橄榄球唯一的联赛，正好赶上电视普及的时代。

And then also, thank god they beat them by the end of the forties and the beginning of the fifties because now the NFL is the only game in town for professional football in America, and they're the only national league right as TVs are showing up.

实际上，他们更是全国性体育电视节目唯一的选项。

And really, actually, they are the only game in town for national sports television programming period.

因为还有其他运动，比如我们之前提到的棒球。

Because there are other sports, most notably baseball as we've been talking about.

但棒球恰恰是自身成功的受害者，因为当时它是主导性的职业运动。

But baseball, if anything, they were a victim of their own success because it was the dominant professional sport.

他们的上座率高得惊人。

They made so much better attendance numbers.

他们有全部的比赛，一共162场。

They had all the games, a 162.

门票销售对棒球至关重要，因此随着电视的出现，棒球老板们认为电视是有害的，最终还抵制它。

The gate ticket sales were so important to baseball that with the advent of television, the baseball owners thought television was bad, and they end up fighting it.

嗯，足球老板们最初也是这样。

Well, so did the football owners for a while.

是的，足球老板们也是这样，但他们失去的东西少得多。

Well, so did the football owners, but they had a lot less to lose.

对，因为职业足球在这里仍然是弱势运动。

Well, yeah, because pro football is still an underdog sport here.

即使在五十年代初，他们也正处于上升阶段。

Even in the early fifties, they're, like, up and coming.

他们正努力吸引更多人去看比赛，而棒球则通过填满四万人的体育场获得大量球场收入。

They're trying to get more people to go to games, and baseball generates a ton of stadium revenue from filling their 40,000 person stadiums.

确实如此。

Indeed.

棒球损失的东西太多了。

Baseball had a lot to lose.

公平地说，在早期，我认为很长一段时间里，本地市场直播主场比赛确实严重打击了现场观赛人数。

And to be fair to all of them, in the early days, and I think for a long time, local market home television airing of home games absolutely depressed in person attendance.

完全正确。

Totally.

当最早的NFL电视转播协议签署时，当然，这些协议都是由各球队所有者及其本地电视广播合作方分别签署的。

When the very first NFL TV deals were signed, and, of course, these were individual local deals signed by team ownership and their local television broadcasting affiliate.

并不是和CBS这样的全国性电视台签署的。

It wasn't with CBS broadly.

而是和你当地的电视台签署的。

It was with, you know, whatever your local TV station is.

他们会屏蔽所有主场比赛，因为他们说：我们需要填满这个体育场。

They would blackout all the home games because they would say, we need to fill this stadium.

因为在1977年之前，门票收入实际上是最大的收入来源。

Because until 1977, the stadium the gate was actually the biggest form of revenue.

那么，既然人们可以在家观看，我们为什么要自己破坏自己的观赛体验呢？

And so why on earth would we cannibalize our experience when someone could just watch it from home?

绝对不行。

Absolutely not.

后来，直到理查德·尼克松总统下达命令，才结束了主场赛事的电视屏蔽。

It would later take a presidential order from Richard Nixon to end the home blackouts.

但即使如此，也只有在主场比赛门票售罄的情况下，屏蔽才会解除。

And even then, only if the home games were sold out with the blackout be lifted.

直到9·11事件之后，即使主场比赛没有售罄，屏蔽才被取消，但情况依然一团糟。

It wasn't until after September 11 that blackouts were lifted even if the home game wasn't sold out, but it's a mess.

但是，本，正如你所说，五十年代这些早期的体育电视实验进行得相当糟糕。

But, Ben, as you say, in the fifties, these early television experiments are being run with sports, and, like, it is pretty bad.

因此，洛杉矶公羊队在1950年与阿德米尔电视公司达成了一项单独协议，用于转播公羊队的比赛。

So the LA Rams, they do an individual deal in 1950 with the Admiral Television Company to broadcast the Rams games.

但他们在这项协议中加入了一项条款，因为他们看到了棒球领域发生的情况，阿德米尔公司承诺对任何因转播导致的上座率下降进行经济补偿。

But they put a clause in the deal because they'd seen what had happened with baseball that admiral would guarantee revenue back to the Rams for any loss in attendance.

这对Admiral来说是个非常糟糕的交易，因为上座率下降了50%，百分之五十。

And this is a really bad deal for admiral because attendance declines 50%, five zero.

这太疯狂了。

Which is crazy.

尽管转播质量这么差，但人们居然愿意用它来替代现场观赛。

Like, for how bad the broadcasts were, the fact that that is a suitable replacement to go into the game.

他们只会把一台摄像机架在五十码线上，根本不会用任何麦克风，就只是说：好吧。

I mean, they would put, like, one camera up on the 50 yard line, and they wouldn't do, like, any microphones, And they would just be like, alright.

这就是比赛。

This is the game.

也许他们还会配上一些解说员。

And maybe they'd have some commentators.

哦，而且还是在小屏幕上播放的黑白画面，所有这些情况都是如此。

Oh, and it was in black and white on a tiny screen and, like, yeah, all of these things.

但当时这个行业还很新。

But the industry was new.

每个人都在摸索一切。

Everybody was figuring everything out.

电视机制造商、电视台、内容制作方和体育联盟都在摸索。

The TV set manufacturers, the networks, the content, the sports leagues.

其中一个主要的营销信息是：比赛直接送到你家。

One of the big marketing messages was the game comes to you.

你不必出门。

You don't have to leave.

买这个电器，放在家里，它就像一扇魔幻的窗户。

Buy this appliance, put it in your home, and it's like a magical window.

你仿佛拥有了场上的座位。

Like, you have a seat at the game.

这确实导致了现场观赛人数的下降。

And it really did depress attendance.

棒球界逐渐形成了一句说法，遗憾的是，棒球界对此信奉了很长时间：收音机勾起食欲，电视则让人饱足。

A saying ends up being developed in baseball that sadly, for baseball, they stuck to for a very, very long time, that radio wets the appetite, television satiates it.

这是一个新的收入来源，但它正在损害门票销售这只会下金蛋的鹅。

It's a new revenue stream, but it's perding the golden goose of ticket sales.

整个五十年代，这实际上并不是一个特别大的收入来源。

And all the way through the fifties, it wouldn't really be a particularly large revenue line.

但随着它开始增长，每个人都在单独谈判。

But as it did start to grow, everyone's negotiating individually.

最终，纽约巨人队在1959年的电视转播协议中赚了20万美元。

It ended up being the case that the New York Giants were making $200,000, and this is in 1959 on their TV deal.

包装工队则一分未得。

The packers were making zero.

我认为包装工队只赚了五千美元。

I think the packers were making 5 k.

他们确实有电视转播协议，但我记得是5000美元。

They did have a TV deal, but I think it was $5,000.

这就是关键所在。

This is the thing.

足球即使在各支球队之间，也在五十年代初期持续进行着各种尝试，而棒球则基本停止了这一做法，远离了电视。

Football, even amongst the individual teams, kept experimenting through the early fifties, whereas baseball basically shut it down and turned away from TV.

他们发现的一件事是，电视转播会抑制主场比赛的上座率，但当地市场对观看球队客场作战的比赛有着强烈需求。

And one of the things that they figure out is, oh, television broadcasts depress the gate at home, but there's strong demand in local markets to see the team's away games when they're traveling.

因此，在最初的几年里，NFL电视转播的主要模式就是只播放客场比赛。

And so for the first few years, that's the main model of television broadcast of the NFL is just showing away games.

但对这种转播的需求确实很大。

But there's, like, a lot of demand for that.

有趣的是，我们现在称之为‘黑屏’，但当时由于只卖给本地联播台，这其实并不是真正的黑屏。

And it's funny because now we refer to this as a blackout, but at the time, because they were only selling to local affiliates, it's not that it was a blackout.

而是你的本地电视台仅拥有转播客场比赛的授权。

It's that your local TV station only had the contract to broadcast the away games.

当比赛在主场进行时，你天线能收到的范围内没有任何电视台在转播这场比赛。

There was nobody within your antenna's reach that was broadcasting that game when it was at home.

因此，即使如你所说，电视收入在很长时间内都未能超过NFL的门票收入，但这仍成为一个相当重要的收入来源。

So this becomes a pretty meaningful revenue stream even though as you say, it would be a long time before TV would surpass the gate in revenue for the NFL.

到五十年代末，整个联盟通过12份独立合同，每年的电视转播收入已超过一百万美元。

By the end of the fifties, the league as a whole, with all the 12 separate contracts, was making over a million dollars in TV revenue annually.

而相比之下，十年前这一数字还不到十万美元。

Whereas at the beginning of the decade, it was less than a $100,000.

同时，人们也逐渐意识到，某些橄榄球比赛在电视上拥有极其庞大的观众群。

And it also becomes clear that certain football games, there's, like, a really big audience on TV for them.

特别是1958年的NFL冠军赛，即著名的‘史上最伟大的比赛’——由约翰尼·尤尼塔斯带领的巨人队与小马队对决，经过加时赛突然死亡制的戏剧性胜利，吸引了四千五百万电视观众。

In particular, the nineteen fifty eight NFL championship game known as the, quote, greatest game ever played between the Giants and the Colts led by Johnny Unitas, A sudden death overtime, dramatic win, garners 45,000,000 TV Wow.

全美各地的观众都收看了这场比赛，包括总统艾森豪威尔。

Viewers across the country, including president Eisenhower.

那这是全国性的转播吗？

So that was this a national broadcast?

全国性转播

National broadcast

那一年的NFL冠军赛。

of the NFL championship game that year.

重要的是，这并不是超级碗。

Importantly, this is not the Super Bowl.

达蒙和我没有故意回避称它为超级碗。

Damon and I aren't being coy by not calling it that.

这根本就不是超级碗，而且当时我们还缺少大约一半最终会参加超级碗的球队。

Like, that is not what this was, and we're still missing about half the teams that will end up competing for the Super Bowl.

对。

Right.

但有四千五百万观众。

But 45,000,000 viewers.

这是前所未有的。

This was unprecedented.

职业橄榄球和电视之间存在着巨大的机遇。

There is a huge opportunity for professional football and television.

是的。

Yes.

这一点，再次说明，NFL并没有完全意识到。

Which, once again, the NFL was not the one to totally recognize.

竞争能催生最佳的产品，而NFL一次又一次地被逼无奈，却总能很好地应对新兴势力。

Competition does create the best product, and the NFL time and time again has had their hand forced and then reacted really well to a new upstart.

完全正确。

Totally.

因此，在五十年代即将结束之际，就像二战末期和四十年代末一样，有大量城市和投资团体希望加入。

So in this case, as the fifties draw to a close, once again, just like towards the end of World War two and the end of the forties, there were a whole bunch more cities and ownership groups that wanted in.

这里存在明显的商业机会，而此时NFL只有12支球队。

There's a clear business opportunity, and there are only 12 teams at this point in the NFL.

但再次地，NFL的老板们却犹豫不决。

But once again, the NFL owners are kinda dragging their feet.

他们说，我们并不真的想扩张。

They're like, we don't really want to expand.

你知道，也许我们对芝加哥红雀队还持开放态度。

You know, maybe we'd be open to the Chicago cardinals.

他们有点挣扎。

They're kinda struggling.

如果拥有他们的所有权集团打算出售，也许我们会允许他们搬迁。

If the ownership group that owns them were to sell, maybe we would allow them to be moved.

但你去跟他们谈谈吧。

But, you know, go talk to them.

我真的不认为这是出于我们不想让别人分走我们的蛋糕这样的商业考量。

And I really don't think this is, like, a business decision of we don't want more people taking our pie.

我认为他们多少意识到，如果增加更多城市，可能会赚更多钱，但当时NFL的老板们是一个关系紧密的圈子，大家想法一致，都尊重这项运动，而且大多是在球队严重亏损时就拥有了球队。

I think they sort of recognize that there could be more money made if you have more cities, but it was more that the NFL owners at this point are a tight knit fraternity of people who all think the same way, who respect the game, largely who own the teams when they were massively loss making.

所以他们不太愿意让任何人加入他们的俱乐部，即使这对商业有利。

And so they kinda don't wanna let anyone into their club even if it would be good for business.

而我们今天所熟知的NFL是一个商业实体。

And the NFL as we know it today is a business.

但在那个历史时期，每个球队实际上都像是独立的孤岛。

But at that point in history, it was really like, each of these teams are kind of on their own island.

他们与其他球员竞争非常激烈。

They're deeply competitive against other players.

他们并不把那些人视为联盟的同事。

They don't think of those people as fellow employees of the league.

更像是我们各自拥有自己的俱乐部，但每个俱乐部的老板之间有一种特殊的联系，一种兄弟般的情谊。

It's more like we each have our own club, but the owners of each club sorta have this thing with each other, this fraternal bond.

他们愿意首先服从这个联盟的规则。

They're willing to submit to this league first.

这种心态是因为他们知道这对所有人都有好处，但这并不意味着他们想扩张或改变现状。

Mindset because they know it's good for all of them, but that doesn't mean that they wanna expand or change things.

大卫，我真的很兴奋。

And, David, I am excited.

我们终于到了这一刻。

We are finally here.

美国橄榄球联盟的诞生。

The birth of the American Football League.

AFL。

The AFL.

是的。

Yes.

他们与NFL的竞争，以及全国电视转播合同的时代。

Their competition with the NFL and really the era of national TV contracts.

这就是NFL如何成为我们今天所熟知的联盟的故事。

This is the story of how the NFL became the league that we know today.

我们开始吧。

Let's go.

据说，一位潜在的新兴职业橄榄球队投资者——名叫拉马尔·亨特的绅士，是德克萨斯州达拉斯一个庞大石油财富的年轻继承人——他不断试图与NFL的伯特·贝尔沟通，想尽一切办法获得一支扩军球队或收购红雀队。

So the story goes that one of the potential new professional football team investors, a gentleman named Lamar Hunt, who was a young heir to a very large Dallas, Texas oil fortune, kept trying to talk to Burt Bell, the NFL, do anything he could to get an expansion team or buy the cardinals.

他只是想拥有一支橄榄球队。

He just wants to own a football team.

对。

Yep.

所以他从查看红雀队回来，遭到拒绝后，在飞机上灵光一现。

So he's flying back from seeing the cardinals and having been rebuffed, and he has a eureka moment on the plane.

他听说还有许多其他人也想购买红雀队，排着队想在不同城市获得球队。

He's been hearing that there are all these other people who wanna buy the cardinals too and get in line and this person in this city and that person in that city.

拉马尔突然想到：等等。

And Lamar says, wait a minute.

我不需要NFL。

I don't need the NFL.

我不需要红雀队。

I don't need the cardinals.

我有一份名单，上面都是那些也想拥有职业橄榄球队的富人。

I've got a list of all these other wealthy people who also wanna have professional football teams.

那我为什么不联系他们，一起创办一个新联盟呢？

Why don't I call them, and we'll start our own league?

是的。

Yes.

于是，对NFL最成功的一次挑战就此开始。

And thus begins the most successful attempt to challenge the NFL.

毫无疑问。

By far.

因此，在1959年8月，他与其他几位老板共同成立了美国橄榄球联盟，最初有六支球队，很快扩展到八支，包括达拉斯德克萨斯人队、波士顿爱国者队、布法罗比尔队、休斯顿油人队、迈阿密海豚队、纽约泰坦队（后更名为纽约喷气机队）、丹佛野马队、洛杉矶充电者队和奥克兰突袭者队。

So in August 1959, he and several other owners form the American Football League with six teams soon to become eight, the Dallas Texans, Boston Patriots, Buffalo Bills, Houston Oilers, Miami Dolphins, New York Titans, soon to be changed to the New York Jets, the Denver Broncos, the LA Chargers, and the Oakland Raiders.

你可能听说过其中大多数球队。

You've probably heard of most of those teams.

是的。

Yes.

这一次的结果与AAFC截然不同。

This one ended very differently than the AAFC did.

非常、非常不同。

Very, very differently.

起初，贝尔和NFL他们有点

So at first, Bell and the NFL They're sort

假装支持，直到真正构成威胁。

of trying to be pretend supportive until it's legit threatening.

对。

Yep.

但在1959年，就在新成立的AFL宣布即将开赛之际。

But then in 1959, right after the new AFL announces that they're gonna start their league and commence operations.

伯特·贝尔突然去世。

Burt Bell dies suddenly.

于是，就像当年AAFC那样，联盟再次陷入危机，被迫采取行动。

And so once again, just like back with the AAFC, the league is in crisis and forced to act.

但这一次，情况会有些不同，因为有了电视转播的因素。

And unlike the AAFC, things are gonna be a little different this time because of the television aspect.

是的。

Yes.

这一切都是由你提到的拉马尔·亨特主导的，他是达拉斯德克萨斯人队的老板。

And this is all being led by you mentioned Lamar Hunt, who was the Dallas Texans owner.

人们今天可能更熟悉他们作为堪萨斯城酋长队。

People might know them better as the Kansas City Chiefs today.

是的。

Yes.

所以亨特一直在研究NFL。

So Hunt, he's been studying the NFL.

他了解联盟优先的理念。

He knows about the league first mentality.

他也在研究棒球。

He's also been studying baseball.

他一直与棒球队老板会面，包括布鲁克林道奇队的布兰奇·里基——也就是著名的杰基·罗宾逊的搭档，当时他已经离开大联盟，正试图创办第三个独立棒球联盟。

He's been meeting with baseball owners, including Branch Rickey of Brooklyn Dodgers and Jackie Robinson fame, who at that point in time was out of Major League Baseball and was trying to start a third independent league.

独立棒球联盟。

Independent baseball league.

第三个独立棒球联盟。

A third independent baseball league.

是的。

Yes.

带着一些非常激进的想法，真正借鉴了NFL和联盟优先的理念。

With some pretty radical ideas, really borrowing from the NFL and the league first mentality.

他希望在这一新的棒球联盟中拥抱电视，并提出一个激进的解决方案：联盟所有球队共享电视转播收入。

He wanted to embrace television in this new baseball league and have a radical solution where all the clubs in the league would share all of the revenue from a television deal.

真够疯狂的。

Pretty crazy.

于是，拉马尔·亨特和新的美国橄榄球联盟（AFL）采纳了棒球界的这一想法，并加以推行。

So Lamar Hunt and the new American Football League, the AFL, They take this cast aside idea from baseball, and they'd run with it.

亨特说，我们将为整个AFL统一谈判一份全国性的电视转播合同，然后将收入完全平均分配给所有球队。

Hunt says, we'll just centrally negotiate one national television contract for the entire AFL, and then we'll split the revenue completely equally amongst all the teams.

这正是联盟优先理念的极致体现。

This is like the epitome of the league first mentality.

这对我们非常有利，也能帮助我们与NFL竞争。

It'll be great for us, and it'll help us compete with the NFL.

在某些方面，新成立的联盟更容易采取这种做法，因为他们没有现有的电视合同，但他们的提议却被人嗤之以鼻。

And in some ways, it's easy for the upstart to do this encounter position because they have no existing TV contracts, but they do kinda get laughed out of the room.

他们带着这个想法去找电视网络，每个电视网络都说：‘哦，不错的点子。’

They go to the TV networks with this, and each of the TV networks are like, oh, cool idea.

但谁会在意你们的联盟呢？

But, like, who cares about your league?

没人会看这个比赛。

No one's gonna watch this.

所以我们听到了你们的提案。

So we hear your pitch.

我们明白这非常创新、突破性，和NFL各队的做法截然不同，但我们其实并不太在意。

We understand that this is very innovative and breakthrough and very different than what the different NFL teams are doing, and we don't really care that much.

当时两大主流电视网，CBS和NBC，都已经和NFL球队签订了合同。

And the two major networks at the time, CBS and NBC, had deals with NFL teams.

但还有一个新兴的电视网ABC，他们才是完美的合作伙伴。

But there was another upstart TV network out there, ABC, and they were the perfect match.

所以亨特去找了ABC，他们在那儿找到了一位年轻的高管。

So Hunt goes to ABC, and they find a young executive there.

当时ABC甚至还没有体育部门，但ABC有一位名叫鲁恩·阿德勒格的年轻高管。

ABC doesn't even have a sports division at this point in time, but a young executive within ABC named Rune Arledge.

这可能是我们第四次谈到鲁恩·阿德勒格了。

This is probably a fourth episode we've talked about Rune Arledge on.

真是个传奇人物。

What a legend.

鲁恩最终成为了鲍勃·伊格尔的导师，鲍勃·伊格尔在职业生涯初期通过ABC体育部门逐步晋升，后来接管了资本城市公司，再之后自然就接管了整个迪士尼。

So Rune would ultimately become Bob Iker's mentor, and Bob Iker would rise through the ABC sports ranks in the beginning of his career before taking over cap cities and then, obviously, all of Disney.

这对鲁恩来说是个重大机会。

So this is Roon's big opportunity.

在五十年代末，他清楚地看到，全国直播的橄榄球比赛有着巨大的需求。

He sees it's obvious at this point in time in the late fifties that nationally televised football games, there's demand for it.

这其实令人震惊。

This is actually shocking.

我的意思是，现在每个人都会觉得，这当然是理所当然的。

Like, I know to everyone right now, we're like, well, of course.

但过去周日下午的节目安排其实是空缺的。

But it used to be the case that Sunday afternoons kind of had a hole in their schedule.

比如CBS根本没有好的节目，所以他们最初才会答应：好吧，我们来转播一些NFL比赛。

Like, CBS had no good programming, and so that's why they would originally agree to, like, sure.

我们会播出一些NFL比赛。

We'll broadcast some NFL games.

但没人预料到，美国公众会在家里如此热衷于足球，把它当作一种通过电视直播送到客厅的娱乐形式。

But no one expected the American public in their living rooms to take to football as an event, as an entertainment form delivered over the air to the living room the way that it did.

因此，NFL重新定义了美国的星期天，把它变成了一种完全不同的生活方式，这令人震惊。

And so the NFL sort of rebranded Sundays in America and turned it into a completely different way that people spend their time, and that was shocking.

而且在那些早期的NFL协议中，实际上是各支球队分别与电视台和地方台签订的协议。

Well and with those early NFL deals, it was like those were individual deals that teams made with networks and local stations.

所以这本质上是个地方性的事情。

So it was like a local thing.

那还不是足球星期天。

It wasn't football Sunday.

那还不是全国性的盛事。

It wasn't a national event.

对。

Right.

这是第一个全国性的网络合同。

This was the first nationwide network wide contract.

现在，网络公司已经意识到人们确实希望以这种方式度过周末，因此他们可以放心地签订商业协议、推进这项业务，因为尽管这并非他们的预期，但事实证明这种产品确实有市场需求。

The networks now had signal that people did wanna behave in this way, and they could feel safe sort of signing business deals and pursuing this because even though it wasn't what they expected, turns out there is demand for this product.

是的。

Yeah.

于是，ABC与美国橄榄球联盟签订了一份为期五年、价值850万美元的联盟独家电视转播权协议。

So ABC signs a league wide five year TV rights deal with the American Football League for 8 and a half million dollars over five years.

这在当时是历史上金额最大的体育转播权交易。

It was by far, far the single biggest sports rights TV deal in history at the time.

每年向联盟支付130万美元。

$1,300,000 to the league per year.

而且这还是在联盟打第一场比赛之前。

And that was before the league had played a single game.

所以现在我们回到1960年1月，看看NFL。

So here we are now in January 1960 back to the NFL.

他们没有总裁。

They don't have a commissioner.

他们的新兴对手AFL，连一场比赛都还没打。

Their upstart rivals, the AFL, who haven't played a game yet.

他们却已经签下了数百万美元的合同。

They have a multimillion dollar contract.

他们与全国性网络达成了850万美元的五年转播协议，而NFL还没有这样的合同。

An 8 and a half million dollar five year TV deal with a national network that the NFL doesn't have.

这是一场真正的生存危机。

This is a real existential crisis.

和上次不一样，上次他们只是说，好吧。

And unlike last time where they're like, okay.

很好。

Great.

他们打算直接任命我们自己的伯特·贝尔——费城老鹰队的老板——来带领大家度过这次危机。

We'll just draft one of our own Burt Bell owner, the Philadelphia Eagles to come in and lead us through this.

他们无法就新任联盟主席达成一致。

They can't agree on a new commissioner.

于是，经过十一天、二十三次投票，NFL的所有者们展开了一场激烈而漫长的谈判。

So it takes eleven days and 23 separate votes of the NFL ownership groups in a total knockdown drag out negotiation.

多个派系分别支持不同的候选人。

There's multiple camps backing multiple candidates.

是的。

Yeah.

NFL已经变得太大了。

The NFL has just gotten too big.

每个老板都有太多自己的利益需要维护。

Each of the owners has too many of their own interests to argue for.

他们迫切需要某种东西或某个人来团结他们。

They're in dire need of something or someone to unify them.

确实如此。

Indeed.

到过程结束时，最初的候选人一个都不剩了。

By the end of the process, none of the original candidates are still in it.

没错。

Right.

所以在某种程度上，这真是个棘手的处境，因为最有资格的人都已经被排除了。

So in some ways, it's a tough position to be in because all the most qualified people are out.

所以你只能选一个没人讨厌、但可能并不出色的人。

So you kind of have to pick someone that nobody hates, but probably won't be very good.

但幸运的是，对于NFL来说，他们非常、非常

But fortunately, for the NFL, they were very, very,

在那一点上大错特错了。

very wrong about that.

运气好。

Lucky.

运气好胜过能力强。

Better to be lucky than good.

是的。

Yes.

他们选择作为妥协的黑马候选人，33岁的洛杉矶公羊队总经理、前公关实习生、康普顿学院毕业生皮特·罗泽尔，担任这个处于危机中的联盟新任年轻总裁。

They choose as the compromise dark horse candidate, 33 year old general manager of the Los Angeles Rams, former public relations intern, Compton College graduate, Pete Roselle, to be the new young commissioner of this league in crisis.

并创造了我们今天所熟知的NFL。

And create the NFL that we know today.

这简直太英明了。

And it was totally brilliant.

我的意思是，罗泽尔成长为一位不可思议的领袖和远见者，他为联盟、为比赛、为电视转播、为美国做出了诸多贡献，我们现在就要一一列举。

I mean, a, Roselle grows into this just incredible leader, visionary who does so many things that we're gonna enumerate now for the league, for the game, for television, for America.

但这根本不是老板们的本意。

But it was so not the owner's intention.

他们不得不选择这个妥协候选人，一个年轻人

They had to go to this compromise candidate and this young person

大多数人之前都没听说过他。

Who most people hadn't heard of.

他们考虑的其他任何人都属于不同的世代，无法理解五十年代末到六十年代初的新美国。

Anybody else they were considering would have been of a different generation, wouldn't have understood the new America in the late fifties and early sixties.

当时，管理联盟的都是些老一辈的人。

Like, these were all old folks who were running the league at this point in time.

但皮特，没有人比他更能体现五十年代和六十年代美国的全部特质了——年轻家庭、郊区、西海岸、洛杉矶、电视、公关、广告。

But, Pete, nobody better embodied everything about America in the fifties and sixties, like young families, suburbs, West Coast, Los Angeles, television, PR, advertising.

是的。

Yes.

他来自公关背景，这正是他完美的定位，因为他知道，我们迈出的每一步都必须极其精致。

Coming out of the PR background was the perfect positioning for him because he knew that every foot that we have to put forward has to be really polished.

我们必须停止那些令人困惑、相互抵消、传递混乱信息，或者让美国人产生反感的做法，我们需要制定出最佳的媒体策略，让所有报纸和电视台都时刻谈论我们。

We gotta stop doing things that are confusing or cannibalizing each other or send mixed messaging or perhaps put a bad taste in American's mouth, and we need to figure out the very best media strategy, the very best strategy to make it so all the newspapers and all the TV stations talk about us all the time.

NFL、我们的球队和球员必须尽可能多地出现在美国人的口中。

The NFL and our teams and our players need to be on the lips of Americans as much as possible.

尽管他在担任公羊队总经理的两三年里，球队在赛场上的成绩并不出色，但他却把球队变成了联盟中最赚钱的球队。

And as GM of the Rams for only two or three years, the Rams were not a successful team on the field even during his tenure, but he makes them into the most profitable team in the league.

他们真的开始赚大钱了，因为他完全懂这一点。

They actually start making a lot of money because he gets it.

对吧？

Right?

他们在全美第二大电视市场——洛杉矶，这是一个地域分布广泛、人们非常愿意在电视上观看橄榄球比赛的市场。

They're in the second biggest TV market in America, in LA, a very wide geographically spread out market where people wanna watch football games on TV.

他开设了一家公羊队周边商品商店。

He opens up a Rams merchandise store.

他与罗伊·罗杰斯公司合作。

He partners with Roy Rogers Inc.

演员罗伊·罗杰斯拥有一个白色标签的周边商品品牌，专门推出高品质的洛杉矶公羊队球衣、帽子、马克杯等商品。

The actor Roy Rogers had, like, a white label merchandise brand to bring actual high quality branded Rams, jerseys, hats, mugs, etcetera.

这成为公羊队一项独一无二的巨大收入来源。

That becomes a huge revenue line for the Rams that nobody else has.

所以他确实具备合适的背景，然后他上任了。

So he's got the right background here, and he comes in.

这简直太疯狂了。

This is pretty crazy.

我的意思是，当时联盟里有很多资深且有主见的人，他必须与他们周旋。

I mean, this is a very volatile charged situation with a lot of elder and opinionated folks around the league that he's gonna have to deal with.

但就在一年之内，他彻底改变了NFL。

And within a year, he completely changes the NFL.

因此，他上任NFL总裁后的第一件事，就是批准了NFL的扩军计划，以应对AFL的挑战。

So the first thing he does when he comes in as commissioner is he ratifies an expansion plan for the NFL to meet the AFL.

记住，亨特和AFL的老板们当初创立联盟的主要原因之一，就是希望将职业橄榄球推广到更多城市。

Remember, one of the big reasons why Hunt and the AFL owners started the league in the first place is they wanted to bring pro football to more cities.