Back in the late Nineteen Fifties a New Orleans enterprise man named Dave Dixon was working laborious on getting the Metropolis of New Orleans an NFL franchise. Little did he know that 6 years down the road the NFL commissioner Pete Rozelle would wish a favor from officers from the state of Louisiana to push via his NFL-AFL merger.
On the time there have been two competing football leagues. With that system in place if a player was drafted by both leagues he had bargaining power to play one against the opposite to get the very best pay possible. Combining each leagues into one would swing the facility again over to the homeowners by having only one team making an offer and if the player needed to be a professional with out having to move to Canada he would have to take that offer.
The problem that was posed with this is even though both leagues saw the benefits to this, combining them into one large league would create a monopoly which at the time was only authorized for utility companies. Properly that's in case you don't have the legislation modified to fit your needs.
Pete Rozelle method Dave Dixon on the matter and mentioned "Dave what can you do to assist". Dave sent the public relations manager David Kleck, who represented him to Hale Boggs of Louisiana who at the time was the home majority whip, to meet with Mr. Boggs on the matter.
The deal that was made was that the NFL grant the Metropolis of New Orleans a franchise in change for Congress voting to grant an exemption to the NFL for operating a monopoly. The exemption acquired past the people who would vote in opposition to it by being hooked up to a finances bill. The bill was backed by Russell Long of Louisiana who on the time was the Senate finance committee chairman.
It was accepted in October of 1966 and on November 1st 1966 Pete Rozelle traveled to New Orleans to announce the City of New Orleans was granted an NFL franchise. In case you're not Catholic, November 1st occurs to be All Saints Day and thus the crew was named the New Orleans Saints. The primary owner of the Saints was a wealthy Texas oil man named John Meacom Jr. he selected the colors Black and Gold as a result of oil is nicknamed black gold. As you can see we in New Orleans are very fortunate to have an NFL franchise. It was only as a result of the NFL commissioner needed a favor that we were granted one. It is even better that forty three years later our group grew to become world champions.
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