In 1962, former overcoat salesman Ed Sabol bid $3,000 for the movie rights to the NFL Championship Game between the New York Giants and Green Bay Packers. The rest, as they say, is history. On Saturday night, Sabol will be enshrined in the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
Here are 10 more things you didn't know about Ed Sabol:
» It was 1964 when Sabol convinced the 14 NFL teams to form their own film company, which became NFL Films.
» Without question, Sabol's NFL Films was a major part of the NFL's explosion that started in the mid-60s.
» One thing Sabol began doing in the '60s was making highlight films for every team. These films were very popular at camps, high schools and clubs and became a great way to promote the game.
» NFL Films is the second-most prolific user of film in the country. First is the military.
» Sabol would attend every league meeting, and he formed great relationships with the coaches. He was very close with Hank Stram, and that's what led to Stram agreeing to be miked during Super Bowl IV -- still one of the most popular features in NFL Films history, as the Chiefs kept "matriculating down the field."
» Sabol loved to play golf, and he could be seen playing golf with coaches at every spring meeting. Sabol wasn't a bad golfer, but he often lost to the coaches, and this apparently was another way he gained special access to them.
» His son, Steve Sabol, was in grade school when NFL Films first started. Steve, of course, has carried on the tradition over the years.
» Sabol also is in the Sports TV Hall of Fame.
» Sabol was a pilot and would often fly his Cessna to film aerial footage of games.
» While he never played pro football, Sabol's sport was swimming. In 1935, he set a 100-yard freestyle swimming record at the World Interscholastic meet, won the 1937 Big Ten championship in the 400-yard freestyle relay and a 1937 National AAU championship in the 400-yard freestyle relay.
