Survival of the Rookie

When the American Football League set up shop in September as the bold, young challenger to pro football's seasoned and prospering National Football League, skeptics gave the rookie league the actuarial chances of a midget linebacker for the Baltimore Colts. Next week, when the Houston Oilers play the Los Angeles Chargers for the league championship, the A.F.L. will reach the end of its first season with all eight teams still in business. Survival is a triumph of sorts, but for the A.F.L. it is one that was dearly bought: losses for 1960 may run as high as $4,000,000. Sums up A.F.L. Commissioner Joe Foss, famed World War II fighter ace: "I'm not disappointed, nor am I satisfied."

Luckily, many of the A.F.L. owners are moneybags, who knew that losses would come before profits. Founder of the league--and owner of the Dallas Texans --is soft-spoken Lamar Hunt, 28, onetime bench-riding end at Southern Methodist and son of Texas-sized Millionaire H. L. Hunt. Brash Bud Adams, 37, owner of the Houston Oilers, is the son of the chairman of Phillips Petroleum Co. Barron Hilton, 32, son of Hosteler Conrad Hilton, is president of the Los Angeles Chargers.

Four in the Snow. Backed by big spenders like these, the A.F.L. was able from the start to match the N.F.L. with team budgets of about $1,000,000 apiece. For its money the A.F.L. got some famed All-Americas fresh off the campus, including Houston's Billy Cannon and Los Angeles' Charlie Flowers. But for the key job of quarterback, A.F.L. teams generally had to settle for men who had been tried and found wanting by the N.F.L. The New York Titans turned to Al Dorow, who had been unable to stick with the Washington Redskins, Denver to Frank Tripucka, who had played with only indifferent success for the Chicago Cardinals and Los Angeles to Jackie Kemp, who had flopped with three N.F.L. teams.

In the A.F.L. these retreads looked like champions: Dorow passed for 26 touchdowns, Tripucka for 24 and Kemp for 20. Though their success was largely because of ill-organized A.F.L. defenses, the result was some exciting and improbable football. One week New York lost a game on a blocked punt in the final seconds; the next week New York won on the very same play. On another occasion, with his team trailing 38-7, a blizzard howling, and only 20 minutes left on the clock, Tripucka led Denver to four touchdowns and a 38-38 tie. Teams traded touchdowns with such fervor that one old-line N.F.L. fan cracked: "The team that wins the toss wins the game."

Three or Less. As the season went on, the A.F.L. developed a remarkable balance among its eight teams, thereby avoided the fatal flaw that killed the All-America Football Conference (1946-49), which was dominated to the point of boredom by the Cleveland Browns.--Even so, the A.F.L. averaged crowds of only 16,680, including a goodly number of free admissions (average N.F.L. crowd: 40,000). One bright spot in A.F.L. finances was the league's package TV deal with ABC, which doled out about $200,000 to each team--more, on average, than N.F.L. teams were able to wangle with their individually negotiated contracts. Still, estimated A.F.L. losses in some cities were as spectacular as the long passes on the field--$550,000 in Oakland, $700,000 in Dallas, and, despite a winning team, close to $750,000 in Los Angeles.

Looking to the future, Commissioner Foss does not rule out a shift in franchises ("We can't say a town is absolutely going to make it"), and hints at expanding the league. But Foss claims that the A.F.L. plans to go it alone, has no thought of any merger with the booming N.F.L. And despite the mournful first year, Foss insists that A.F.L. owners, who originally expected to lose money for three years, now feel that they may "reach the breakeven point far sooner."

* In its brief career, the conference lost $11.5 million. The Browns, Baltimore Colts and San Francisco Forty Niners were absorbed by the N.F.L.

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