Bert Bell and the Making of the NFL

Bert Bell spent years as a struggling owner of the Philadelphia Eagles before the National Football League handed him its top job in nineteen forty-six. As commissioner, he transformed a regional curiosity into America's most-watched sport.

Bell introduced the college draft in nineteen thirty-six, a system that let the weakest teams pick first, keeping competition balanced across the league. As commissioner he negotiated the first league-wide television contract, insisted on home-game blackout rules that protected ticket sales, and brought firm discipline to a sport that had a shaky reputation. He suffered a fatal heart attack at Franklin Field in Philadelphia in nineteen fifty-nine, watching an Eagles game, which was perhaps the most fitting exit imaginable. Bell had frequented this Narberth neighborhood to talk football with coaches and locals. The Pro Football Hall of Fame enshrined him in its inaugural class of nineteen sixty-three.