For 34 Years, as NFL Had Lights, Action, NFL Films Had Camera

NFL Films has played a major role in the popularity of pro football.

But Steve Sabol, president of the film company that shoots more than 500 miles of football footage every year, said marketing the NFL is not the objective.

“We have never thought of ourselves as marketers, promoters or packagers for the NFL,” he said from his office in the Philadelphia suburb of Mount Laurel, N.J.

“We are not selling anything. We are a group of people who love and respect the game of football and love making films. And we try to convey that to our audience.”

Whatever the formula, it has been working for 34 years.

Sabol, 54, was barely 21 when his father, Ed, was looking for a new career after selling his Philadelphia garment business.

One thing that interested Ed Sabol was filming football, since he had been shooting Steve playing football through Pop Warner leagues, high school and Colorado College, where Steve was a team captain and an all-conference running back.

For the right to film the 1962 NFL championship game between the Green Bay Packers and New York Giants at Yankee Stadium, Ed bid $3,000, double the bid from the previous year.

Ed won the bid, formed a company, named it after his daughter Blair, rented a suite above a Chinese laundry on 13th Street in Philadelphia and used four people, including young Steve, to film the game in frigid weather.

“It was so cold one of our guys lost the top of a finger to frostbite,” Steve recalled.

Three years later, Ed sold his company, Blair Motion Pictures, to the NFL and renamed it NFL Films. Each of the 14 owners had to put up $20,000.

Carroll Rosenbloom, then the owner of the Baltimore Colts, was so incensed by the price that he told Ed, “Don’t you ever come back and ask us for another penny.”

NFL Films never has needed to ask anyone for money. It has generated millions for the NFL by producing specials, selling game footage and marketing home videos. The company has 205 full-time employees and is based in a 128,000-square-foot complex on seven acres in Mount Laurel.

Ed, now 80, retired last year and lives year-round in Scottsdale, Ariz.

Employees credit Steve’s motivational skills and his emphasis on quality for NFL Films’ ever-increasing success.

One of Ed’s great moves came in 1965, when he hired John Facenda, a Philadelphia television anchorman, as the voice of NFL Films. Facenda, who died in the early 1980s, was hired more for his baritone intonations than his football knowledge. He became known as “the voice of God.”

Jeff Kaye, a voice-over specialist, and Harry Kalas, a Philadelphia sportscaster, are now the main voices.

In all, NFL Films has won 61 Emmy awards. And that number continues to grow every year.

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These are busy days, Super Bowl time, for Sabol and his company.

“Our busiest two weeks of the year,” said Sabol, a hands-on boss who is directly involved in almost everything NFL Films does.

There is so much Super Bowl programming leading up to NBC’s 2 1/2-hour pregame show at 12:30 p.m. on Super Bowl Sunday, it’s impossible to watch everything.

ESPN alone has 115 hours of Super Bowl-related programming, counting what is on ESPN, ESPN2, ESPN International and ESPN Radio.

There are two NFL Films-produced one-hour specials you don’t want to miss.

The first one is “The Super Bowl at 30,” which will be on TNT three times Monday--at 5, 7 and 8 p.m., with more showings the next Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

Then comes Sabol’s pet project, “The Road to the Super Bowl,” a syndicated chronicle of the season that is put together in two weeks. It will be shown in Los Angeles on Channel 9 at 9 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 27.

Another NFL Films special, “Superstars of the Super Bowl,” will be on Channel 9 this Sunday at 10 p.m.

TV-Radio Notes

Golf commentator Johnny Miller, working the Bob Hope Chrysler Classic this weekend for NBC, has signed a contract to continue with the network beyond 1997, when he turns 50 and becomes eligible for the Senior PGA Tour. He plans to play on the senior tour, but will adjust his schedule around broadcasting assignments. . . . Jerry Pate has been added to the CBS golf team, but he is not necessarily a replacement for Ben Wright. A CBS spokesperson said the addition of Pate was set before Wright was suspended. CBS’ golf coverage begins Feb. 3-4 with the AT&T; Pro-Am at Pebble Beach.

The good part about what CBS is trying with college basketball is that viewers get to see parts of games they wouldn’t otherwise get to see. The bad part is the coverage is too fragmented. Showing the first half of a game and not the second is a waste. . . . Disney has agreed to find a buyer for Channel 9 within nine months, but David Woodcock, the station’s general manager, said that in the interim it will be business as usual and the station’s contracts with the Lakers, Angels and Mighty Ducks will not be affected. The station announced Thursday that it will show 50 Angel games this season, including the home opener against Milwaukee April 2. Announcers have not been named.

Jim Healy fans remember his trademark “Is it true?” Well, his headstone at Hollywood Hills Forest Lawn reads: “Jim Healy, 1923-94, IT IS TRUE.” Bill Ward, Healy’s boss at KMPC, recalls the day in the late ‘80s when Healy came to work and was so happy to have found a plot next to a sidewalk. “Now we know why,” said Ward, who recently discovered what the headstone said. “He wanted people to see it.”

The first Bob Chandler Foundation Dinner, held in honor of the Raider radio commentator who died of cancer last January, will be held Tuesday at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Pasadena. Pat Haden will serve as master of ceremonies. Proceeds go to a USC athletic scholarship fund and to cancer research. Information: (818) 441-2158. . . . Prime Sports will use recently retired Ram Jackie Slater as a Super Bowl analyst all next week on “Press Box,” which will originate from Tempe, Ariz.