Seventy years ago, the NFL and NBC tried something that would change football, and television, forever.

On October 22, 1939, the Brooklyn Dodgers hosted the Philadelphia Eagles at Ebbets Field. A crowd of 13,050 fans came out to the stadium to see future Hall of Fame players such as Dodgers quarterback ACE PARKER and tackle BRUISER KINARD and Eagles defensive end BILL HEWITT.

In addition, hundreds of fans who were not at Ebbets Field were able to watch these stars. The contest marked the first time pro football was broadcast on television. NBC's experimental station W2XBS aired the game to hundreds of television sets in New York. The game was also shown on monitors in the RCA Pavilion at the World's Fair in New York.

Unlike the complex broadcasts of modern times, putting on the 1939 telecast required only eight people. Just two iconoscope cameras were used – one in the box seats on the 40-yard line and one in the stadium's mezzanine section.

"I'd sit with my chin on the rail in the mezzanine, and the camera was over my shoulder," said ALLEN (SKIP) WALZ, who did the play-by-play for the historic telecast. "I did my own spotting, and when the play moved up and down the field, on punts or kickoffs, I'd point to tell the cameraman what I'd be talking about."

The game lasted for two hours, 33 minutes and 10 seconds with no commercial interruptions. However, due to the limited technology, every time the sun was hidden by the clouds, there was not enough light for the cameras and the picture faded to black. NBC would then feed in the radio broadcast to fill in the blanks.

Since the first televised NFL game 70 years ago, the NFL and television are inextricably linked. Super Bowl XLIII is the most watched program ever with 151.6 million total viewers in the United States and was broadcast in 230 countries and 34 languages around the globe. During the 2008 regular season, 225 million Americans watched the NFL and the league's games topped the weekly local ratings a record 88 percent of the time.

Ben Roethlisberger

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