Did the 1950’s Cleveland Browns generate haters like the more recent Cowboys and Patriots have?
I know they drew the ire of the Eagles right out of the gate in ‘50 and had a good rivalry going with the Lions, but I don’t know about across the NFL fan base as a whole where people were maybe saying with clenched teeth, “anyone but Cleveland” while stewing on an urge to sock Otto in the kisser.
If so, then did the hate disappear along with the dynasty?
Maybe media coverage was too small or different back then?
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The first few years of the Browns’ dynasty were in the AAFL, which was considered inferior to the NFL, which in turn was considered inferior to college football. It wasn’t until the 1958 NFL Championship Game, the “Greatest Game Ever Played”, that the NFL was really on the map, and by then the Browns were competitive but not dominant.
The NFL just wasn’t covered as much back then and people didn’t care as much as they do now. Baseball was still the sport that captured everyone’s attention.
There was enough rivalry between Cleveland, Detroit, and Pittsburgh that the fans could probably have a few fistfights in the stands, but the rest of America? Nah.
And through a quirk, until 1961 the Browns had a separate TV contract from the rest of the NFL, so they didn’t get as much TV coverage as their record might have merited.
Besides, it was the 1950s and we were all worried about the Commies dropping the big one on us. The only sports team as big as the Commies was the Yankees. And it wasn’t like America really *hated *them. It was more like, as the comedian Joe E. Lewis said, “Rooting for the Yankees is like rooting for U.S. Steel.”
My understanding is that, through the 1950s, TV coverage of the NFL was piecemeal, and by the late '50s, while teams like the Giants and Bears had all of their games televised, smaller market teams like the Packers didn’t.
By '61, CBS apparently had contracts with all of the teams except for the Browns, but I think that, before Pete Rozelle negotiated the league’s revenue-sharing contract for the league with CBS in '61, teams were still negotiating their own deals.
The league was called the AAFC, the All-American Football Conference, and the Browns were in no way inferior to any team in the NFL, NFL snobbery notwithstanding. When 3 AAFC teams were allowed to join the NFL in 1950 they scheduled the Browns’ first game to be against the NFL defending champion Eagles in Philadelphia, figuring that the Browns would get their comeuppance. The Browns drilled the Eagles 35-10, and then went on to win the NFL title.
My dad was a football fan, but not a huge fan. That first game was scheduled as a Saturday night game. My father called either Halle’s or Higbee’s Department store and told them if they’d deliver and set up a television set by 5:00 that day he’d buy it. They did and he did and that’s how we got our first TV. Not that I recall this being only 1 1.2 at the time. Even years later, he’d say it was a great game.