One of my Dad’s favorite stories about the NFL involved the sordid tale of Carroll Rosenbloom, his ex-call girl wife, the Vegas mafia, The Rams and Pete Rozelle.
My details are sketchy, but from what I remember of his story Carroll Rosenbloom was killed due to enormous gambling debts owed to the Vegas mafia, and his death was made to look like a swimming accident, and Pete Rozelle (who was mobbed up) allowed Rosenbloom’s wife, former Vegas call girl Georgia Frontiere, to obtain ownership of the team under shady circumstances that somehow benefited Pete Rozelle personally, the NFL and the mafia.
Somewhere in there are some details about Rozelle hating Rosenbloom for convincing other owners to use their ownership muscle to take some of Rozelle’s power as commissioner away and therefore scheming to have him killed. Oh, and something about Rosenbloom trading his Colts to Robert Isray for the Rams in a card game.
Nothing much about any of this on the Web, so maybe someone from my Dad’s generation or who is familiar with all of this can elaborate?
I’ve verified the swimming accident, Frontiere’s Vegas show girl past, the trading of the Colts for the Rams (nothing about a card game though), but I can’t find anything about Rozelle being involved or why there would be anything shady about Frontiere being named owner of an NFL team.
[sub]To head off the inevitable reply: No, I can no longer ask my Dad for any clarification.[/sub]
There’s no solid evidence for anything your Dad told you, but for what it’s worth, he didn’t make up the stories- such rumors have abounded for years.
One of the people who did the most to spread the rumor (and keep it alive) was the Colts’ old lineman Bubba Smith, who played in Super Bowl 3 against the Jets. Bubba was convinced that Rosenbloom (who thgen owned the team) had arranged for the Colts to lose the game, so that the AFL would gain credibility, which would make an NFL-AFL merger possible.
Of course, as I recall, Joe Namath and the Jets made Bubba look pretty feeble on that afternoon in 1969. Bubba was as responsible as anyone for the Colts’ embarrassment, so it hardly behooved him to claim somebody else “must have” rigged the game.
While the circumstances of Carroll Rosenbloom’s death were odd (to say the least), nothing about it suggests a Mafia hit. Face it- when the Mob wants people dead, it tends to kill them directly and simply- with BULLETS! If the Mob had wanted to kill Carroll Rosenbloom, it wouldn’t have taken the trouble to drown him and THEN try to make the death look like a diving accident. Remember, when the Mob kills people who owe them money, they WANT people to know who did it! They WANT future welshers to get the message that they’d better pay their debts. What message is sent by a guy accidentally drowning?
As for Georgia Frontiere, NO special trickery was required to give her ownership of the Rams. Her husband died, so she inherited his property, INCLUDING his football team. Nothing mysterious there.
Preposterous. Do I have to point out that the NFL and AFL agreed to merge over three years before SuperBowl III? That why it’s called Superbowl III.
As far as parity with the NFL is concerned, the AFL already had a winning record against NFL teams that year, and would have even if the Jets had lost (granted, they were exhibition game, but the players in both leagues took them very seriously).
OK, thanks for the clarification guys. Now that you mention the “make it look like an accident” thing, I seem to remember my Dad always said something about Georgia not getting the team unless it was an accidental death.