Steve Sabol Nfl Quotations

I think in the NFL knowledge is power, and you try to get the knowledge by whatever means.

When we started NFL Films, there were no focus groups, there were no demographic studies, there were no surveys. Every decision that we made, we made with our hearts, not with our heads. And, in the very beginning, we really didn't even have a business plan.

There have been nine Super Bowls in New Orleans, and not all of them have brought the best of luck to NFL Films. We got robbed twice there, got food poisoning, and my hotel room was broken into on the day the Bears played the Patriots in January 1986.

NFL Films has had one continuous, creative vision for 47 years. These are timeless things; timeless stories that we capture just like people go back and read Greek mythology.

When we started in the early '60s, football had a little bit of a tradition. But, they didn't have a mythology. And NFL Films, through our music and our scripts and our photography, created a mythology for the sport.

I don't go to games as much as I used to because of the NFL's Sunday Ticket. So I'll watch the games, take notes.

All this technology has not changed the way NFL Films does business and our process. Yes, with one touch of a button now you reach millions of people but it is still the same approach that my father and I started out with.

When my father bid $5,000 for the 1962 Championship Game, that was a huge amount. It was double the bid the year before. Pete Rozelle was flabbergasted. Who was this guy who was willing to spend so much money on what seemed like relatively worthless rights to the NFL Championship Game?

The NFL always seems open to innovation. Take the opener on Thursday. Now they take one game, make it special and have a celebration around it leading into a weekend of 'Kickoff Sunday.' That's great marketing.