Bell played football at the University of Pennsylvania, where as quarterback, he led his team to an appearance in the 1917 Rose Bowl. After being drafted into the US Army during World War I, he returned to complete his collegiate career at Penn and went on to become an assistant football coach with the Quakers in the 1920s. During the Great Depression, he was an assistant coach for the Temple Owls and a co-founder and co-owner of the Philadelphia Eagles.
With the Eagles, Bell led the way in cooperating with the other NFL owners to establish the National Football League Draft in order to afford the weakest teams the first opportunity to sign the best available players. He subsequently became sole proprietor of the Eagles, but the franchise suffered financially. Eventually, he sold the team and bought a share in the Pittsburgh Steelers. During World War II, Bell argued against the league suspending operations until the war's conclusion.
After the war, he was elected NFL commissioner and sold his ownership in the Steelers. As commissioner, he implemented a proactive anti-gambling policy, negotiated a merger with the All-America Football Conference (AAFC), and unilaterally crafted the entire league schedule with an emphasis on enhancing the dramatic effect of late-season matches. During the Golden Age of Television, he tailored the game's rules to strengthen its appeal to mass media and enforced a policy of blacking out local broadcasts of home contests to safeguard ticket receipts. Amid criticism from franchise owners and under pressure from Congress, he unilaterally recognized the NFLPA and facilitated in the development of the first pension plan for the players. He survived to oversee the "Greatest Game Ever Played" and to envision what the league would become in the future.
By early 1933, Bell's opinion on the NFL had changed, and he wanted to become an owner of a team based in Philadelphia. After being advised by the NFL that a prerequisite to a franchise being rendered in Philadelphia was that the Pennsylvania Blue Laws would have to be mollified, he was the force majeure in lobbying to getting the laws deprecated. He borrowed funds from Frances Upton, partnered with Wray, and he procured the rights to a franchise in Philadelphia which he christened as the Philadelphia Eagles.
After the inaugural 1933 Philadelphia Eagles season, Bell married Upton at St. Madeleine Sophie Roman Catholic Church in Philadelphia. Days later, his suggestion to bestow the winner of the NFL championship game with the Ed Thorp Memorial Trophy was affirmed. In 1934, the Eagles finished with a 4–7 record, The Eagles' inability to seriously challenge other teams made it difficult to sell tickets, and his failure to sign a talented college prospect led him to adduce that the only way to bring stability to the league was to institute a draft to ensure the weakest teams had an advantage in signing the preeminent players. In 1935, his proposal for a draft was accepted, and in February 1936, the first draft kicked off, at which he acted as Master of Ceremonies. Later that month, his first child, Bert Jr., was born.
In the Eagles' first three years, the partners exhausted $85,000, and at a public auction, Bell became sole owner of the Eagles with a bid of $4,500. Austerity measures forced him to supplant Wray as head coach of the Eagles, wherein Bell led the Eagles to a 1–11 finish, their worst record ever. In December, an application for a franchise in Los Angeles was obstructed by Bell and Pittsburgh Steelers owner Rooney as they deemed it too far of a distance to travel for games. During the Eagles' 2-8-1 1937 season, his second child, John "Upton", was born. In the Eagles' first profitable season, 1938, they posted a 5–6 record. The Eagles finished 1–9–1 in 1939 and 1–10 in 1940.
In December 1940, Bell conciliated the sale of Rooney's Steelers to Alexis Thompson, and then Rooney acquired half of Bell's interest in the Eagles. In a series of events known as the Pennsylvania Polka, Rooney and Bell exchanged their entire Eagles roster and their territorial rights in Philadelphia to Thompson for his entire Steelers roster and his rights in Pittsburgh. Ostensibly, Rooney had provided assistance to Bell by rewarding him with a 20% commission on the sale of the Steelers. Bell became the Steelers head coach and Rooney became the general manager.
During the training camp of Pittsburgh's inaugural season with the nickname Steelers, Bell was buoyant with optimism about the team's prospect, but he became crestfallen after Rooney denigrated the squad and flippantly remarked that they looked like the "same old Steelers" (SOS). After losing the first two games of the 1941 season, Rooney compelled Bell into resigning as head coach. Bell's coaching career ended with a 10–46–2 record, his 0.179 winning percentage is second-lowest in NFL history to only Phil Handler's 0.105 for coaches with at least five seasons. And at 36 games under .500 he held the record for futility until John McKay passed him in 1983 and Marion Campbell passed him in 1988. His first daughter and last child, Jane Upton, was born several months after the season's conclusion.
By 1943, 40% of the NFL rosters had been drafted into the United States Armed Forces for World War II. The resulting difficulty in fielding a full-strength squad led some owners to recommend the league should shut down until the war ended. Bell auspiciously argued against this as he feared they might not be able to resume operations easily after the war, and since Major League Baseball was continuing unabated, then they should also.
Throughout Bell's affiliation with the Steelers, he suffered monetarily and Rooney bought an increasing allotment of the franchise from him. Compounding Bell's problems, Arch Ward organized the All-America Football Conference (AAFC) in 1944 to displace the NFL's sovereignty in professional football. Ward's AAFC promptly began luring players to join the league, which resulted in salaries being driven up drastically. In Bill Dudley's contract proceedings with the Steelers, he attributed Bell's anxiety during the negotiations to the rivalry from the AAFC. Furthermore, by the end of 1945, the Steelers were in their most economically perilous situation in its history.
Elmer Layden was appointed the first NFL commissioner in 1941, but Ward appeared as dictating his hiring. Layden tendered his resignation for personal reasons January 1946. Bell, who was not well respected in Pittsburgh, was elected to replace him. He received a three-year contract at $20,000 per year, and transacted a sale of his stake in the Steelers to Rooney, albeit for a price Bell did not construe was full-value. He was then immediately placed at the center of a controversy wherein the owners denied Dan Reeves permission to relocate the Cleveland Rams to Los Angeles. Bell moderated a settlement, and, as a result, the Los Angeles Rams were formed. As a precondition to the Rams leasing the Los Angeles Coliseum, they signed Kenny Washington, which marked the beginning of the end of racial segregation on the field, but also caused "'all hell to break loose'" amidst the owners.
The drawing up of a regular-season schedule had been a perennial source of contention among the NFL owners since the league's inception. The crux of the problem was the scheduling of games meant weighing the interest of owners who, early in the season, wanted their franchises to confront teams that drew the largest crowds, versus owners who wanted to play the weaker franchises to pad their team's win-loss record. The resultant impasse coerced the owners, in 1946, to confer upon Bell the sole discretion in developing the league's schedule. He utilized this responsibility to, early in the season, pit the weaker teams against other weak teams, and the strong teams against other strong teams. His goal was to augment game attendances by keeping the difference in team standings to a minimum as deep into the season as possible.
On the eve of the 1946 championship game, Bell was notified that Merle Hapes and Frank Filchock of the New York Giants had been implicated in a bribing scandal. Filchock was sanctioned by Bell to play in the game but Hapes was suspended. At the next NFL owners' meeting, Bell was worried the repercussions from this event would lead to his firing. However, he was pleasantly surprised to learn that his contract would be elevated to five years at $30,000 per year. Reinvigorated with renewed support, he persuaded the owners to allow him to put sudden-death overtime into the playoffs.
Subsequently, he wrote an anti-gambling resolution into the league constitution, which empowered him with the ability to permanently ban any NFL associated personnel for betting on a game or for withholding information on a game being possibly fixed. Furthermore, to obstruct gamblers from getting inside information, he secreted the names of officials he would assign to games, and he directed each team to promulgate a precursory injury report which listed anyone who might not participate in a game. Eventually, he lobbied to get every state in the US to criminalize the fixing of sporting events and put employees on the payroll of the NFL to investigate potential betting scams.
The NFL's struggle against the AAFC generated stress on wages, attendance, marketing, and by 1949, it had prevented the NFL for showing a profit for three consecutive years. Bell and representatives from both leagues met to attempt a merger, but their efforts were fruitless. In an unrelated matter, he apprised the owners that attendance records had shown televising games locally had a negative impact on the sale of home tickets. Nevertheless, he actualized the NFL's first television contract, for the 1949 championship game. Simultaneously, he dealt with a lawsuit from Bill Radovich, who had been blacklisted for leaving the Lions and gaining employment with the AAFC. Bell and the owners were advised by John C. Jr. that this lawsuit was potentially not winnable, and the ramifications from the outcome of the case weighed heavily on Bell.
One of the primary impediments in an AAFC-NFL merger was the supposed violation of "territorial rights" claimed by Marshall. Eventually, Bell gathered enough support to effectuate a compromise with the AAFC. In late 1949, the leagues merged, and Bell would stay on as commissioner with his contract extended from five to ten years as three AAFC teams (the Cleveland Browns, San Francisco 49ers, and Baltimore Colts) were subsumed. Seeking to capitalize on the publicity of the residual rivalry, he utilized "exquisite dramatic" and business sense and allocated the 1950 opening game to a contest between the 1949 champion Eagles versus the perennial AAFC champion Browns. This game would turn out to be one of the biggest upsets in NFL history where the Cleveland Browns blown out the defending champion Philadelphia Eagles. Feeling financially secure after the merger, he purchased his first home for himself and his family in Narberth, Pennsylvania.
In 1950, Bell originated a blackout rule into the NFL which forbid all teams to televise their home games within a 75-mile radius of their stadium – except for the Rams. Consequently, the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) opened an investigation into a violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act. The Rams attendance for 1950 dropped off by 50%, and this signaled a potential financial disaster. In 1951, he licensed the DuMont Television Network to air the championship games for the next five years, and he stipulated that teams were free to develop their own television contracts independently.
However, preceding the 1951 season, he reimposed the blackout rule on all teams in the league. The DOJ filed suit over this and Bell publicly retorted, "You can't give fans a game for free on TV and also expect them to go to the ballpark"; nevertheless, the suit was ordered to trial for January 1952. After the 1951 season ended, he gained unilateral control over the setting of a television strategy for the NFL. He negotiated a deal with DuMont, which granted it the rights to nationally broadcast one regular-season game every week, and he directed that the income from this contract was to be shared equally between all the teams. In the DOJ's case, the judge ruled that the blackout policy was legal, but both Bell, and the franchises collectively, were enjoined from negotiating a TV contract; Bell was ecstatic. Later that year, Bell forced one of the owners of the Cleveland Browns to sell all of his shares in the team after Bell determined the owner had bet on Browns' football games. Although he hated to fly, at some indeterminate point, he visited the training camps of every team and lectured on the danger gamblers posed to the league.
Bell authorized a Pro Bowl to be held at the end of each season in order to showcase the talents of the best players. But in the early 1950s, on the field activities sometimes denigrated to borderline assault and battery with teams' star players being viciously targeted by opposing players. He answered charges the league was too savage by saying, "'I have never seen a maliciously dirty football player in my life and I don't believe there are any.'" Nevertheless, he ordered broadcasts to follow a strict rule of conduct whereby TV announcers would not be permitted to criticize the game, and neither fights, nor injuries, could be televised by virtue in his belief that announcers were "'salesman for professional football [and] we do not want kids believing that engaging in fights is the way to play football.'"
Bell was criticized for censoring TV broadcasts, a charge he dismissed as not pertinent because he believed he was not impeding the print media but only advertising a product. After CBS and NBC gained the rights to broadcast the games in 1956, Bell advised the franchises to avoid criticizing the games or the officials, and forewarned that TV would give "'us our greatest opportunity to sell the NFL and everyone must present to the public the greatest games ... combined with the finest sportsmanship.'" This relationship with television was the beginning of the NFL's rise to becoming America's most popular sport.
In Radovich v. National Football League, the Supreme Court ruled in Radovich's favor and declared the NFL was subject to antitrust laws, and the implication was that the legality of the draft and reserve clause were dubious. Bell pressed a case in the media that the NFL should be exempted from antitrust regulations and proffered the league was a sport and not a business. He invited an investigation from Congress with respect to the court's ruling. The House Judiciary committee, chaired by Emanuel Celler who believed the draft was illegal and should be abolished, convened in July 1957 to discuss the ramifications of the Radovich decision. Red Grange and Bell testified at the committee's solicitation and argued the draft was essential to the sport's success. Representatives of the NFLPA contradicted these statements and said the draft and the reserve clause were anti-labor, and it seemed as if Congress was going to accept their position. Faced with Congressional opposition, Bell formally recognized the NFLPA and declared he would negotiate with its representatives.
However, Bell was speaking only for himself and without the auspices of the owners. At the next owners' meeting, Rooney admonished they either had to recognize the NFLPA or remove Bell as commissioner. In order to do this, they had to agree in a vote that required a super-majority. Bell unsuccessfully attempted to persuade the owners to permit the NFLPA to act as a bargaining agent for the players. However, he did reach a compromise with the owners to get them to acquiesce to some of the NFLPA's requests for salary standards and health benefits.
For the 1958 season, the duration of timeouts was extended from 60 to 90 seconds and Bell mandated officials call a few TV timeouts during each game and the change triggered criticism from sportswriters. The 1958 championship game became the first NFL championship game decided in overtime, and it was considered to be the greatest football game ever played. The game further increased football's marketability to television advertising, and the drama associated with overtime was the catalyst. Years later, after witnessing Bell openly crying after the game, Raymond Berry attributed it to Bell's realization of the impact the game would have on the prevalence of the sport.
The death of Mara in February 1959 unsettled Bell and he experienced a heart attack later that month. He converted to Catholicism that summer because of the lifelong urging of his wife, Mara's death, and his enduring friendship with Rooney, a practicing Catholic. Bell was advised by his doctor to avoid going to football games, to which he quipped, "I'd rather die watching football than in my bed with my boots off." Bell and his children attended an Eagles game on October 11 at Franklin Field against the Steelers (both his old teams). The Eagles held complimentary box seats for him and guests to watch the game, but he preferred to buy his own tickets and sit with the other fans. Sitting towards the end of the field near the end zone during the fourth quarter of the game, he suffered a fatal heart attack and died later that day at the nearby university hospital. League Treasurer Austin Gunsel was named interim NFL commissioner for the rest of the season.
Afterwards, he was remembered as "a man of buoyant joviality, with a rough and ready wit, laughter and genuine humility and honesty, clearly innocent of pretense and [pretension]." His funeral was held at Narberth's St. Margaret Roman Catholic Church and Monsignor Cornelius P. Brennan delivered the eulogy, as close friends and admirers attended the mass. Dominic Olejniczak and all the extant owners of the NFL franchises were pallbearers. Bell was interred at Calvary Cemetery in West Conshohocken, Pennsylvania, northwest of Philadelphia.
Bell was inducted into the Professional Football Hall of Fame, the Penn Athletics Hall of Fame, the Philadelphia Sports Hall of Fame, and Haverford's Athletic Hall of Fame. The Maxwell Football Club, which he founded in 1937, has presented the best NFL player of the year with the Bert Bell Award since 1959. The Bert Bell Benefit Bowl was exhibited in his honor from 1960 through 1969.
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