{"id":723092,"date":"2026-06-08T13:11:09","date_gmt":"2026-06-08T13:11:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/723092\/"},"modified":"2026-06-08T13:11:09","modified_gmt":"2026-06-08T13:11:09","slug":"joe-browne-reflects-on-nfl-afl-merger","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/723092\/","title":{"rendered":"Joe Browne reflects on NFL-AFL merger"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"c-paragraph sections-leagues-and-governing-bodies \"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.sportsbusinessjournal.com\/Articles\/2025\/12\/08\/influence-125-joe-browne-nfl\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.sportsbusinessjournal.com\/Articles\/2025\/12\/08\/influence-125-joe-browne-nfl\/\">Joe Browne<\/a>, the longest-tenured employee in NFL history, reflected on the merger between the NFL and AFL 60 years ago Monday in a Wall Street Journal op-ed. Browne wrote that day at the Warwick Hotel in N.Y. might be the \u201cmost significant day in American sports history.\u201d On that day in 1966, he was a college intern at the NFL\u2019s office at One Rockefeller Center. Browne recalled being handed a manila envelope that \u201ccontained the news release the sports world was anticipating\u201d and was told to take it to United Press International Sports. At the time, no formal agreement \u201chad been signed, so the release had great import.\u201d Since the announcement of the merger, pro football has \u201cbecome America\u2019s favorite sport by a wide margin.\u201d Browne: \u201cIt\u2019s been a heckuva 60 years\u201d (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.wsj.com\/opinion\/the-biggest-day-in-sports-history-50108c65\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.wsj.com\/opinion\/the-biggest-day-in-sports-history-50108c65\">WALL STREET JOURNAL, 6\/7<\/a>).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Joe Browne, the longest-tenured employee in NFL history, reflected on the merger between the NFL and AFL 60&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":723093,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[559],"tags":[64,63,596,593,85],"class_list":["post-723092","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nfl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-football","tag-nfl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/723092","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=723092"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/723092\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/723093"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=723092"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=723092"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=723092"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}