Over one hundred fourteen million people cried or cheered
while watching Super Bowl XLIX between the New England Patriots and Seattle
Seahawks. The average ticket price per
seat was $4,600 making it the most
expensive in Super Bowl history.
Few people are old enough to remember when the NFL almost
went bankrupt in the early 1960’s.
Several franchises were on the verge of financial collapse, few games
were aired on television and most NFL stadiums were half empty.
Super Bowl I, between the Green Bay Packers and the Kansas
City Chiefs was played in January of 1967.
It was held at the Los Angeles Coliseum with over 33,000 unsold tickets
as fans were outraged at the $12 ticket
price.
During the 1960’s, NFL Commissioner Pete Rozelle revitalized
the NFL with policies of revenue sharing, league negotiation of television
contracts and the player drafts in an attempt to create competitive parity
among all teams.
As a result of the competitive parity, some people used the
term the “Rozelle Rule” in regard to an old adage that “On any given Sunday,
any NFL team can beat can other NFL team.”
This rule applies to Toastmasters. We’ll call it “The “Smedley Rule” in honor of
Ralph Smedley who founded Toatmaters.
The Smedley Rule: at any given Toastmasters meeting, you
will either, and, or learn something new, meet someone new, laugh, cry, or be amazed at the speeches and if you’re lucky, your life
or someone else’s life will change for the better.
No matter how tired or weary I might be, whenever I leave a
Toastmaster meeting, I am fully energized.
