The CRAZIEST CBS BROADCASTING CONTROVERSY of the 1979 NFL Season | Cowboys @ Eagles (1979)

During week 15 of the 1979 NFL season, the Dallas Cowboys took on the Philadelphia Eagles in a nationally televised game to determine supremacy in the NFC East. And while the entire country, in theory, should have been able to watch this game, the State of New Mexico, comprised of a large Cowboys contingency, was unable to. This is the story behind the controversy
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[@danmount9462]

Getting more mileage out of 1979 than Smashing Pumpkins.

[@andrewdunn49ers]

“Zero” passer ratings too

[@2cool4fluoride]

And we don't even care

[@banjoplayingbison2275]

And we don’t know

[@DolFan316]

In 1979 I graduated from kindergarten and entered first grade, was traveling about 15 miles to school in a carpool with 4 women chattering away the whole time (my mom and 3 of her teacher coworkers) and pretty much all I remember is playing outside constantly, Star Wars figures, and disco. I had no knowledge of the NFL at all except that the Steelers were apparently really good and everybody in my family hated the Cowboys. Also for some really odd reason my parents actually took me and my younger sister to see the movie 10. As in Perfect 10 Bo Derek. As in, definitely not a movie for kids.

[@JayTemple]

I knew I should have turned left at Albuquerque.

[@stephenholloway6893]

Nice Looney Tunes reference.

[@CTubeMan]

Welcome to 1979 Week, Part Two, Electric Boogaloo.

[@clydemiller4776]

Ironically, one of the leading quarterbacks in Youngstown State history up to this point was none other than…Ron Jaworski.

[@Rockhound6165]

Fun Fact: This Eagles team became the first playoff victim of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

[@CTubeMan]

This unofficial Official Jaguar Gator 9 historian will remind everyone you made a video about how fans in Oklahoma City couldn’t see the Eagles-Oilers game the next week.

[@Argonaut9]

Strange story . . . but that's why I like yer channel!

[@daved1535]

I heard that the Bills vs. Patriots game in 1983 played in Buffalo was televised in the Buffalo local area when the game didn't come close to selling out. Back then, if the game didn't sell out, it was blacked out in the local area

[@ricknibert6417]

You notice that WPVI aired this opposite Cowboys-Eagles?

[@DolFan316]

That was still one sweet fake FG at 12:59 regardless of the broadcast circumstances.

[@ricknibert6417]

Well, I personally was banned from watching TV as punishment for leaving my brother's coronet outside when we boarded the bus for school

[@kikachuck]

Native New Mexican here.... I agree with you that the harm to local business argument is bad in this example. However, part of the reason the state has never been that successful is the chronic undermining of economic interests by those that don't want the state to grow. Local officials who do want the state to be economically successful tend to be pretty sensitive to this issue.

[@DolFan316]

Reminds me of living in TN where the state is divided into west, middle and east and the other two areas pretty much actively conspire to let the west part where I live rot.

[@briankleinschmidt3664]

It was a big problem. I remember missing some Bear games because of this. It took too long to fix. Why did it take so long?

[@okolo22000]

Ever since you got that new office setup, you’ve been far more willing to show your face and that NFL spread you got back there. Are you ever going back to doing NCAA Football, MLB and player highlight videos on your other 3 channels? Oh, and do have any plans to make cool backgrounds for those channels as well?

[@marcusmcgraw3519]

It may not have been a good idea. He confirmed his nerd status with it. Not a great look

[@lutherjennings6565]

We had the same problem in Richmond, Va! It was A and AA High school playoffs being played in Charlottesville, Va that denied us to the Cowboys and Eagles! Another game was blackout to that day btwn Broncos and Seahawks! Fed Law No 8731!

[@darrencole97]

That is so crazy. It is two teams that had nothing to do with the state so I just can’t believe just because it took place in the state it caused the blackout. Wow!

[@darrencole97]

I get it if New Mexico was playing New Mexico State but two out of state division 2 schools doesn’t fly with me at all.

[@ronpeacock9939]

A division II bowl game... Oooo, that will get people to go: "What?".. NOBODY pays attention to Div II football unless you live in their backyard.. and even then... in Texas, it would be second rate to HS games...

[@charleswilliamsjr]

At least Monroe Louisiana area aired the game did not get preempted

[@koltondoesstuff2437]

how the heck do you find this stuff out

[@OfficialJaguarGator9]

Lot of researching and digging through newspaper archives. Love it

[@Patrick-hm4eg]

Krzy is now a Spanish language sports station . Does the act cover streaming games?

[@jcrhea001]

I'm not a Patreon member but I'm going to still suggest you do a video on what Ed "too tall" Jones was doing in 1979.

[@82dorrin]

Boxing!

[@maplemiles3381]

In 1989 their is a incident between Dallas and Philadelphia where at Veteran Stadium their are a lot of eagle fans throwing snow balls calling it bounty bowl with people at the stadium saying mixed stuff from a drunk lady getting free tickets to staff saying that its unacceptable with on player of Dallas trying to get into a yelling fight with a Philadelphia fan

[@rwboa22]

Of which one of the fans that attended Bounty Bowl II was none other than former Philadelphia County District Attorney (and future Mayor of the City of Philadelphia, Chair of the Democratic National Committee, and Governor of Pennsylvania) Ed Rendell, who during the snowball-throwing melee, bet a guy $20 if he could reach the field with a snowball. The result, Rendell was down $20 after that bet.

[@chrisguardiano6143]

This is very similar to what happened 5 years later with the CFL's Tiger Cats. Heading into the final week of the season, Hamilton needed to win against Saskatchewan on the road in order to make the playoffs & the same applied to the Roughriders due to the CFL's crazy playoff rules. I also should point out that Montreal would get into the playoffs if Saskatchewan lost because Montreal won both regular season meetings that season. Because of the importance of this game, CBC decided to broadcast this game nationally around Canada everywhere except Hamilton, Toronto & Regina where the game was taking place (though with Regina it was because the game wasn't a sell out & therefore was blacked out). For Hamilton & Toronto the reason why CBC declined to show the game was because of an important Canadian college football game between McMaster (the local university in Hamilton) & the University of Toronto where the winner would qualify for the Vanier Cup playoffs which is basically the national championship for Canadian college football. At the time, CBC had the rights to air 8 of these games a year & chose to air this game in Ontario because they felt as though college football in the region was largely overlooked due to the CFL. This game was only available to people living in Ontario & as you can imagine, Tiger Cats fans were fuming about this decision. Some Tiger Cats fans even drove to Buffalo an hour & ten minutes away to watch their team play on ESPN who was broadcasting the game for the US audience. As for how the Hamilton-Saskatchewan game turned out, the Tiger Cats won in nail biting fashion with a TD in the last 30 seconds beating the Roughriders 23-20 in 12 degree weather & a wind chill at kickoff of -6 F. As for McMaster they got absolutely destroyed by the University of Toronto 66-3 ending their playoff hopes.

[@christianwootton100]

Did any big names come out of that Div 2 game?

[@WaltGekko]

Most notable was Scott Brunner, who quarterbacked the Giants in 1981 to their first playoff appearance since the 1963 NFL Championship (though it should be noted prior to 1970, only division winners made the playoffs and before 1967, the NFL Championship game was often the ONLY playoff game played).

[@C.CurrySims]

If I were that DJ, I would have filed a 1st amendment action.

[@TPTGopher]

Funny thing is, if the Zia Bowl had been a home game instead of a neutral site, a much larger portion of Eagles fans would've been screwed, because Newark, Delaware is comfortably closer to Philadelphia than 75 miles.

[@WaltGekko]

Yep. And I suspect in that scenario, the NFL would have been forced to do some "flex scheduling" that might have included moving that game to a 6:00 PM ET Monday slot on CBS ahead of MNF on ABC.

[@KevinT7274]

UD Football is big in Newark but it's also Eagles territory so that would have been interesting to see how that issue would have been resolved.

[@stevengrvp]

More stories about 1979

[@DolFan316]

I'd rather see videos from anybody about any time other than the 2020s at this point.

[@rwboa22]

Stuff like this doesn't happen today thanks to the proliferation of cable TV, specifically ESPN and regional sports channels such as NBC Sports Network (and predecessor Comcast SportsNet and it's pioneering ancestor, PRISM for the Philadelphia area). As such, the only college football games you will see on national TV would be only Division I-A/Division I FBS, whereas Division I-AA/Division I FCS (of which the University of Delaware is a part of, along with rival Villanova University) is usually relegated to NBC Sports Network or ESPNU.

[@Musicradio77Network]

Over in NYC, WCBS-TV (channel 2) in NYC aired the Giants Vs. the Football Cardinals at noon, but they did not aired the Cowboys Vs. Eagles game. I can’t find any info on this. After the Giants game, they switched to the Cowboys Vs. Eagles game in progress if you were in the central time zone, but it was on the eastern time zone. Zia Bowl did not carried in NYC on channel 2 back in 1979.

[@williamf.buckleyjr3227]

12:00 Don't worry. He's going to treat his title, ummm, soon?? I think??

[@CTubeMan]

Walter Byers must have been smiling at what the Zia Bowl did.

[@CTubeMan]

(That Guy Alert) Just to set the record straight, in the Cowboys-Browns video you referenced you said the Sports Broadcasting Act protected amateur football up to and including the second Saturday in December. You also said the game that caused the Cowboys to not be shown in Dallas was a college game.

[@WaltGekko]

The Cowboys-Browns game referred to due to a college game in Dallas was in 1970. This was the Zia Bowl in New Mexico in 1979, which in hindsight should have been played on Friday night.

[@e93sports80]

Nice!

[@topJimmyP1984]

I was definitely watching the Cowboys in 79, in Detroit and was usually pissed if they didn't televise the Cowboys as the second game of the Sunday doubleheader!

[@sportshistorybuff319]

The Eagles beating Dallas on MNF earlier this season was their first win over the Cowboys in 5 years, amidst a streak of Dallas taking 21 of 24 games from 1967 to 1978, with one tie. No wonder Dallas was hated in Pennsylvania.

[@WaltGekko]

The thing about this was: Given this game was not on the schedule until late July, knowing there was the Cowboys-Eagles game on the schedule, why didn't Zia Bowl officials put the game on Friday night with say a 7:00 PM local kickoff to avoid that conflict? That would have made the most sense here. One note on that Zia Bowl: The quarterback for Delaware was Scott Brunner, who would be taken by the New York Giants and would be the quarterback when the Giants beat the Cowboys on Dec. 19, 1981 to set up the biggest game in New York since Super Bowl III the next day when the Jets beat the Packers to put BOTH the Jets and Giants in the playoffs (JG9 did a prior video on the goalpost issue for the Wild Card game the Jets hosted against the Buffalo Bills a week later in the only post-NFL merger playoff game ever played at Shea Stadium that came out of that Packers-Jets game). Brunner then quarterbacked the Giants to a win over the Eagles at Veterans Stadium in the Wild Card round (the last time the NFL went with Noon and 3:00 PM playoff games when both games were in the northeast and the NFL for that had to get permission from New York State to start the Jets game at Noon due to Sunday blue laws at the time that forbade Sunday sporting events from starting before 1:05 PM) before losing to the eventual champion 49ers in the Divisional round on a field at Candlestick that had been saturated by rain all week leading up to that game.

[@OfficialJaguarGator9]

My guess is part of it had to do with ABC, since they nationally televised the game, and they wanted the Saturday afternoon slot versus a Friday night. ABC preempting Fantasy Island and their movie for a Division II championship would’ve been a ratings disaster

[@WaltGekko]

Adding on the Packers-Jets game: That was the last regular season NFL game ever called by legendary broadcaster Vin Scully (his last NFL call would be three weeks later in "The Catch" NFC Championship Game between the Cowboys and 49ers at Candlestick). Scully would stay at CBS through the summer of 1982 to fulfill golf commitments and then go to NBC to call Baseball but never called another NFL game.

[@WaltGekko]

@@OfficialJaguarGator9 Yes, and I noticed on the video the game aired on WPVI-TV (Channel 6, then an ABC affiliate and ABC owned-and-operated since 1986), so their showing the game would have made sense for them, thought I would have thought it was a syndicated broadcast (and back then, you could not have put the game Saturday night since networks back then actually got ratings on Saturday nights and far fewer people went out back then, especially in places like New York where crime was a big issue in the early 1980's and didn't really change in that regard until 1995 when it suddenly became fashionable to be out all night on Friday and Saturday). The NFL back then could not have put either game on Saturday night because as noted Saturdays back then were not like now where live sports dominate any Saturday night TV ratings that are there if at all. Also, I believe the rule about Saturday NFL games and when they could be played became more strictly enforced after 9/11 when several games had to be moved to that final week and a lot of high school playoffs had to be delayed a week to make up games missed the weekend of 9/11. That rule I believe has been in place ever since in the way it is now (even with only the Army-Navy game that week) in case games have to be made up or conference title games have to be pushed back to that week due to other games having to be postponed to later dates (or a situation like 2020 when everything was messed up due to COVID).

[@danielanderson4726]

@@WaltGekko I think i know what you're talking about, in 2001, when the Notre Dame-Purdue game was rescheduled for the week after the conference championship games, and ABC aired the game, preempting infomercials in the process. Since Notre Dame could get the last spot for the BCS, that's why ABC aired it nationally.

[@sportshistorybuff319]

At 8-5, Dallas was in trouble after losing 4 of 5 games to the Oilers, Steelers, Skins and Eagles. Their secondary was a crisis waiting to happen every week.

[@WaltGekko]

A more complete video of the Cowboys-Eagles game noted in this video: kzbin.info/www/bejne/d6OQgqRnbNh9gMk

[@DolFan316]

I will say this though. If you're a student or alum of a school that wins a title no matter what the level of football, it's a point of pride for life even if nobody else cares. People will always love to be associated with a winner. It seems silly even to me, but I'll always be proud of my juco winning a national title, playing for another, and losing one game in the 2 years I was there. All that having been said, the number of Delaware fans/alum in New Mexico at that time was probably in the single digits.

[@markphelt6395]

Ha!! You didn’t again with a well timed vid. The stunt action was right on time because just Friday I was watching analyst talk about the Washington’s def line and talked about their stunt game has improved with Payne and Allen working together for years. And one guy talked about early how it didn’t look so great with them as they were learning how to do it against pros. And my son asked what’s so hard about it. So I said when I get a. Vance I will try to find a video or something to give him a good look at how it could go right/wrong. An @ 2:10 perfecto.

[@earltealjr6334]

If there is an event that is taking place that requires businesses to be closed, if I’m not mistaken, there is some sort of state or federal law that says that those businesses must be compensated for the business revenue that they will lose out on on the profits of selling their merchandise so if those businesses were closed, because the event right in front of them, and that event, did not want those businesses open. That event must pay something some kind of compensation to those businesses for being closed for a day.

[@Donathon-xt2nl]

Hey.. this was before rap... LoL

[@OfficialJaguarGator9]

Rapper’s Delight came out a few months before this

[@Donathon-xt2nl]

@@OfficialJaguarGator9 ok ...I know it came out my senior year in HS ... like 1980????.... thanks

[@CTubeMan]

@@OfficialJaguarGator9I missed the rap reference, where was it?

[@DolFan316]

@@OfficialJaguarGator9 Who could forget the Sugar Hill Gang? Well, besides pretty much everybody age 45 and younger, that is?

[@WaltGekko]

@@OfficialJaguarGator9 Rapper's Delight is I believe the only Top 40 hit to at the time of its release not be on a traditional 7" single (it was on a 12" single, a 7" single cut to 2:45 did come out a year later in 1980). Also, back then, Rap music was often lumped in with Disco and continued to be until I believe Billboard Magazine changed the Disco chart to a Dance chart around July 1, 1985 and added a separate chart for Rap sometime after that. This comes up a lot with Blondie's 1981 #1 song "Rapture," which is considered to be the first rap song ever to get to #1 though I believe it's officially considered a Disco song.

[@CTubeMan]

WRT 17:15, is there a Jaguars bar near you?

[@OfficialJaguarGator9]

There is not. Just a hypothetical example

[@CTubeMan]

@@OfficialJaguarGator9I figured, I was just curious.

[@marcus813]

I think about the only part of New Mexico that could see the game were those near the New Mexico-Texas border and the parts of the state that are near Tucson. The Albuquerque DMA takes up all but a few of New Mexico's counties, so all but a few cities in the state were out of luck even 75 miles from there depending on where you went. I agree that the NFL can't be blamed for this. The people behind the Zia Bowl must not have been cognizant of how the NFL fandom in New Mexico works because they didn't announce that bowl until the NFL released its schedules. Very poor planning by those behind the Zia Bowl. They screwed a ton of Cowboys fans.

[@banjoplayingbison2275]

NM Local here, The Broncos are more popular in the Albuquerque area and it is considered a secondary market for them The Cowboys are more popular in the Eastern part, but however there is still a large amount of fans in Albuquerque New Mexico media is pretty much dominated by Albuquerque unless you are in Las Cruces area

[@marcus813]

@@banjoplayingbison2275 Not an official secondary market as the NFL defines it (that would be Colorado Springs in the Broncos' case), but the Broncos are seen there a ton from the preseason on and rightly so because they do have plenty of fans in the area. I know the Cowboys had radio network affiliates as far west as Arizona before the Cardinals left St. Louis, so the Cowboys having plenty of fans throughout New Mexico makes sense. As for the game covered here, I wonder how many Cowboys fans in the Albuquerque DMA drove to, say, Las Cruces to watch the game.

[@DolFan316]

Tucson??? Oh wait, you mean Twosun 😉

[@WaltGekko]

Why didn't they look to play the Zia Bowl on Friday night (with say a 7:00 PM local/9:00 PM ET kickoff) to avoid a conflict with the Cowboys-Eagles game? That would have solved that problem.

[@kibitznec700]

You are still poor

[@johnswaim1814]

Roger would have been better if he didn't run like a sissy...... Lol

[@banjoplayingbison2275]

New Mexico local here, New Mexico is spilt between Broncos and Cowboys fans. The Cowboys are much more popular in the eastern part of the state, meanwhile Broncos are much more popular in the northern part of the state. With the rest being mixed. In Albuquerque the Broncos are more popular (but there is a lot of cowboys fans still) and it’s a secondary market for them. New Mexico media (except in Las Cruses) is dominated by Albuquerque stations with ABQ stations having repeaters across the state I assume the Zia Bowl organizers where out of state and assumed Albuquerque was Broncos only and that the Cowboys game wouldn’t matter the ABQ locals (without realizing that there is still a large amount of Cowboys fans in ABQ and that it would affect the rest of the state (which is even more fanatic for the Cowboys)

[@OfficialJaguarGator9]

So… funny story about that that I didn’t bring up. There were 2 games that day- a CBS game and an NBC game. Both games were blacked out. The NBC game was the Seahawks against, you guessed it, the Broncos So no matter who you rooted for, you were screwed over

[@banjoplayingbison2275]

@@OfficialJaguarGator9 what? Wow they really screwed over the entire state of New Mexico that day all for an Division 2 bowl game that only attracted 4 digits of attendance Maybe you should make a follow up video or at least a short explaining that the Broncos fans here got screwed over too

[@Musicradio77Network]

@@OfficialJaguarGator9But only in New York City, CBS had the Giants, and NBC had the Jets. WCBS-TV (channel 2) aired the Giants Vs. Cardinals at noon, and not airing the Cowboys Vs. the Eagles. Same thing happened in New Mexico when Zia Bowl was going on to preempt the Cowboys. New York is a different city for local teams like the Jets and Giants.

[@e93sports80]

How long does it take for you to rearrange the helmets to do certain teams for certain videos?

[@OfficialJaguarGator9]

Anywhere from 5-10 minutes

[@e93sports80]

@@OfficialJaguarGator9 ok

[@DolFan316]

14:30 Imagine??? This is the new normal now, to the point where people just accept it. 17:58 Again, new normal. Remember that time just 3 years ago (that's kinda sorta still going on in certain places) when people were told they were no longer allowed to make a living or have rights and if they got upset about it they were told to shut up and accused of being mass murderers?