The story about how Lamar Hunt got involved with football's an interesting one...
In 1952, a financially troubled NFL franchise that failed in Boston and then New York moved to Dallas. After one disaster of a season, this club, the Dallas Texans, suspended operations. The franchise shell was sold to Carroll Rosenblum; for 1953 it set up shop as the Baltimore Colts.
Several years later, a very, very young Lamar Hunt, then working for an oil interest, began lobbying the NFL for a new franchise in Dallas. He felt that the previous franchise didn't have enough of an opportunity to prove that the city was ready for major league sports. The league felt that they had seen more than enough in Dallas. After so many unfruitful attempts to sway the powers that be, Hunt, along with several other well-heeled individuals, began a rival league. The American Football League took the field in 1960, with Hunt fronting the new Dallas Texans. The NFL, in spite, countered with an expansion franchise in Dallas, owned by multi-gazillionaire industrialist Clint Murchison, who once said "money is just like manure. You spread it around, it'll do some good...you pile it all in once place, it stinks like hell."
Dallas went from having not a chance in hell of ever getting a pro franchise in 1959 to having two of them in 1960. The Cowboys, in their blue and white, star clad pajama uniforms of the day, went winless in their first season, and played before just as many sparse crowds as Hunt's Texans. In the third year, 1962, the Dallas Texans won the AFL championship in a classic overtime win over the Houston Oilers. However, Hunt, seeing a better future in relocating the franchise to Kansas City, took the bait, and the Chiefs debuted for the 1963 season. Hunt was proven more than correct about Dallas as a pro-football market, many, many times over. I don't think he had too many regrets, though.
