DISGRACELAND - The NFL: A Dead Owner, A Dead Gangster, A League Founded on Gambling

Episode Date: September 3, 2024

The image of the National Football League is one of integrity. It’s a squeaky clean brand that NFL commissioners have gone to great lengths to protect. This episode tells the story of a different NFL; the mystery of a dead team owner, gambling, mob-adjacent hall of fame league founders, and murdered bagmen are all part of the history of America’s pastime.There's more about the dark origins of the NFL coming to your feed on Thursday in the After Party bonus episode. We want to know: Which athlete in the history of sports has been the biggest disgrace and why? Let us know and join the party at 617-906-6638, [e-mail], or on socials @disgracelandpod.To see the full list of contributors, see the show notes at www.disgracelandpod.com.To listen to Disgraceland ad free and get access to a monthly exclusive episode, weekly bonus content and more, become a Disgraceland All Access member at disgracelandpod.com/membership.Visit www.disgracelandpod.com/merch to see the latest Disgraceland merch!Sign up for our newsletter and get the inside dirt on events, merch and other awesomeness - GET THE NEWSLETTERFollow Jake and DISGRACELAND:InstagramYouTubeX (formerly Twitter) Facebook Fan Group To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is exactly right. Double Elvis. When a group of women discover they've all dated the same prolific con artist, they take matters into their own hands. I vowed. I will be his last target. He is not going to get away with this. He's going to get what he deserves. We always say that trust your girlfriends. Listen to the girlfriends.

Trust me, babe. On the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This season on Dear Chelsea with me, Chelsea Handler, we have some fantastic guests like Amelia Clark. When like young people come up to me and they want to be an actor or whatever. My first thing is always, can you think of anything else that you can do? Rather be disappointed in. Do that.

David O'Yellowo. I love this podcast, whether it's therapy or relationships or religion or sex or addiction or you just go straight for the guts. Dennis Leary, Gaten Matarazzo from Stranger Things, Tana Monsu, Camilla Morone, Carrie Kenny Silver, and more. Listen to these episodes of Dear Chelsea on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Movies can make you feel, make you dream. Sometimes they even make you appreciate architecture. Is there anybody who's been hotter in a doorway than Elizabeth Taylor? That's the kind of analysis you'll find every week on Dear Movies I Love You, the new podcast from the Exactly Right Network. Every Tuesday, we break down the films we're crushing on, from blockbusters to deep cuts. Listen to Dear Movies I Love You on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Disgraceland is a production of Double Elvis.

The stories about the origins of the NFL are insane. They involve mobsters, bag men, and degenerate gamblers. Alleged corruption at the highest level. A body in the trunk of a Rolls-Royce. A body on the shore of the Atlantic Ocean. And a federal investigation into the men behind some of the greatest sports moments of all time. Moments that seemed like poetry in motion

comparable to some of the greatest music ever made. Unlike that loop I played for you at the top of the show, that wasn't great music. That was a preset loop from my melodrama. called Yankee Hotel Chacha, MK2. I played you that loop because I can't afford the rights to another brick in the wall, Part 2 by Pink Floyd. And why would I play you that specific slice of schoolboy uprising cheese,

could I afford it? Because that was the number one song in America on April 2, 1980. And that was the day that Carol Rosenberg, Bloom, owner of the Los Angeles Rams, and a man at the center of a federal investigation into the NFL, drowned mysteriously in the Atlantic Ocean. On this episode, mobsters, bagmen, degenerate gamblers, corruption, murder, and the criminal origins of America's favorite pastime, the NFL. I'm Jake Brennan, and this is Disgraceland.

Two Los Angeles detectives stood in the North Hollywood garage shivering. It was unseasonably cold in Los Angeles. Or was that just the cold chill of murder making itself known? Neither detective knew for sure. They were fixated on the back of the parked red Rolls-Royce. The key to the trunk was in hand. They knew that opening it would prompt more questions than answers. Questions like, who really was Vic Weiss?

And how legitimate a businessman was he? And were the rumors true, that on weekends Vic flew by a private jet into Las Vegas with a suitcase full of cash to lay onto a bookmaker to bet football for his wealthy friends back in L.A.? Gambling was legal in Vegas, but illegal most everywhere else in America in 1979. The word was that Vic bet football

for one of the biggest names in football, Los Angeles Rams owner Carol Rosenblum. owning a team didn't dissuade Carol from doing the one thing he absolutely should not be doing, wagering on the outcome of his own team's games. That type of behavior would raise even more questions. Were the Rams on the level? Were the Rams throwing games at the behest of their gambling owner? Carol couldn't have that.

But he couldn't not bet either. Betting was his birthright. So Vic was put to work as a bag man to place, Carol's bets for him, or so they said. They also said Vic placed his own bets. Bets with the types of guys you don't well, Sean, mob guys. And the rumor was that Vic owed the mob big. One of the detectives inserted the key and popped the trunk of the Rose Royce.

And there he was, Vic Weiss, the bagman, bound and bagged, lying dead right there in the trunk. The murder of Vic Weiss, a man who watched most L.A. Rams' home games from the press box at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, was never solved. And as far as scandals affiliated with the NFL, it barely qualifies. This event is nothing compared to the scandals of recent years. In 2013, New England Patriot Star Tight End Aaron Hernandez was arrested and eventually convicted for the murder of friend Odin Lloyd. In 2007, Atlanta Falcons quarterback Michael Vick, one of the biggest stars in the game at the time, was arrested for his involvement in an illegal dogfighting ring.

In 2000, Baltimore Ravens star linebacker Ray Lewis and two friends were indicted for murder. Lewis struck a plea bargain with investigators in exchange for his testimony against his fellow defendants. He received probation for an incident that many believe Lewis had more to do with than he admits. These stories made significant headlines and resulted in major embarrassment for the National Football League. And they all shared one thing in common. In each case, the trouble that the NFL player got himself into happened in large part because of the people the players chose to associate with. This is partly why the NFL has long had a rule governing who players can and cannot hang around with. The NFL has gone to great lengths to discourage its players.

from hanging around with criminals. New York Jets' star quarterback Joe Namath was forced to claim he was retiring from football in 1969 because he wouldn't give up ownership of his Manhattan restaurant, Bachelors 3, where wise guys and gangsters were known to hang out. Eventually, Joe went back on his pledge to retire and sold his club to return to football,

but that didn't really change anything. Illegal betting on football was big business at the time. It still is. But like I said, it was legal to place bets at sports books in Las Vegas. But that money was small potatoes compared to the amount of money bet illegally on professional football throughout the rest of the country. Money that was sometimes carried secretly in brown leather bags by guys like Vic Weiss. Guys who sometimes, because of the men they associated with, wound up murdered.

There's two golden rules that any man should live. by. Rule one, never mess with a country girl. You play stupid games, you get stupid prizes. And rule two, never mess with her friends either. We always say that trust your girlfriends. I'm Anna Sinfield. And in this new season of the girlfriends, oh my God, this is the same man. A group of women discover they've all dated the same prolific con artist. I felt like I got hit by a truck. I thought, how could this happen to me? The cops didn't seem to hair. So they take matters into their own hands. I said, oh hell no. I vowed. I will be his last target. He's going to get what he deserves. Listen to the girlfriends. Trust me, babe. On the Iheart

radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This season on Dear Chelsea, with me, Chelsea Handler, we have some fantastic guests like Amelia Clark. When like young people come up to me and they want to be an actor or whatever, my first thing is always, can you think of anything else that you can do rather be disappointed in. Do that. Dennis Leary. I wake up and I'm hitting him in the head with a water bomb. And Bruce Jenner is on the aisle in a karate stance like he's about to attack me.

Like making karate noises. And his entire the Kardashian family over there, everybody's going, and the air marshal is trying to grab my arms and screaming. And I immediately know that I've been a sleepwalking. David O'Yellow I love this podcast Whether it's therapy or relationships Or religion or sex or

Addiction or you just go straight for the guts Guy Branham So anyway Nicole Kimman Broke up with Keith Thurbin Being half of a country couple Was always a hat she was going to wear Not like a life she was going to lead Oh interesting

I like that Did you practice that on your way over? Gaten Matarazzo from Stranger Things Tana M'Ju. Camilla Morone, Carrie Kenny Silver, and more. Listen to these episodes

of Dear Chelsea on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Kate Winkler Dawson, host of the Wicked Words podcast. Each week I sit down with the true crime writers

behind some of the most compelling true crime stories and discuss their years spent investigating and why it still matters. He sees his father coming out of the woods with his hands over his face, and he knows something happened.

His father just grabs him and says she's gone. She's gone. These are the cases that leave survivors, families, and the journalists who cover them changed forever. Working in national television, it'll push you to your limits, and you'll end up doing things you never thought you do. You know, you look back at it,

and you're like, I can't believe that really happened. Join me and step inside the investigation. New episodes drop every Monday on the Exactly Right Network. Listen to Wicked Words on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Oddsmakers. Those professional betters, the betting experts, many of whom had checkered associations with mobsters themselves, those mysterious characters who gathered information every week to set the betting lines for professional football games, i.e. the point differential that favored one team over another.

the point spread. Their work, the odds makers work, was entirely dependent on information. Information about the teams determined how the line was set. For those wondering what a line is, it's simple. Say the odds makers set the line at six points and favor the 49ers to beat the Jets. That means the 49ers are giving the Jets six points. The line is San Francisco 49ers minus six points over the New York Jets. You like the 49ers to win, even though they're giving the Jets six points. You don't care that the Jets have Aaron Rogers coming back. The game is being played in San Francisco on a Monday night, and Niners fans will be into

it, so you take the 49ers for $100. Now, for you to win your bet, the 49ers have to win by more than six points. If they win by any point differential less than that, you lose. This is the point spread. and defeating it does not come easily. Those six points weren't selected arbitrarily. Those six points were meticulously decided upon, using all the information on the planet

that the odds makers could get their hands on before setting the line. Meaning the odds maker would not only take into account which team was simply better, but every single possible edge, which team was playing with the home field advantage, which team had a quarterback with a cold, a kicker who liked to stay up late partying,

a wideout with an injury he was keeping from the public. Any and all information goes into deciding that line because millions of dollars depend on the outcome of that game. The same goes for every football game and every point spread that week and for every week of the season. This season and for every season going back to the 1940s because betting football illegally was and always has been very big business. But back to the next.

Now, say you win that bet. Say Aaron Rogers goes out there and craps the bed due to an ayahuasca hangover or something and the Niners win by a score of 28 to 21. Congratulations. You now have an extra $90 in your pocket. But wait a minute, you say. You bet $100. Yes, that's correct.

You did. And yes, you won. But you don't win the $100. You win the $100 minus $10, which is the Vig. Or the fee you bet. You have to pay the bookie for taking the bet. Doesn't matter if you're betting with Tagsy down at the Polish American Veterans Club or you're placing a bet on Fandul or another of the many legal betting apps.

You still have to pay the VIG, which is the fee, the bookie, legal or illegal, charges you for booking the bet, for doing business with you, for taking the bet, for paying you out, and presumably for murdering you and stuffing you into a suit bag and locking you up in the back of a Red Rolls-Royce like Vic Weiss if you don't pay your losses. Bookies don't lose ever. That's the beauty of it. No matter what. If you lose, they win. If you win, they win. Because winner lose the bet, they still collect the Vig. And that Vig from all the bets they make, from all the action they take, it adds up. As long as they keep

the number of bets somewhat even, as long as the number of people who bet on the 49ers is close to the number of people who bet on the Jets, the wins will offset the losses and the Vig will provide the gravy on top. The only way a bookie loses is if they let the money get too heavy on one side of the bet or another. Say if too many people are betting the 49ers and not enough for betting the Jets. If this happens, the odds makers just move the line. In this case, they'd increase the number of points the Niners were giving the Jets to entice betters to take the Jets to even out the amount of money bet on each team to cover the collective ass of the Bukies. So no matter which team wins, the house with its Vig always wins.

In a game where a single point can mean the difference between winning and losing millions of dollars, you can see why inside information about the team is so important. The information determines the point spread. Oddsmakers want to know every single thing they can, and they want to use that information to set the best possible lines. Where do you think odds makers get this information? Often, from people close to the team, from journalists, from team personnel, Even yes, from players.

Given this dynamic, you can see why the NFL doesn't want its star players hanging out with known undesirables, with gangsters, with the very men responsible for all of the betting being waged illegally on professional football. Back in 1969, the NFL didn't want the headache of having to deal with the accusations that went along with Joe Namath hanging out with mobsters. If the quarterback of the New York Jets was hanging around with the, various men who controlled illegal betting in America, who's to say that the Jets quarterback wasn't susceptible to the corrupt influence of these men, men he counted as friends.

Who's to say that the quarterback wasn't giving valuable information to his gangster friends? Or worse, that he was impacting the game with his play to benefit his gangster friends. The league couldn't have it. The integrity of the game was at stake. So either Joe Namath had to leave his mafioso buddies behind and divest from his restaurant, or the NFL was going to leave Joe Namath behind. Broadway Joe chose the wise guys, but walked away from football at the age of 26. For a minute anyway.

Then, Joe, like I said, caved, sold this club and on retired. The NFL has always made claims about safeguarding the integrity of the game. The subject is one that the league has always been intimately familiar with and concerned about. Not because the NFL is led by moralists. No, precisely the opposite. It's because the NFL was founded by and for the bulk of the 20th century run by degenerate gamblers, its team owners.

Pittsburgh Steelers owner, Art Rooney, was a racetrack owner. New York Giants owner, Tim Marl, was himself a bookmaker at Saratoga Racetrack, a track under the control of the notorious gangster Meyer Lansky. Charles Bidwell, the original owner of the Chicago Cardinals, the team that eventually became the Arizona Cardinals was a known associate and notorious gangster Al Capone.

All three owners are now in the NFL Hall of Fame. But another owner is not. And that would be former Los Angeles Rams owner, Carol Rosenblum. The man whose rumored bag man wound up dead in the back of that Rolls-Royce. And a man whose own death remains one of the most mysterious events in the history of the NFL. We'll be right back. after this world, word, word.

There's two golden rules that any man should live by. Rule one, never mess with a country girl. You play stupid games, you get stupid prizes. And rule two, never mess with her friends either. We always say that trust your girlfriends. I'm Anna Sinfield, and in this new season of the girlfriends... Oh my God, this is the same man. A group of women discover they've all dated the same prolific.

fit con artist. I felt like I got hit by a truck. I thought, how could this happen to me? The cops didn't seem to care. So they take matters into their own hands. I said, oh, hell no. I vowed. I will be his last target. He's going to get what he deserves. Listen to the girlfriends. Trust me, babe. On the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. This season on Dear Chelsea, with me, Chelsea Handler, we have some fantastic guests like Amelia When like young people come up to me and they want to be an actor or whatever. And my first thing is always, can you think of anything else that you can do? Rather be disappointed in.

Do that. Dennis Leary. I wake up and I'm hitting him in the head with a water bomb. And Bruce Jenner is on the aisle in a karate stance. Like he's about to attack me. Like making karate noises. And his entire the Kardashian family over there, everybody's going. and the air marshal is trying to grab my arms and screaming.

I immediately know that I've been asleep walking. David O'Yellowo. I love this podcast, whether it's therapy or relationships or religion or sex or addiction or you just go straight for the guts. Guy Branham. So anyway, Nicole Kidman broke up with Keith Thurban. Being half of a country couple was always a hat she was going to wear, not like a life she was going to lead. Oh, interesting. I like that.

Did you practice that on your way over? Gaten Moderato from Stranger Things. Tana Mujou. Camilla Marone at Carrie Kenny Silver. And more. Listen to these episodes of Dear Chelsea on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Remember when you'd walk into your local video rental place and there were always those two employees behind the counter arguing about movies? Well, that's us. I'm Millie de Cherko. And I'm good. Casey O'Brien. And now we're arguing about movies on our podcast, Dear Movies I Love You, from the Exactly Right Network. Can I say something about the criterion closet? Go ahead, dude.

They're letting too many people in there. Okay, that's another film grape I got to. Sadly, that rental place doesn't exist anymore. It's probably a store that sells running shoes. Or an ice cream shop with an extra P and an E at the end. So consider us your Slack or movie clerks in podcast form. I would like to establish a timeline of the most. The moment you figured out who Channing Tatum was. Every Tuesday, we dig into the movies we can't stop obsessing over, from hidden gems to big-screen favorites. New episodes drop every week on the exactly right network.

Listen to Dear Movies I Love You on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. In 1958, baseball was America's favorite pastime. That was all about to change because of a single illegal bet. a million dollar bet. The New York football giants were facing off for the league championship against Carol Rosenblum's Baltimore Colts, the team Rosenblum owned before becoming owner of the Los Angeles Rams. Back in 58, Rosenblum watched the game's final minutes along with the rest of America on the edge of his seat.

This was the most anticipated, most watched, most listened to, most read about, and most talked about professional football game to date. The sport was still young, baseball, and its larger-than-life personalities Mickey Mantle, Willie May's damn usual, had a solid grip on America's imagination. But the drama about to unfold in this football game would capture American hearts and minds. The game was tied 1717 in sudden death overtime. The point spread was three and a half points. Rosenblum's Colts were giving three and a half to the Giants.

Any win by less than three and a half points and all the betters who took the Colts, including their degenerate gambling owner, Carol Rosenblum, who had $3 million wagered on the outcome with two friends, would lose. All tied up in overtime. The Colts and their young quarterback, Johnny Unitas, marched deep into Giants territory. A three-point field goal would secure the win

in the championship for the Colts. And they were now well within field goal range. But for some reason, they kept driving. Unitas threw a risky, dangerous pass from the eight-yard line. The hearts of every Colts fan in America stopped in unison until the Colts' tight end pulled the ball out of the air and caught it at the one-yard line. The one-yard line.

A field goal now would have been a chip shot from that distance in victory and the championship would have been in hand. But while Colts owner, Carol Rosenblum, sat watching with his million-dollar bet riding on a three-and-a-half-point win by his Colts, Three and a half points that a three-point field goal would not have secured, the Colts did something highly suspicious. They went for the touchdown. They went for the six points.

On the next play, Unitas took the snap and handed the ball to Colts running back, Alan Amici. Amici plunged forward across the goal line to score a touchdown in sudden death, winning the championship for the Baltimore Colts and the million-dollar bet for their owner, Carol Rosenblum. The game was breathtaking, and the historic final drive with all of its high drama cemented football as America's new favorite pastime, which the game most certainly would grow into over the coming years. Ask any member of the Baltimore Colts about that final play, and they tell you, Unitas called it on his own, that it was his daring, cut-throat competitive nature to do so. Yet the rumors persisted.

The whispers grew louder that Colts owner, Carol Rosenblum, wasn't. wasn't on the level, never was, that he was betting football while owning a football team. Reportedly, that wasn't all that Carol Rosenblum was up to as an owner. By 1972, Rosenblum had become the owner of the Los Angeles Rams, and the Rams were on their way to their first Super Bowl appearance. All NFL postseason games create incredible demand for tickets. Ticket scalping, procuring tickets at face value, and then turning around and selling those tickets at an inflated value is, and always has been, a big illegal business that the NFL

has had to contend with. By the time the Los Angeles Rams put together a real team, a team led by fearsome defensive N Jack Youngblood, a team capable of reaching the Super Bowl, a massive federal investigation was underway, one led by the IRS in which Rams owner Carol Rosenblum was reportedly being investigated for his part in an illegal ticket scalping scam. A scam, a scam. A scam, that Rosenblum's wife denied her family took part in, but nonetheless, a scam that a sworn legal deposition would reveal Rosenblum and other NFL owners have been allegedly running for years.

A scam in which owners, like Rosenblum, would allegedly purchase thousands of their team's tickets for postseason games and put them on the black market to be resold at massively inflated prices. For a game back in the 70s, when a ticket cost $10,000 tickets marked up to $100 each and resold on the ball.

black market would result in a take of $1 million. In that sworn deposition, Oakland Raiders owner, Al Davis, alleged that NFL commissioner Pete Roselle was himself scalping tickets. Roselle adamantly denied the allegation. And it should be noted that Al Davis and Pete Roselle were practically sworn enemies. Regardless, by the end of the 1970s, the federal investigation into NFL ticket scalping expanded beyond Carol Rosenblum and focused on an L.A. gangster named Jack Catane. According to reports, this gangster had allegedly threatened Steve Rosenblum, the son of Carol

Rosenblum, for his involvement in exposing the ticket scalping scam. In response, Steve Rosenblum's attorney took legal action against the gangster, a significant move. And as the investigation progressed, and the pressure on Jack Katang and his gangster associates increased, something very bad happened. When the mafia decides to whack somebody, typically it isn't done in haste. Instead, it's meticulously planned. Mobsters, criminally associated men, are like most men, creatures of habit. Men, especially the older they get, fall victim to the comfort of their routines.

Gangsters know this. This is why, when they decide to kill, in preparation for carrying out their murders, They'll figure out their victim's habits. What they do each morning, where they get their coffee, how they take it, where and when they exercise every day, what route they take to work, where they hang out with their girlfriends before they go home to see their wives and children, those sorts of things. Carol Rosenblum cherished his morning swims. Swimming off of Florida's Golden Beach near Miami, where his winter home was located on an idyllic stretch of coastline, was part of Rosenblum's morning. morning routine. Rosenblum was an experienced swimmer, even at his advanced age of 72. Carol Rosenblum knew the tides. He knew the currents. He knew when the sharks swam and how to avoid them.

But he didn't know how to avoid the sharks he was doing business with. On the morning of April 2nd, 1980, a time when Carol Rosenblum and others, including gangster Jack Catane, were mired in a federal investigation surrounding illegal ticket scalping, an inquiry that might on earth, Who knows what are there incriminating evidence from Rosenblum's years of illegal betting on football. On that morning, as was his daily routine, Carol Rosenblum plunged into the Atlantic Ocean for his morning swim. And despite his experience as a swimmer, Carol Rosenblum, the owner of the Los Angeles Rams, drowned mysteriously. It would have been the perfect murder. Carol Rosenblum was oblivious to the fact that while he swam out into the ocean, there was a killer

waiting for him underwater. A man in a wetsuit. The man submerged himself deeply beneath the surface until Rosenblum swam above him. And then, at the perfect moment, the man in the wetsuit reached up and grabbed Rosenblum by the ankle and pulled him down under the water. Rosenblum struggled, but the man in the wetsuit held him under

until water completely filled the 72-year-old's lungs, killing him. On the beach, a lone tourist at this early hour, a French Canadian named Raymond Tange, saw Rosenblum in the water struggling. He sprinted at the ocean, dove in, and swam toward Rosenblum. That's when he saw it. Something slick and black moving in the water, away from the beach, under the waves, and then gone for good. At that moment, two other men were suddenly in the water with Tange and Rosenblum, and they grabbed

Rosenblum's dead body and pulled him ashore. Raymond Tangea followed them and then tried to revive Rosembleau. Blum. The two men pushed him away and told him the fuck off. Raymond Tange stood in shock with the dead American at his feet as the two men simply walked off the beach. The police arrived soon after. Police reports state that Carol Rosenblum's death was accidental, but nowhere in the report does it mention Raymond Tange's eyewitness account in which Tange is on record recounting, on film recounting, actually, to a retired Canadian Mountie and to a PBS frontline news crew. It should be mentioned here that Raymond Tangay had a completely clean police record.

It was never the subject of any criminal investigation. Unlike Carol Rosenblum, the L.A. Ram's owner. Unlike Jack Catane, the mobbed-up ticket scalper. Unlike Vic Weiss, the dead bagman. And unlike Al Davis, the owner of the Oakland Raiders and his business associate, the casino boss, Alan Glick, and their partner, Tamara Rand, who, like Carol Rosenblum, would also wind up mysteriously dead. Betting football illegally is a dangerous game.

Sometimes, as noted in this episode, it's even deadly. But despite that risk, betting illegally for some former NFL players still offered enough upside to take the risk. The average NFL player's salary in 1970 was only. $23,000. Adjusted for inflation, that's only $15,000 in today's dollars. And that's barely more than the average American household brings in per year. So for a rank-and-file player making at best average money in a violent occupation that is quite literally reducing his overall health and life expectancy, it's not hard to imagine how a player could convince himself to take money from

odds makers for coveted information, or from gangsters or corrupt owners in a exchange for influencing a game with his play. Throughout the NFL's history, up until the modern era, many players have come under suspicion for illegally gambling. But the punishment doled out by the NFL for running a foul of league rules, fines, and suspensions was nothing compared to the punishment doled out by the mafia for breaking its rules. And one of its rules is, you don't fuck with made guys.

Connected guy. The poor schmuck never saw it coming. The pen. Such an unlikely weapon. But there it was, flashing toward him, held in the nubby hand of notorious Las Vegas gangster Anthony Spilatro, jabbing into the schmuck with unexpected violence straight into his neck. Bloods splurped it out fast, far and wide,

covering the bar and the two showgirls standing near the schmuck, not to mention Anthony's face. But Anthony was undeterred. He continued stabbing the schmuck over and over and over again, until the schmuck felt dead on the barroom floor. That pen-and-neck justice, as Jacob Bannon from Converge once called it, but I digress, was doled out to the schmuck because the schmuck had insulted the gangster's friend, Frank Lefty Rosenthal, not quite a mobster, but a connected guy,

a guy who ran a very lucrative casino for the mafia. If any of this sounds familiar to you, it's because this information comes from the Martin Scorsese film, Casino. Frank Lefty Rosenthal's character is named Ace Rothstein, played by Robert De Niro. And Anthony Spalatro's character is named Nikki Santoro, played by Joe Pesci. Both characters interact with a man named Philip Green, played by Kevin Pollock. Philip Green is the so-called legitimate businessman who serves as the frontman for the mafia. Philip Green's character is based on a guy named Alan Glick,

and Alan Glick was indeed a real-life mafia frontman for a real-life mafia frontman for a a very real casino named the Stardust. Alan Glick also had legitimate business ventures in Las Vegas, or should I say legitimate adjacent business ventures, and a number of those business ventures were established in partnership with the NFL's very own Al Davis, owner of the Oakland Raiders, as well as with Miami Dolphins Hall of Fame coach Don Shula and a handful of players. Glick, in his pursuit of further business success beyond the Stardust Hotel and Casino, often found himself in partnership with NFL figures.

To finance these ventures, he turned to the Teamsters Pension Fund, a source of money notoriously controlled by the mafia and the corrupt presidents of the Teamsters, including the infamous Jimmy Hoffa. In 1974, Alan Glick took some of that mob-controlled money, along with a measly $5,000 from Oakland Raiders owner, Al Davis, and invested it into a shopping center. Davis was rewarded a whopping 25%

of the company for his meager investment, which quickly returned upwards of a million dollars for Davis. There's no telling what Alan Glick made on his investment. Glick was always making money and apparently unafraid of who he upset in the pursuit of obtaining that money. One unhappy partner of Alan Glick's was a woman named Tamara Aran, who sued Glick for a half a million dollars over a real estate deal they had that went south. On November 9, 1975, the Oakland Raiders were favored to defeat the underdog New Orleans Saints. They did so, 4810, easily covering the spread. And on November 9, 1975, Tamara Rand walked into her San Diego home

roughly around dinner time as expected. And on that Sunday, the New England Patriots, despite being on the road, defeated Tamara's hometown team, the underdog San Diego Chargers, by a score of 3319. Pat's also covered the spread. Tamara Ran walked to the spread. into her kitchen, and there's no telling what, if anything, she thought about the beating that

the Minnesota Vikings laid on the Atlanta Falcons that day. The Vikings covered the spread as well. But there was no cover for Tamara Rand on November 9, 1975. She never saw the man with a gun, just the quick flash. And the only spread she was concerned with after that was the spread of 22 caliber bullets flying toward her across her kitchen, striking her dead instantly, officially, gangland style. Tamara Rand was suing mobbed-up businessman Alan Glick. The information Tamara Rand possessed about Alan Glick was bound to come out, providing much-needed evidence for investigators against the mafia.

So Tamara Rand was murdered. Investigators then focused on Alan Glick's friend, Oakland Raiders owner, Al Davis. The news of Davis and Glick's fortuitous real estate deal spilled onto the front pages of newspapers nationwide. For the NFL, this was bad news. Alan Glick may have passed for legitimate in Las Vegas, but anywhere else in the country, he was as dirty as they came.

Here was an NFL owner admitting to being in business with him. And not only that, Al Davis was claiming publicly that other coaches and players coached Don Shula of the Miami Dolphins, wide receiver Lance Alworth of the San Diego Chargers, and many other high-level NFL players and coaches, also had business dealings with the mobbed-up Alan Glick. The NFL couldn't have any of this. So the league stepped in,

and just as it had with Joe Namath, forced Shula and others to divest from their business dealings with Glick. They all complied. All but Al Davis. The Oakland Raiders owner told NFL Commissioner Pete Rizel to go fuck himself. Al Davis. Al Davis didn't care what Pete Rizel thought. Al Davis didn't care what anyone thought.

When you got right down to it, Pete Rizel, the commissioner of the NFL, worked for Al Davis. He worked for all the other owners as well. And just like Al Davis, all of those owners were in the business of making money, both inside and outside the NFL. And for some, by means, both legal and illegal, going back to the founding of the league in the earlier part of the 20th century. Al Davis was old school. If Hall of Fame owners like Art Rooney, Tim Mara, and Charles Bidwell were the product of crime and vice, why was there suddenly a double standard for Davis and his Vegas connections?

His business dealings were just as legitimate, if not more so, than the deals of other NFL owners, Carol Rosenblum included. But unlike Art Rooney and Tim Mara, Carol Rosenblum is not in the NFL Hall of Fame. Al Davis is in the NFL Hall of Fame because despite any questionable business dealings he may have had with nefarious characters, he built an incredible franchise. The Oakland Raiders have won three Super Bowls, and unlike Carol Rosenblum's 1957 Colts, there's no illegal gambling stink around the Raiders championship seasons. Al Davis passed away in 2011. Nine years later, his Raiders moved to Las Vegas, a city where. where Al Davis made part of his fortune with the mobbed-up Alan Glick.

It's a move that never would have happened 40 years ago because of organized crimes grip on Vegas and the influence of gambling both legal and illegal. When the new Las Vegas Raiders Stadium was completed in 2020, it came with a massive 85-foot torch, which is lit before every home game to honor the late Al Davis. Outside the stadium is another monument, The city itself, Las Vegas, a monument to gambling, vice, and illegality,

built by some of the most cold-hearted killers the country has ever produced. A city built on legal gambling, but a city run by illegal interests. A city that became so profitable that its success is responsible for the seemingly impossible, the legalization of gambling beyond Vegas city limits throughout cities and states across America. The expansion of legalized gambling beyond its traditional boundaries was facilitated in part by the NFL's confidence in the integrity of its game. The NFL, now a behemoth, has become too big to be corrupted by low-level mafiosos hustling the streets and sports books of Las Vegas.

As an enterprise, the NFL is more powerful these days than the Italian-American mafia. The NFL generates nearly $20 billion per year. Legal sports betting generates nearly $11 billion per year. And you can bet your bottom dollar that just like the mafia got its vig off of every bet placed on football in years past, today the NFL gets its piece of that $11 billion that is waged legally on professional football. The amount of money to be made is staggering. It's too much not to partake in.

Or what about the integrity of the game, you ask? What about players being tempted by the money they can make from betting on their own teams? Well, that's an easy question to answer. Today, the average NFL player's salary is nearly $1 million. That's ten times what the average American household brings in per year. Adjusted for inflation, it's ten times what the average football player earned back in the 1970s as well. These days, the players make too much money to risk losing it through, corrupt gambling endeavors.

So nowadays, the NFL doesn't have to worry about its players falling victim to gangsters and gambling and throwing games because NFL players just make too much damn money. Simply put, the risk isn't worth it. There's too much at stake to cover the spread.

Too much to lose to disgrace. I'm Jake Brennan, and this is Disgraceland. Thanks for listening to this week's episode on the origins of the NFL, an episode that dealt with integrity and corruption. Because of that, this week's question of the week is,

which athlete in the history of sports has been the biggest disgrace in why? I'm not just talking football. You can go to any sport you want. 617-906-66-3638. Leave me a voicemail. Send me a text and let me know. You can also reach me at Discreasing the Pod as well on Instagram, X, and Facebook. Leave a review for the show on Apple Podcast or Spotify and win some free merch.

Okay, here comes some credits. Disgraceland was created by yours truly and is produced in partnership with Double Elvis. Credits for this episode can be found on the show notes page at disgracelampod.com. If you're listening as a Disgraceland All Access member, thank you for supporting the show. We really appreciate it. And if not, you can become a member right now by going to disgracelandpod.com slash membership. Members can listen to every episode of Disgraceland ad free. Plus, you'll get one brand new exclusive episode every month.

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I vowed. I will be his last target. He is not going to get away with this. He's going to get what he deserves. We always say that trust your girlfriends. Listen to the girlfriends. Trust me, babe. On the IHart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This season on Dear Chelsea, with me, Chelsea Handler, we have some fantastic guests like Amelia Clark.

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