SIGforum.com Main Page The Lounge The Heidi Game: Oakland Raiders versus New York Jets, November 17, 1968
Main Page The Lounge The Heidi Game: Oakland Raiders versus New York Jets, November 17, 1968Go | New | Find | Notify | Tools | Reply | |
| Peace through superior firepower  |
The Huntley-Brinkley Report, November 18, 1968: The Heidi Game The Heidi Game was a 1968 American Football League (AFL) game between the Oakland Raiders and the visiting New York Jets. The contest, held on November 17, 1968, was notable for its exciting finish, in which Oakland scored two touchdowns in the final minute to win the game 43–32. However, NBC, the game's television broadcaster, decided to break away from its coverage on the East Coast to broadcast the television film Heidi, which caused many viewers to miss the Raiders' comeback. In the late 1960s, few professional football games took longer than two and a half hours to play, and the standard three-hour time slot allotted to the Jets and Raiders was thought to be adequate. A high-scoring contest, with a combined 34 points scored in the fourth quarter, together with a number of injuries and penalties for the two bitter AFL rivals, caused the game to run longer than usual. NBC executives had originally ordered that Heidi begin at 7 p.m. EST, but then decided to allow the game to air to its conclusion. However, communicating this revised plan to the technicians running NBC's master control proved impossible – as 7 p.m. approached, NBC's switchboards were jammed by viewers phoning to inquire about the night's schedule, preventing the planned change from being communicated. Heidi began as scheduled, preempting the final moments of the game and the two Oakland touchdowns in the eastern half of the country, to the outrage of viewers. Response to the pre-emption by viewers and other critics was negative; the family members of several Jets players were unaware of the game's actual conclusion, while NBC received further criticism for its poor timing in displaying the final score of the game during the Heidi movie. NBC's president Julian Goodman formally apologized for the incident. The Jets and Raiders met again on December 29 in New York in the AFL Championship Game, with the Jets winning 27–23. Two weeks later, they defeated the Baltimore Colts of the National Football League (NFL) in Super Bowl III. In the aftermath of the incident, NBC installed special "Heidi phones", with a connection to a different telephone exchange from other network phones, to ensure that network personnel could communicate under similar circumstances. The game also had an influence on sports broadcasting practices; the future National Football League would contractually stipulate that all game telecasts be shown to their conclusion in the markets of the visiting team, while other major leagues and events adopted similar mandates. In 1997, the Heidi Game was voted the most memorable regular season game in professional football history. | ||
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| Technically Adaptive |
I remember watching that with my dad, when they cut it, Raider player running down the side line for a score, but before the score. Not really sure why I still remember it, but don't recall it happening again, at least without warning. | |||
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| Partial dichotomy |
That was great. Thanks for posting, para. SIGforum: For all your needs! Imagine our influence if every gun owner in America was an NRA member! Click the box>>>  | |||
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Member |
Me too; Sunday football was a Father-Son Day until off to college. ok because rarely were 2 games televised simultanously in those days. _________________________ | |||
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Member |
I too remember watching it. I was 13 years old at the time and loved “Broadway” Joe Namath (for some reason or another). The Jets seemed to have it in the bag. I get up the next morning to find out they’d lost. Couldn’t believe it. Thanks for the memories! | |||
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| Member |
I too can remember watching that game with my dad, and his reaction to the switch to Heidi. I grew up in NYS, ~60 miles north of NYC, and we were big NY Jets / Broadway Joe Namath fans! Loved the NY Knicks back in the day too! __________ "I'd rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy." | |||
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| Peace through superior firepower |
I had never heard of this. I encountered it while watching that full episode of the Huntley-Brinkley Report. That link is queued up to the news item, but you can back it up to watch the whole half hour, and see how very different TV news was back then. | |||
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Political Cynic |
I never saw the Huntley Brinkley report. The first time I ran across Brinkley was on his Sunday morning show. | |||
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"Member" |
Before my time, but I know of it from an episode of The Not So Great Moments in Sports on HBO in the 80's (or something similar) | |||
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| Lawyers, Guns and Money  |
That was cool. Especially that they showed the entire last minute of the game on the news. Also, football was a more pure sport back then. It hadn't yet been corrupted by the insane amount of money that has been pumped into it. "Some things are apparent. Where government moves in, community retreats, civil society disintegrates and our ability to control our own destiny atrophies. The result is: families under siege; war in the streets; unapologetic expropriation of property; the precipitous decline of the rule of law; the rapid rise of corruption; the loss of civility and the triumph of deceit. The result is a debased, debauched culture which finds moral depravity entertaining and virtue contemptible." -- Justice Janice Rogers Brown "The United States government is the largest criminal enterprise on earth." -rduckwor | |||
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Member |
I watched the Huntley Brinkley report as a youngster. Uncle Jack and Aunt Reva next door neighbors looked after us, gave us supper, and often I would find a spot in the family room to watch. The Vietnam War was "on TV" and their son was doing something in helicopters as a 2nd Lt. The news report was always a risk to watch, for them. ------- Trying to simplify my life... | |||
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Get Off My Lawn |
This was game 1 of the 1981 NBA Finals between The Boston Celtics and the Houston Rockets, the first one with Larry Bird. Due to being preempted by a hot TV show at the time, The Dukes of Hazzard, the game was tape delayed until 11:30 pm ET, along with 3 other games in the series. "I’m not going to read Time Magazine, I’m not going to read Newsweek, I’m not going to read any of these magazines; I mean, because they have too much to lose by printing the truth"- Bob Dylan, 1965 | |||
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SIGforum.com Main Page The Lounge The Heidi Game: Oakland Raiders versus New York Jets, November 17, 1968
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