By announcing the league Bell gave it immediate legitimacy. Hunt now had not only the leverage to get his American Football League off the ground at the local stadium box office level, but even more critically he would have it later on with Madison Avenue. The buzz began to reach NFL players. Cleveland head coach Paul Brown tried to cut off any curiosity. At his 1959 training camp he told his players, “There’s a new league starting. Don’t pay any attention to it. It’s not going to succeed. It’s a bunch of sons of rich guys who don’t know anything about football.”
