Heidi Game
The Heidi Game or Heidi Bowl 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.
New York Jets
(7–3)
November 17, 1968
Raiders by 7+1⁄2 points
Bob Finley
53,318
In the late 1960s, few professional football games took longer than two and a half hours to play, and the three-hour time slot allotted to the Jets and Raiders was thought to be adequate. A high-scoring contest, 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 7:00 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.
Reaction and aftermath[edit]
Viewer reaction[edit]
On realizing that NBC was switching away from the game, Goodman said to Lindemann by phone, "Where the hell has our football game gone?"[42] During the station break which began with the network announcement, Goodman called a BOC phone to which only he knew the number and which was not part of NBC's Circle-7 exchange (which blew a fuse 26 times in an hour).[43] When Cline answered it, Goodman ordered him to go back to the game. Although Cline knew there was no way to reconnect the feed, he promised to do the best he could.[43] By the time the game ended at 7:07, thousands of viewers were calling the network to complain about missing the end of the football game. Others called newspapers, television stations, even the New York City Police Department, both to seek the final score, and simply to vent.[28] Humorist Art Buchwald wrote, "Men who wouldn't get out of their chairs in an earthquake rushed to the phone to scream obscenities [at the network]."[44] As people learned of the outcome, some gamblers became upset because Ridlehuber's touchdown meant the Raiders had won by more than the point spread of 71⁄2, and bets thought to be won were now lost.[12] In Oakland, Gowdy and DeRogatis left the broadcast booth to tell Ellis that the final two minutes were the most exciting that they had ever seen. Ellis replied, "It's too bad America didn't see it."[45] Realizing that the original call had been lost, Ellis had the two sportscasters re-create their descriptions of the two Raider touchdowns on tape.[45]
In an attempt to inform the audience of the game's outcome, NBC displayed the message "SPORTS BULLETIN: RAIDERS DEFEAT JETS 43–32" as an on-screen news update during the film. It did so during a scene just as Heidi's paralyzed cousin Clara was taking her first, slow steps. According to sportswriter Jack Clary, "The football fans were indignant when they saw what they had missed. The Heidi audience was peeved at having an ambulatory football score intrude on one of the story's more touching moments. Short of pre-empting Heidi for a skin flick, NBC could not have managed to alienate more viewers that evening."[28]
At 8:30, Goodman issued a statement apologizing for the incident, and stating that he had missed the ending of the game "as much as anybody".[28] He stated that it was "a forgivable error committed by humans who were concerned about children expecting to see Heidi".[28] The following morning, Cline was called into a meeting with his bosses. He was told that if he had done anything other than what he did, NBC would have been at the mercy of Timex and Cline would have been fired.[46] The network turned the fiasco into an advantage by subsequent self-mockery, promoting the following week's Jets game telecast with an advertisement showing Namath with Heidi on his shoulders, and running another ad with testimonials about Heidi, the last: "I didn't get a chance to see it, but I hear it was great", signed by Namath.[46] Other networks joined in: CBS commentator Harry Reasoner announced the "result" of the game: "Heidi married the goatherder".[19] That same evening, NBC's own Huntley-Brinkley Report aired the tape of the game's final minute, complete with the re-created Gowdy/DeRogatis commentary.[38][47] On the ABC Evening News, anchor Frank Reynolds read excerpts from Heidi while clips of the Raiders' two touchdowns were shown as cut-ins.[48]
Ramifications[edit]
To prevent similar occurrences from happening in future game telecasts, a special "Heidi phone", a hotline connected to a different exchange and unaffected by switchboard meltdowns, was installed in BOC.[45] The network quickly changed its procedures to allow games to finish before other programming begins,[28] which is now standard practice.[45] Three weeks after the Heidi Game, NBC aired a special presentation of Pinocchio (a live-action version starring Peter Noone, the lead singer of the rock band Herman's Hermits, in the title role). In the promotional newspaper advertisement for the film, Pinocchio himself assured football fans that they would view the entire game before the film and that he would sooner cut off his nose than "have them cut off" the action.[49] A week later, on December 15, the nationally-televised game between the Raiders and the San Diego Chargers ran over its allotted time slot. NBC started The New Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (the usual program airing at 7 p.m. EST) at 7:08 Eastern, and announced that all network programming that evening would be started eight minutes late. "I can't remember when we've done anything like this before", stated an NBC executive.[50] "It's very unusual."[50]
In subsequent television contracts, the merged NFL required language which obligated the networks to show games to completion in the road team's television market.[51] Other major professional sports leagues in North America, the NCAA, and even the International Olympic Committee also shared the same rule in regards to their own respective television contracts.[51] On November 23, 1975, NBC planned to air the heavily-promoted children's film Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory at 7 p.m. Eastern, right after a game between the Raiders and Washington Redskins. When the game went into overtime, NBC stayed with it for almost 45 minutes to its ending and then joined the Wonka film in progress, prompting angry calls from parents.[28]
Cline stated in 1989, "I wonder if this Heidi thing will ever die ... maybe now that it's past 20 years people will stop asking me about it."[52] In 1997 the Heidi Game was voted among the ten most memorable games in pro football history, and the most memorable regular season contest.[53] In 2005, TV Guide designated the Heidi Game at #6 on its list of the "100 Most Unexpected TV Moments" in history. Interviewed by the magazine, Jennifer Edwards, title star of Heidi, commented: "My gravestone is gonna say, 'She was a great moment in sports.'"[54] In 2023, Edwards, introducing NBC Sunday Night Football's commemoration of the upcoming 55th anniversary of the Heidi Game prior to the Jets-Raiders game on November 12, quipped that "a movie I was in as a little girl kind of, how do I say this, got in the way of football".[55] Namath jokingly responded in a tweet, "I never did like that little Heidi girl."[56]
Cline summed up the events of the Heidi Game: