Steve Sabol
Steve Sabol
Stephen Douglas "Steve" Sabolwas an American filmmaker. He was the president and one of the founders of NFL Films, along with his father Ed. He was also a widely exhibited visual artist...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionDirector
Date of Birth2 October 1942
CountryUnited States of America
bid double guy huge money nfl relatively rights seemed spend willing worthless year
When my father bid $5,000 for the 1962 Championship Game, that was a huge amount. It was double the bid the year before. Pete Rozelle was flabbergasted. Who was this guy who was willing to spend so much money on what seemed like relatively worthless rights to the NFL Championship Game?
great innovation leading nfl open opener seems special weekend
The NFL always seems open to innovation. Take the opener on Thursday. Now they take one game, make it special and have a celebration around it leading into a weekend of 'Kickoff Sunday.' That's great marketing.
human pass pro war
The only other human endeavor on which there's more 16-millimeter film than pro football is World War II, and we're going to pass that in 2013.
course maybe reporters
There were maybe 30 reporters during the course of the whole day.
powerful
He's tremendous. He's nimble and powerful at once.
brother jobs dad
My Dad hated his job. He sold overcoats, but he wanted to make movies. He had a failed career working with the Ritz Brothers - they were like the Marx Brothers, only a tier below. I always had a picture in my mind of him in a straw hat.
football play perspective
I've always been fascinated by Picasso and how he would look at a single image through multiple perspectives and from separate moments in time. He would look at a woman's face and he would see almost a three-dimensional look even though it was a flat canvas. I thought, well why couldn't we do the same thing with a football play?
artist ideas two
I've been very lucky in the freedom that I've been given. Every artist needs two types of freedom: You need the freedom to - the freedom to come up with an idea or treatment - and then you need the other half of the freedom, and that's freedom from - somebody saying, 'This is great. This is how I want you to do it.
nfl new-orleans broken
There have been nine Super Bowls in New Orleans, and not all of them have brought the best of luck to NFL Films. We got robbed twice there, got food poisoning, and my hotel room was broken into on the day the Bears played the Patriots in January 1986.
years nfl people
NFL Films has had one continuous, creative vision for 47 years. These are timeless things; timeless stories that we capture just like people go back and read Greek mythology.
mean fighting perfect
A perfect record does not mean that someone is the greatest. Rocky Marciano never lost a fight, but I never hear anyone say he's the greatest heavyweight champion of all time.
heart nfl decision
When we started NFL Films, there were no focus groups, there were no demographic studies, there were no surveys. Every decision that we made, we made with our hearts, not with our heads. And, in the very beginning, we really didn't even have a business plan.
football player games
Football is such a great game, but football players are so dull,
team games america
That helped us nurture not only the game's traditions but to develop its mythology: America's Team, The Catch, The Frozen Tundra.