The Saints, The Superdome, and the Scandal

Book excerpt: From payoffs to playoffs, a memoir of the political wrangling behind an NFL franchise “filled with insider stories about the sports scene of New Orleans” (New Orleans Times-Picayune). Before the Saints were synonymous with New Orleans, Dave Dixon was gathering support to create a team and build a Superdome to accommodate them. In this memoir, the man affectionately known as the “Father of the Saints” gives an insider’s perspective on the historical events that shaped the New Orleans sports scene. Little-known facts reveal the negotiations, the payoffs, and the votes that eventually led to the announcement of the sixteenth franchise of the National Football League on November 1, 1966. Nine years after the NFL announcement, the Louisiana Superdome opened on August 3, 1975, as a fifty-two-acre, 269,000-square-foot facility that forever changed the skyline of New Orleans. The facility not only served as the home of the Saints, but later became home to evacuees of Hurricane Katrina. As Dixon reflects on the efforts of the key individuals who worked collectively to make this happen, he shares insight on a national scandal that he credits with altering our political landscape following the 1968 presidential elections—and eventually to the fall of John McKeithen, a dear friend and supporter of the Saints—in “a behind-the-scenes look at the New Orleans NFL” (The Daily Advertiser)./