Feb. 26, 1962 - Lamar Hunt contended today that the NFL did not announce expansion plans in 1959 until after he had founded the American Football League. Hunt, the owner of the Dallas Texans in the American League, was the only witness to testify in U.S. District Court on the first day of the American League’s $10,080,000 antitrust suit against the NFL. He was on the stand for more than four hours. The suit accuses the NFL of monopolizing professional football. It includes a charge that the older league expanded into Dallas in an effort to destroy the American League. Hunt told Judge Roszel C. Thomsen that the American League was organized in Dallas on Aug. 22, 1959. One week later, Hunt said, the chairman of the NFL’s expansion committee, George Halas, announced that the NFL would place teams in Dallas and Houston in 1961. Actually, the NFL moved into Dallas in 1960, the first year the American League played, and into Minneapolis-St. Paul in 1961. The Dallas Texans of the American League and the Dallas Cowboys of the NFL have operated at a deficit the past two seasons.
