David Frank Dixon (June 4, 1923 – August 8, 2010) was an American businessman and sports executive who helped create the

New Orleans Saints The New Orleans Saints are a professional American football team based in New Orleans. The Saints compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the league's National Football Conference (NFC) South division. Since 1975, the te ...

NFL The National Football League (NFL) is a professional American football league that consists of 32 teams, divided equally between the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National Football Conference (NFC). The NFL is one of the major ...

team, the

Louisiana Superdome The Caesars Superdome, commonly known as the Superdome (formerly known as Mercedes-Benz Superdome), is a multi-purpose stadium located in the Central Business District of New Orleans, Louisiana. It is the home stadium of the New Orleans Saints ...

World Championship Tennis World Championship Tennis (WCT) was a tour for professional male tennis players established in 1968 (the first players signed a contract at the end of 1967) and lasted until the emergence of the ATP Tour in 1990. A number of tennis tournaments arou ...

(WCT) and the

United States Football League The United States Football League (USFL) was a professional American football league that played for three seasons, 1983 through 1985. The league played a spring/summer schedule in each of its active seasons. The 1986 season was scheduled to be ...

(USFL). An alumnus of

Tulane University Tulane University, officially the Tulane University of Louisiana, is a private university, private research university in New Orleans, Louisiana. Founded as the Medical College of Louisiana in 1834 by seven young medical doctors, it turned into ...

, Dixon created the New Orleans Professional Football Club, Inc., to lobby for an NFL or an AFL franchise for that city starting in 1962. In the 1961 season the Oakland Raiders finished 1–13, but several future Hall of Fame players were on that team. The owner decided to sell the team to Dixon for $236,000, and the team would have become the New Orleans Raiders; however, the mayor of Oakland interceded and helped put a group together and the team remained in Oakland. After persuading the AFL to play its 1965 All-Star game in New Orleans, Dixon experienced a setback when black players encountered discrimination in the French Quarter. The AFL moved the game to Houston. Later in the year, Dixon first proposed a football league, also called the USFL, that would play its games in the spring rather than the fall. Dixon eventually used the formation of this league to persuade the NFL to expand into New Orleans, which is how the

came into being on November 1, 1966.

New Orleans Saints

On November 1, 1966, the efforts of Dixon and Governor

John McKeithen John Julian McKeithen (May 28, 1918 – June 4, 1999) was an American lawyer and politician who served as the 49th governor of Louisiana from 1964 to 1972. Early life McKeithen was born in Grayson, Louisiana on May 28, 1918. His father was a ...

paid off when the NFL awarded its 16th franchise to New Orleans. On November 8, after Dixon had persuaded McKeithen to endorse financing of a domed stadium, New Orleans voters approved funding to construct the Superdome. Along with John W. Mecom, Dixon became a part owner of the Saints.

World Championship Tennis (WCT)

In 1967, future USFL founder Dixon persuaded his friend and the AFL founder

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to finance

. After signing

John Newcombe John David Newcombe AO OBE (born 23 May 1944) is an Australian former professional tennis player. He is one of the few men to have attained a world No. 1 ranking in both singles and doubles. At the majors, he won seven singles titles, a fo ...

to a professional contract, Dixon persuaded

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, Nikki Pilić,

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, Pierre Barthes, and

Butch Buchholz Earl Henry "Butch" Buchholz, Jr. (born September 16, 1940) is a former professional tennis player from the United States who was one of the game's top players in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Tennis career Juniors Buchholz was an outstanding ...

, seven of the world's ten best male tennis players, to turn pro within a few weeks. The US Open, the

French Open The French Open (french: Internationaux de France de tennis), also known as Roland-Garros (), is a major tennis tournament held over two weeks at the Stade Roland Garros in Paris, France, beginning in late May each year. The tournament and ven ...

, the

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, and the

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, formerly limited to amateur players, admitted professionals, and the popularity of the game grew dramatically. Remarkably, within ten years the leading money winner on the tennis pro tour was earning more money than the leading money winner on the pro golf tour.

United States Football League

Starting in 1980, Dixon was again proposing a pro football league that played its games in the spring and summer. On May 11, 1982, Dixon was able to announce the formation of the 12-team league, which played for three seasons from 1983 to 1985. Dixon quickly became dismayed at his franchise owners' profligate spending, which did not fit the business model he envisioned for the USFL, and sold out his share in the league (a dormant franchise that would become the

Houston Gamblers The Houston Gamblers were an American football team that competed in the United States Football League in 1984 and 1985. The Gamblers were coached by veteran NFL head coach Jack Pardee in both their seasons. They were noteworthy for introducing ...

) in the 1983–84 offseason.

Later career

After the USFL voted to switch to a fall schedule, Dixon made several attempts to revive spring football. In 1985, he gave a speech at the Harvard Business School, proposing "America's Football Teams, Inc.", a professional league that would sell shares of stock as part of a ticket purchase. After the Fox Television Network was launched in 1987, Dixon proposed the "American Football Federation", which would have 10 teams and draft academically ineligible high school graduates. In 1996, Dixon announced the "FanOwnership Football League", whose teams would play from July to November and would sell 70 percent of their stock to the general public. None of Dixon's proposals got beyond the planning stages. In 2008, he published an autobiography ''The Saints, The Superdome, and the Scandal: An Insider's Perspective''. Dixon died from complications from a fall he suffered at his home on August 8, 2010. He was 87.

References

External links

David F. Dixon Papers
a
The Historic New Orleans Collection
{{DEFAULTSORT:Dixon, David 1923 births 2010 deaths American sports businesspeople American football executives Tulane University alumni Businesspeople from New Orleans United States Football League executives