Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Breaking News

Ed Sabol, Football Filmmaker, Dies at 98

Ed Sabol, founder of NFL Films, died Monday at his home in Arizona. He was 98.

The NFL made the announcement on the league’s website.

Sabol was inducted into the NFL Hall of Fame in 2011 for revolutionizing sports television.

His company is owned by the NFL and produces most of the league’s behind-the-scenes video content. NFL Films also produces HBO’s “Hard Knocks” series.

A World War II veteran, Sabol founded the company as Blair Motion Pictures and bought the rights to the NFL Championship game in 1962 for $5,000. The league’s commissioner was so impressed with the footage that he agreed to buy out Sabol’s company later that year.

Sabol received the Sports Emmys’ lifetime achievement award in 2004.

His son Steve, who became president of NFL Films, died in 2012.

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and the protests on college campuses.

Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.

Make a gift of any size and become a Forward member today. You’ll support our mission to tell the American Jewish story fully and fairly. 

— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.