Harry Wismer: Movies & Filmography

Harry Wismer (June 30, 1913 – December 4, 1967) was an American sports broadcaster and the founder of the Titans of New York franchise (now the New York Jets) in the American Football League (AFL). Born in Port Huron, Michigan, to Fred R. Wismer and his wife, he was a multisport athlete at Port Huron High School before attending St. John's Military Academy in Delafield, Wisconsin, where he lettered in football, basketball, and baseball. He later played college football at both the University of Florida and Michigan State College, ending his playing career at the latter when a severe knee injury during a game against the University of Michigan forced him off the field. Bachman arranged for him to broadcast Michigan State sports on WKAR, which launched a career that saw him become the play-by-play voice of the Detroit Lions on WJR and later the Washington Redskins. During the 1940s, Sporting News named him Sportscaster of the Year three consecutive times, and in 1947 the U.S. Jaycees honored him as one of ten outstanding young Americans alongside John F. Kennedy. In the late 1940s he voiced numerous 16mm college football films through his short-lived company HarFilms and appeared in the 1948 film Triple Threat as a football broadcaster.

As a charter owner of the AFL in 1960, Wismer devised a groundbreaking plan to share television broadcast revenue equally among all league franchises, setting the standard for future professional football contracts. Despite owning the franchise in the nation's largest media market, his New York Titans struggled at the rundown Polo Grounds against the established NFL Giants and an indifferent New York press, drawing only 114,682 fans in their inaugural season and collapsing to just 36,161 by 1962. Burdened by financial woes, a volatile personality, feuds with commissioner Joe Foss and Dallas Texans owner Lamar Hunt, and heavy drinking, Wismer was forced to sell the team in March 1963 to a group led by Sonny Werblin, who rebranded the club as the Jets. In his final years, Wismer battled cancer, alcoholism, and depression, eventually dying on December 4, 1967, after falling down a flight of stairs at a New York restaurant. He is remembered as an eccentric but pivotal figure who helped shape the modern era of professional football through shared broadcast revenues.