Interesting variation of the Gotham G-1500

[LandofLogic]

Hi everyone, I recently picked up a Gotham G-1500 "Yankee Stadium" off the internet. As I was looking at it, I realized it was kind of an interesting field. It seems like this version of the model was made after Gotham lost the rights to the NFL.

It comes in a Pro League Electric Football box. I've seen other fields in the same box online that didn't come with the stands or score boards, they were simply the fields and the goal posts. I've also seen variations that had unique end zone grand stands. I'm not sure if the version I have was only sold at a certain store, as was common.

Here is the field all setup. The 1926 Packers are squaring off against the Frankford Yellow Jackets. Maybe someday I'll paint the AFL Yankees and they'll have a nice representation of their home field.

Here's where things get interesting. Gotham clearly lost the NFL license at this time, but they didn't bother to actually remove the NFL shield, they simply covered up the NFL lettering. I doubt you could get away with this today, but as you will see, this won't be the last case of ignorance to copyright.

The scoreboards have the NFL logos removed properly. They now say Pro League Football, and the slot for team names are now gone.

Here's what's really interesting, they still sold it with the flags from when they had the NFL License. Initially I thought these may have been edited in some way, but upon looking at photos of the early G-1500 that had the license, they are the exact same flags. These are the NFL Team logos for 1961. I guess that goes to show you how different times were back then. The NFL was in uncharted territory in terms of merchandising, and probably didn't have it all figured out yet. 

Here it is running!

All in all, I'm really happy with this field. It's very quiet too, as it is made of some sort of faux wood, as opposed to the metal of the Tudor fields. If anybody has any information on this field don't hesitate to talk to about. I've seen one or two others for sale before.

[nefgm.org]

Thanks for this post and the pics. Some very interesting observations!! 

[NO Dave]

Gotham used particle board for the field, and the "field cover" is printed paper. There are a few classic board builders who got their start using this because screen printing on sheet metal used to be quite expensive. 

The biggest drawback to using particle board for a field is that it is non-magnetic, so you cannot use the standard first down marker sets or passing sticks (which need magnets to work) in these games. 

The upside is, these boards ran very well because the wood also acted as a small vibration suppressor which filtered out a lot of the high-frequency "buzzing" that is common on the metal boards. 

If you are interested in building more boards like this, a popular alternative in 2022 has been foam-core. It's lightweight, cheap, and you can paint the surface. Players will also run really well on it. The downside is that it's extremely easy to puncture and damage. I had a short-lived Arena board I built from it in the early 2000's, and ran it on a 9-volt battery. 

[Daryl Collins]

Highly enjoyable! Thanks!