As the Chargers prepare for their season opener against the Kansas City Chiefs, 6,000 miles away in São Paulo, Brazil — part of the NFL’s push into international markets — the franchise unknowingly blazed a similar trail nearly 50 years ago.
On Aug. 16, 1976, the NFL played its first game outside North America: a forgotten Week 3 preseason matchup between the then-San Diego Chargers and then-St. Louis Cardinals in Tokyo.
“It’s not a day that will live in infamy,” said then-Charger quarterback Dan Fouts.
The event was the brainchild of an ambitious Los Angeles–based lettuce farmer, Frank Takahashi. Takahashi footed the bill to stage a cross-Pacific showdown between the two teams, hoping one day to own a Tokyo-based franchise — a cost of several hundred thousand dollars at the time, equivalent to millions today.
“If we have a sellout,” he told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch in 1976, “I will break even.”
Dubbed the Mainichi Star Bowl after its sponsor, the Mainichi Daily News, the game was described as a “lackluster affair yet delighted the Japanese,” as about 38,000 fans filled Korakuen Stadium for a 20-10 Cardinals victory, according to United Press International.
Fouts, 25 at the time and trying to cement himself as the Chargers’ starting quarterback, described the trip as more of a blur. He recalled a mix of bewilderment, curiosity and discomfort.
“As a player, you just do what you’re told,” Fouts said of the announcement of the trip. “You get on the bus, get on the plane and go.”
After leaving San Diego on a crowded 13-hour flight, with a refueling stop in Anchorage, Alaska, the Chargers landed in Tokyo and spilled toward baggage claim. Fouts wasn’t even sure they had passed through customs. Towering over the locals, the players drew giggles and wide-eyed stares.
Like a scene ripped from a fish-out-of-water comedy, the whole experience felt surreal, Fouts said.
While the Chargers and Chiefs will treat Brazil strictly as business, leaving little room for exploring, Fouts and company — without handlers or translators — were cut loose on the streets of 1970s Tokyo.
Armed with a wad of cash — at a time when $100 converted to yen stretched a long way in Japan — the players set out on their first quest: beer.
“Louie [Kelcher] was in charge of that, and he liked Schlitz, so that was assignment one — go and find a case of Schlitz,” Fouts said.
The group soon encountered a storekeeper who managed to bridge the language barrier. Pointing them to a vending machine on the street stocked with Schlitz, the storekeeper asked, “How much do you want?”
“And Louie said, ‘I want all of it.’ So for $46, we bought a case of Schlitz,” Fouts remembered.
At the Grand Palace Hotel, the team’s accommodations, each player was handed a plastic key tag to show taxi drivers for the ride back. The plan often backfired. More than once, they were driven not to the hotel but to the front gates of the Imperial Palace, causing confusion and an eventual reroute.
Dining out wasn’t much smoother. The linemen crammed their knees under tiny tables, leading to much table banging. McDonald’s runs became the fallback, where they regularly ran into Cardinals players.
“There wasn’t any organized sightseeing that I remember,” Fouts said. “Which, looking back, is a real shame.”
Unlike today, the welcome at the airport was understated, devoid of the pomp and circumstance NFL players now receive. There were no media or fans. Photographers only appeared later at the team’s shared practice field.
Game day brought its own challenges. Korakuen Stadium, former home of Nippon Professional Baseball’s Yomiuri Giants, was chosen for its astro-turf.
“It was hard to tell what they lined the field with, if it was flour or chalk,” Fouts said. “When it started raining, that substance would start to rise. It would get stuck in your cleats, almost like caulking.”
Even in the less-than-ideal conditions, Fouts rallied the Chargers to tie the game 10-10 with a touchdown pass, much to the delight of the crowd. Fans shouted, “Chargers, Chargers, banzai! Banzai!” or “Cardinals, attack the ball!” according to UPI.
“The crowd loved to see the ball in the air,” Fouts said. “Whether it’s a kick or a punt or a pass, they would react.”
While the fans enjoyed their first taste of football, Fouts’ day was far less pleasant.
“The thing I remember about the game is I almost got killed,” Fouts said. “I fell on a fumble, it wasn’t mine, I recovered it, and a guy fell on top of me and almost split my sternum.”
After a weeklong excursion in the “Land of the Rising Sun,” a flight to Honolulu followed for a game against the San Francisco 49ers at the newly built Aloha Stadium. The Chargers fell 17-16 in the preseason contest, a game Fouts missed because of injury.
The NFL didn’t return to Tokyo until 1989, when the Rams defeated the 49ers in a preseason game at the Tokyo Dome. The NFL held 11 preseason games through 2005 (with the Chargers playing the Steelers in 1996).
Looking back on the barnstorming trip, Fouts said, “The fact that we played in the first game outside of North America, that is a source of pride.”
AloJapan.com