Sept. 19, 1963 - The New York Jets play for the first time in their home city on Sunday. The opposition is fearsome — the Houston Oilers on the field and the New York Giants at the box office. “Come on up and bring your friends,” said David (Sonny) Werblin. “We’ll have plenty of elbow room.” Mr. Werblin, a brave man of means, is the president of the newly constituted Jets, and he is not fooling himself with regard to the crowd expected at the Polo Grounds on Sunday. “We’ll get 12, maybe 15,000,” he said today. As Jets or Titans, New York’s AFL team has never beaten the Oilers, three-time champions of the Eastern Division. And the team has never even tickled the Giants as an economic competitor. The Giants play at Pittsburgh on Sunday, and there will be 3 million in the metropolitan area watching that game on television. Still, Mr. Werblin is optimistic. “We’re not in this to lose money,” he said. “We’re sports enthusiasts, but we’re also businessmen. We feel pro football is the fastest growing spectator sport in America. Baseball and college football are retreating. The television potential of pro football is very big. We think the Jets have a future, especially when we get out to Shea Stadium next year.”
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