Part of a continuing weekly series on Alaska history by local historian David Reamer. Have a question about Anchorage or Alaska history or an idea for a future article? Go to the form at the bottom of this story.

In late October 1982, the Anchorage Daily News ran a particularly interesting advertisement. It took the form of a question and answer about one of the hottest topics of the day, though few modern readers will remember. “I’m real excited about Alaska buying the National Football League but won’t the cost be so great that we will have to forego our plans for a new capital city or for building the Susitna Dam?”

And the response, “Hardly. We should have plenty of money to buy the National Football League, build a new capital city in the wilderness, and construct the Susitna Dam. We may even have a few dollars left over to bail out Chrysler and pay off the National Debt.”

In 1982, Alaskans faced the weightiest choices: whether to move the state capital or buy the NFL. Our legislators could be sitting in Willow right now. Or the state could own the NFL. The former question made it to ballots that November. The latter question, and the thoughts it engendered, influenced the failure of the former. In this way, Football Fannie and the NFL Access Committee helped shape modern Alaska, one of the wilder anecdotes in state history.

In the decades before statehood, politicians campaigning outside Juneau frequently invoked the idea of a capital move as an easy, crowd-pleasing move. In 1922, Territorial Legislature candidate Harry Staser addressed the Anchorage Women’s Club. He declared, “The capital of Alaska belongs in Anchorage or in the third division at least. I had a talk with the Hon. James Wickersham on this subject, and he says that it is within our power to move the capital, and I will most certainly try to move it.” The Anchorage women surely enjoyed those ultimately empty words.

While there were several proposals to move the capital during the Territorial years, such efforts intensified after statehood, beginning with a 1960 ballot initiative to relocate the capital “within the Cook Inlet-Railbelt Area.” Voters rejected it 23,972 to 18,865. In 1962, another referendum asked voters whether to move the capital to “Western Alaska, to a site not within thirty miles of Anchorage.” Voters rejected that 32,325 to 26,542.

By the early 1970s, there were tens of thousands of new arrivals and some corresponding shift in attitudes. The issue returned to ballots in 1974 when voters approved — 46,659 to 35,683 — an initiative for the “construction of a new Alaskan capital city” in “Western Alaska at least thirty miles from Anchorage and Fairbanks.” Three potential sites were selected by a governor-appointed committee: Mount Yenlo, Larson Lake and Willow. And in 1976, voters selected Willow, which received more votes than the other two choices combined.

From there, the momentum somewhat dissipated. In 1978, voters overwhelmingly rejected nearly $1 billion in new capital construction bonds, 88,783 to 31,491. On the same ballot, Alaskans also passed an initiative that required all costs of a capital relocation to be determined in advance.

That brings us to Nov. 2, 1982, when voters were presented with the opportunity to respond to the results of that calculation. Per the ballot, “Considering the cost, revenue and population estimates set out below, may the State of Alaska spend the money necessary (estimated to total $2,843,147,000) to accomplish relocation of a functional state capital from Juneau to the new capital site at Willow?” Yes, the capital move was projected to cost some pocket change more than $2.84 billion, a contentious estimate in several ways.

Several organizations formed to oppose the move to Willow, including the early Alaska Committee, Frustrated Responsible Alaskans Needing Knowledge (FRANK), Fairbanks Against Relocation Expenditures (FARE), and Anchorage Rejects the Move (ARM). Collectively, the anti-move groups spent over a million dollars in the lead-up to the 1982 election.

Their anti-move arguments were generally logical and grounded, focused on factors such as inflation, expected overruns, and infrastructure opportunity costs, e.g., sewers, roads. On the other hand, this was also a rather dry approach to an election with momentous implications. For example, one Alaska Committee advertisement listed some of the needed capital improvements potentially lost if the capital move was approved, among them an expanded A and C Street couplet in Anchorage and a University of Alaska Anchorage office building. How could voters not think of a lost university office building given the option of a more accessible, shiny new capital city?

Enter Lee Stoops, then an aide for state Sen. John Sackett. A lifelong avid sports fan, he had two problems that fall. He was a Juneau resident opposed to the capital move, and a players’ strike shut down the National Football League. Though the two concerns seemed entirely unrelated, he saw a possible connection and so founded the NFL Access Committee.

As Stoops told me in a phone interview, “The capital move was looking bad for Alaska, for Juneau in particular, where I was a resident, and I didn’t like the way that others attacked the move. There was a lot of crying about people losing the value of their homes and just stuff that didn’t seem relevant to an election like that. And I decided to just make fun of the whole process and the amount of money they wanted to spend to move the capital and build in Willow. So, I combined that with the fact that the NFL was on strike, and of course, everybody loves the NFL.”

The conceit was simple. With its surging oil wealth, Alaska should buy the NFL, a comparatively simple bauble than the far more expensive new capital site at Willow. The teams would move to Alaska and, in doing so, positively represent the state with every player, game, highlight and broadcast. Further, by ending the strike, Alaska would earn the goodwill of an entire sports-loving nation.

Football Fannie, a cheerleader at a typewriter, was the face of the campaign. Designed by Bob Grogan, she parodied Access Annie, the mascot for the pro-move Capital Access Committee chaired by Frank Harris. On at least one occasion, Access Annie and Football Fannie advertisements ran on the same newspaper page.

The wildest month of Stoops’ life began on Oct. 8, 1982, the first day of many print advertisements, radio spots, letters to editors, and interviews. Stoops had the sums to back his proposal, as laid out in the inaugural Football Fannie notice. “In 1981, Al Davis offered to sell the then-Oakland Raiders for $17 million. Allowing $20 million each for all 28 NFL teams comes to only $560 million. The Kingdome in Seattle was built for $40 million about 7 years ago, so we could certainly build three domed stadiums for $80 million each. The whole package, 28 NFL Teams and 3 stadiums would only cost $800 million.”

With the math out of the way, the advertisement continued. “Interestingly enough, this is only about one-fourth of the amount proposed to move the capital to Willow. NFL football once and for all: We can’t afford not to buy it.”

Naturally, Stoops had already worked out where the teams should relocate. The combinations are surprisingly apt. There would be the Alaska Patriots, Susitna Chargers, Chicken Cardinals, Prudhoe Bay Oilers, Elmendorf Jets, Haines Eagles, Willow Raiders, Deadhorse Broncos, McKinley Park Rams, LaTouche Buccaneers, Tanana Chiefs, Juneau Packers, Anchorage Steelers — or Stealers — and Kodiak Bears, the most obvious choice. As Stoops noted, a Juneau-Anchorage rivalry was inevitable.

As envisioned by Stoops, the purchase would pay for itself in a few short years. If the state bought the famously profitable NFL, then that money would flow in only one, Alaska-friendly direction. From the Oct. 19 Football Fannie edition in the Daily News, “The profit is so large that the cost of the NFL purchase would be paid back to the State in only a few years. Free football!!—Free money!”

Then there were to be the “thousands” of jobs created by the NFL purchase and move. From the Oct. 27 Football Fannie edition in the Daily News, “In addition to short-term construction jobs stemming from the building of domed stadiums, each team has hundreds of jobs associated with administration, public relations, maintenance, laundry and on and on and on. And these jobs will last as long as football itself.”

The NFL Access Committee did not beg for donations, as many political action committees do. Instead, they sold T-shirts and buttons to fund the campaign. Pam Calhoun dressed as Football Fannie at Juneau events. After their first 10 days of public operation, contributions totaled more than $13,000.

The T-shirts, made to look like football jerseys for the fictional Alaskan teams, were their fundraising foundation. Stoops remembers, “They were, they were just a phenomenon, and everybody wanted them. So, we were selling them for twenty dollars each, and we paid like six dollars each, and we sold thousands of them. So there was our fifty thousand or so that we spent on advertising.”

The Anchorage “Stealers” T-shirt was a popular offering. The jersey number on the back was “2.84,” referring to the $2.84 billion estimated cost for the capital move. Stoops’ catchphrase was at the bottom: “One Man’s Pork Is Another Man’s Pigskin.”

The nameplate read “Frank O. Harris,” a dual reference to Capital Access Committee chairman Frank Harris and Pittsburgh Steelers running back Franco Harris. Stoops trademarked Football Fannie before the first advertisement ran, then contacted Frank Harris regarding the similarity between Access Annie and his own legally protected Football Fannie. Feeling generous, Stoops did not request the removal of Access Annie, though he did solicit a contribution from Harris.

Eventually, smaller state press caught wind of the proposal, some of them delighted to have something different to talk about than the NFL strike. According to Stoops, “I remember one day doing six radio interviews with radio stations in Philadelphia, Chicago, and Jacksonville. Just all these sports shows were having fun with the idea. They loved it.”

Yes, the entire campaign was a satirical farce. It was gleefully absurdist, but it was also clever and insightful regarding the typical Alaska voter. Football Fannie and the NFL Access Committee drove its point home better than any other argument at the time, emphasizing the opportunity costs of the capital move to the masses better than any amount of possible infrastructure improvements.

Stoops says, “It was all tongue-in-cheek and a beautiful subject matter to play with, because there are people out there who believed every word I said and thought it was a great idea and that it could be done. And then there were those who graduated from high school and knew that it wasn’t really likely to happen. But it was, it was all a way to draw people that would otherwise be unattached to the election.”

That massive number for a capital move, that $2.84 billion, prompted some cognition issues. To the common person, multiple billions of dollars are beyond their ability to effectively contextualize. People who live in terms of groceries and rent and car payments, which was and is most Alaskans, rarely think about things in terms of billions. Functionally, billions have little meaning for people who live in a world of thousands or less. Nearly $3 billion might as well just have been noted as “a lot of money,” and people always think governments cost “a lot of money.”

For Stoops understood the brutal realities of public knowledge. The average Alaska adult, after all, is likely able to identify far more NFL quarterbacks than Alaska legislators. In raw, cynical numbers, NFL coverage certainly garners more interest than anything the Legislature or governor get up to. And so, putting that $2.84 billion in terms of multiple NFLs was a better way to illustrate the scale of that figure, more useful than any number of unpaved roads, unbuilt sewers or lacking schools.

Moreover, while the capital move debates otherwise ranged from dour to combative, the NFL Access Committee, Football Fannie, and Stoops were always lighthearted and entertaining, albeit subtly didactic. After decades of capital move arguments, the ray of positivity looked all the sunnier by comparison. Ultimately, it may have swayed the vote.

To many in Alaska, on both sides of the issue, the capital move seemed inevitable. In late September 1982, Dittman Research of Anchorage conducted a statewide poll on the capital move question. Of the 527 respondents, 52% said they would probably vote in favor of the move versus 45% opposed. Only 3% were undecided, understandable given the years spent on the question. Every Alaska resident, whether newcomer or old-timer, had endured questions about a possible capital move throughout their residency. Of course, they already had opinions.

According to Dittman Research founder Dave Dittman, the results were consistent with the firm’s surveys over the previous eight years. He also did not believe the price tag was a sufficiently relevant factor in the outcome, that the cost figure “is not a mystery. It’s been so well publicized.” This polling data was coincidentally released a day after the first Football Fannie advertisement.

But to quote former New York Jets head coach Herm Edwards, “You play to win the game. You don’t play to just play it.” Come Nov. 2, the Hotel Captain Cook was the election headquarters in Anchorage, where many candidates and their adherents gathered, waiting for the outcomes. The crowd included Football Fannie accompanied by supporters in Anchorage Stealers, Prudhoe Bay Oilers and Juneau Packers shirts. Her group led the cheer when the numbers arrived. Voters rejected the capital move. The final count was 102,083 to 91,249. In Juneau, where the jubilation was highest, the NFL Access Committee hosted a victory dance at the Armory featuring a Football Fannie look-alike contest.

On Oct. 25, Juneau Empire reporter Mark Baumgartner wrote, “By now everyone is familiar with the thinking of the NFL Access Committee.” The Empire itself editorialized, “The beauty of the campaign is its simplicity, its humor — we all needed it in this life-and-death campaign — and its positive nature.” Bob Miller, the Anchorage campaign coordinator for the Alaska Committee, described Football Fannie as “the greatest campaign stunt I’ve seen in my life.”

After the election, Sally Fowler wrote to the Empire. She stated, “Another group that deserves our vote of thanks is that which created ‘Football Fannie.’ Her questions and answers have pointed out, in a very reasonable way, the absurdity of the capital move and just as importantly, they have created a bright funny note in an otherwise pretty tense, emotionally charged atmosphere.”

In 1978, more than 120,000 Alaskans voted on the capital move referendums. In 1982, that number was over 190,000. At the very least, the NFL Access Committee was a factor in the failure of that capital move election. The campaign possessed a strong hook, a clean elevator pitch with a compelling populist approach. Anecdotal evidence strongly suggests that its reach was significant, particularly in the key Anchorage battleground. At best, it was perhaps the crucial variable for the capital move failure.

“A vote for Willow was a vote against the NFL,” says Stoops. And people love their football.

The difference between Juneau and Willow as the state capital came down to a few thousand votes from a few thousand Alaska voters who might not otherwise have shown up at the polls. Stoops believes that the NFL Access Committee reached a disengaged section of the electorate. He says, “And I mean, it was a close, close election, and there’s no way anyone could ever tell me that, that Football Fannie did not determine that election.”

One frantic month was the entire lifespan of the NFL Access Committee and Football Fannie. As soon as the idea went public, Stoops’ home was besieged with phone calls, to his epic delight. “I never had more fun,” says Stoops, “and it was all done in a whirlwind, one month.” After Football Fannie, he had a long and varied career in Alaska — legislative aide, state Senate candidate, lobbyist, economic development director, fisherman and sportswriter — before retiring to Florida. He’s written novels and become a notable sandcastle artist.

The 1982 NFL strike lasted 57 days, ending two weeks after the Alaska election. Each team played only nine games in that regular season. The owners won the public relations war, and the players negotiated higher salaries and benefits. However, neither side was content with the outcome, and the lingering antipathies led directly to the ugly 1987 strike and later lawsuits for free agency.

The 1980s NFL labor strife is poorly remembered primarily because of the relatively peaceful and prosperous years since. No matter the lighthearted approach, Stoops was right. The NFL was an appreciating asset. By every possible metric, the NFL as a business is bigger than ever, and team values have accordingly skyrocketed. The Dallas Cowboys, for example, sold for a reported $80 million in 1985, then $140 million in 1989. According to a 2025 estimate, the team is now worth roughly $12.8 billion. Alaska would have profited a tiny bit if it had bought back in 1982.

The 1982 election did not end efforts to move the capital. Some Alaska elders still question the authenticity of that vote, grumbling about power-outage conspiracy theories. Still, voters also rejected subsequent initiatives to relocate the capital to Wasilla in 1994 and to move all state legislative sessions to the Matanuska-Susitna Borough in 2002. And almost everyone today has some opinions and feelings about that.

Ten years later, Stoops had another, far more earnest proposal for Alaska. The Seattle Mariners, then up for sale, would be the perfect Permanent Fund investment opportunity.” As he wrote, “Ken Griffey Jr., Kevin Mitchell, Eric Hansen and all their Seattle Mariners are ready, able and willing to go to work for us, the people of Alaska … I think we ought to ante up $100 million and buy it. $100 million amounts to about 1/120th, or less than 1 percent of the Permanent Fund.” But that is a story for another time, during baseball season.

My thanks go to reader Ross Oliver for suggesting this topic. Special thanks also go out to Rep. Sara Hannan, Reed Stoops and, most of all, Lee Stoops.

• • •

Key sources:

Baumgartner, Mark. “Alaska Can’t Afford Not to Buy the NFL.” Juneau Empire. October 25, 1982, 7.

Davies, Karin. “Football Fannie Confesses She’s No Rookie to Politics.” Anchorage Daily News. October 18, 1982, A-1, A-16.

Fowler, Sally. Letter to editor. Juneau Empire. November 3, 1982, 4.

“Harry I. Staser, Candidate for the Territorial Legislature, Addresses Letter to Anchorage Woman’s Club.” Anchorage Daily Times. November 4, 1922, 1, 4.

“Keep Cool, Be Positive.” Juneau Empire. October 4, 1982, 4.

Lindback, John. “Majority of Alaskans Favor Capital Move, Poll Finds.” Anchorage Daily News. October 9, 1982, A-1, A-12.

Murkowski, Carol. “Suite Moods Followed Returns.” Anchorage Times. November 3, 1982, D-1.

National Football League Access Committee. Football Fannie advertisement. Juneau Empire. October 8, 1982, 7.

National Football League Access Committee. Football Fannie advertisement. Anchorage Daily News. October 25, 1982, D-3.

National Football League Access Committee. Football Fannie advertisement. Anchorage Daily News. October 27, 1982, E-3.

Scandling, Bruce. “ARM Works Against Move.” Juneau Empire. November 3, 1982, 2.

Scandling, Bruce. “NFL Access Sought.” Juneau Empire. October 8, 1982, 1.

Stoops, Lee. Interview by David Reamer. February 2, 2026

Stoops, Lee. “My Turn: Alaska! Let’s Buy the Mariners!” Juneau Empire. January 8, 1992, 4.

Virtue, Cary. “Move Cost May Cloud Capital Vote.” Anchorage Times. October 24, 1982, E-1, E-3.