At No. 15 on the Electric Football Game Top 20 Countdown is the 1970 Montgomery Ward No. 627 model. 

After watching with envy as the the 1969 Sears Super Bowl game became one of the most popular items in Electric Football history, Montgomery Ward wanted their own exclusive Tudor “deluxe” NFL game in 1970.

A 1970 Ward No. 627 game with it’s unique all-NFL frame, Chiefs and Rams on the field. The original Ward grandstand was missing from this game. A Sears Super Bowl grandstand has been subbed in for background.

What Lee Payne and Norman Sas came up with was the Ward NFL No. 627 model. It was a 620-sized game, with the field being exactly the same as Tudor’s brand new AFC No. 610 model: yellow end zones containing a bold white “N-F-L”; a field pattern alternating light/dark green every 5 yards; yellow yard line numbers outlined in red; and a white safety sideline border surrounding the entire field.   

Close up of the frame. Notice the maroon frame border on the far sideline.

Beyond the field, everything was different from any other Tudor model. The interior border of the frame was maroon in color (it was red on the No. 610), while the exterior of the frame was tan with the names of all 26 NFL teams lithographed on the sides. This was the only game with all the teams on the frame. Tudor’s other new 1970 models were divided by conference and had only NFC or AFC team names on the frame.

The grandstand was a Ward exclusive, having first been used on the Ward versions of Tudor’s NFL No. 620 model in 1968. And finally, what truly separated the No. 627 from any other game that Tudor had ever made – it came with 3 NFL teams. And they were all good teams. The NFC Rams were a playoff team, as were the Browns, who had now moved to the AFC. (Both teams had lost to the NFL Champion Vikings during the previous season’s playoffs.) The final team was the best of all – the Super Bowl champion Chiefs, in their newly available “away” uniforms with red pants.

The only markings on the box.

The only “negative” was it’s plain brown Ward box, but most of these games were going to be mail-order purchases from the 1970 Ward Christmas catalog. There was no point in paying extra for box art if the games were coming directly from a Ward warehouse. 

It was an amazing game that not only helped Ward compete with the Sears’ Super Bowl, it also helped push Electric Football into a “bigger-is-better” mindset that would give rise to games with legs, faux wood grain frames, and even lights. A true “find” for any Electric Football collector.

Earl, Roddy, and Michael

You can find this game in our Electric Football Wishbook!