Quantifying Electric Football’s popularity through the years is a difficult task. The obvious way would be to measure sales figures, but those figures, at least for years when the game was at its peak, are lost to history. (our book The Unforgettable Buzz details this loss.)

And since Tudor was always a privately owned company, there was no stock price to follow and graph over time. Tudor didn’t have to issue public shareholder statements – there are no published financial figures to show when the company was hot, or when it was not.

But it might be argued that, thanks to Tudor’s NFL connection, neither sales figures nor dollar signs could adequately measure electric football’s true popularity.

So, where does electric football fall in the grand universe of toys?

Back in 1998, when eBay was in its infancy, the publication Toy Shop assembled a list of “The Greatest Toys of All Time.” Toy Shop, at the time, was the unquestioned king of all toy-collecting publications, with each issue featuring hundred of pages of ads and “want” lists. It was considered the voice of vintage toys.

Toy Shop ranked 40 toys in all, going from 1 to 40. Coming in at No. 1 was Mr. Potato Head. No. 2 was Tinker Toys.

At No. 13 was…electric football.

This placement put it behind Barbie, GI Joe, the Big Wheel, the Slinky, Frisbee, Etch-A-Sketch, and Crayola Crayons. Fair enough. But, electric football placed ahead of such toy icons as Silly Putty, Tonka Trucks, Hot Wheels, Monopoly, View-Master, Hula Hoop, Rock’em Sock’em Robots, Lego, Lite Brite, Mystery Date, Chatty Kathy.

Unfortunately, Toy Shop ceased publication in 2008 (an unfortunate victim of eBay and Craig’s List). So this list will have to stand. But we’ll take it. We think it’s a pretty strong and accurate assessment of electric football. Those full-color Christmas catalog pages don’t lie. Hopefully one day we can all make the Toy Hall of Fame recognize Electric Football’s place in the all-time toy lineup.

Earl & Roddy