In the late 1960s, few professional football games took longer than two and a half hours to play, and the three-hour time slot allotted to the Jets and Raiders was thought to be adequate.

Heidi began as scheduled, preempting the final moments of the game and the two Oakland touchdowns in the eastern half of the country, to the outrage of viewers.

[4] Oakland, on the other hand, won the Western Division in 1967 with a 13–1 mark under coach John Rauch and then the AFL Championship Game over the Houston Oilers, 40–7, but fell to the Green Bay Packers in Super Bowl II.

In an era with no wild card teams, the Raiders needed a victory over the Jets in Week 11 to avoid falling a game and a half behind the Chiefs in the AFL West – finishing second, however good their record, would end their season.

[15] The ill-feeling of previous years was resurrected by an immense blown-up photograph, posted at Raider headquarters, of Davidson smashing Namath in the head.

Ewbank blamed Davis for heavily watering the Coliseum field to slow the Jets' speedy receivers, a tactic the Oakland co-owner credited to Madden.

His superior, NBC Sports vice president Chet Simmons, who alternated weekends with Connal as on-call in the event of difficulties, was also watching from his Manhattan home.

The Raiders, led by quarterback Daryle Lamonica, who had been battling recent back and knee injuries, scored the game's first touchdown, taking a 7–6 lead on a 22-yard pass to receiver Warren Wells towards the end of the first quarter.

[16][30] However, the Jets cut into Oakland's lead when Namath drove the offense 73 yards down field and ran the ball in for a 1-yard touchdown with five seconds remaining in the first half.

The Jets lined up as if to kick the extra point, but holder and backup quarterback Babe Parilli tried to complete a two-point conversion pass, which fell incomplete.

[16][30][31] Approximately five minutes into the third quarter, Namath forged another Jets drive, following an interception by safety Jim Hudson, that ended with halfback Bill Mathis scoring a 4-yard touchdown behind blocking guard Dave Herman to give New York a 19–14 lead.

New York defensive end Gerry Philbin recovered the football at the Jets' 3-yard line setting up a 97-yard drive, consisting entirely of two Namath passes to Don Maynard, who was covered by Raiders' rookie cornerback George Atkinson.

The Raiders promptly responded with Lamonica orchestrating an 88-yard drive that ended with a 22-yard pass to receiver Fred Biletnikoff with less than four minutes remaining in the game, tying the contest.

On the ensuing play, Lamonica threw another pass to Smith who outpaced Jets safety Mike D'Amato, who had replaced the ejected Hudson, for a 43-yard touchdown.

Ridlehuber could not remember whether AFL rules permitted advancing a fumbled kickoff return (they did), so he tried to make it appear he was entering the end zone with the same motion he gathered in the ball.

Unknown to Cline, Connal was talking to Goodman, who had agreed to "slide the network", that is, start Heidi as soon as Gowdy and DeRogatis signed off from the game.

Burbank BOC played the closing football theme and gave the word cue, to the outraged shock of Ellis and Connal, and the connection was irretrievably broken.

"[42] During the station break which began with the network announcement, Goodman called a BOC phone to which only he knew the number and which was not part of NBC's Circle-7 exchange, a line that blew a fuse 26 times in an hour.

Others called newspapers, television stations, even the New York City Police Department, both to seek the final score and simply to vent.

[45] In an attempt to inform the audience of the game's outcome, NBC displayed the message "SPORTS BULLETIN: RAIDERS DEFEAT JETS 43–32" as an on-screen news update during the film.

[38][47] On the ABC Evening News, anchor Frank Reynolds read excerpts from Heidi while clips of the Raiders' two touchdowns were shown as cut-ins.

[48] To prevent similar occurrences from happening in future game telecasts, a special "Heidi phone", a hotline connected to a different exchange and unaffected by switchboard meltdowns, was installed in BOC.

[45] Three weeks after the Heidi Game, NBC aired a special presentation of Pinocchio (a live-action version starring Peter Noone, the lead singer of the rock band Herman's Hermits, in the title role).

[51] Other major professional sports leagues in North America, the NCAA, and even the International Olympic Committee also shared the same rule in regards to their own respective television contracts.

[51] On November 23, 1975, NBC planned to air the heavily promoted children's film Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory at 7 p.m. Eastern, right after a game between the Raiders and Washington Redskins.

When the game went into overtime, NBC stayed with it for almost 45 minutes to its ending and then joined the Wonka film in progress, prompting angry calls from parents.

Interviewed by the magazine, Jennifer Edwards, title star of Heidi, commented: "My gravestone is gonna say, 'She was a great moment in sports.

Feeling that Hudson's disqualification was unjustified (his replacement, D'Amato, was beaten for the winning touchdown), assistant coach Walt Michaels chased after the officials, and he and team doctor James Nicholas banged on the door of their dressing room, complaining bitterly.

Zimmerman, who wrote for the New York Post, later stated, "I never saw such ferocity on a football field in my life," and remembered that the films showed Oakland defensive lineman Dan Birdwell punch Namath in the groin, causing him to remain on the ground for several minutes, though he did not have to leave the game.

[65] The Jets hosted the Raiders at Shea Stadium on a windy December afternoon to determine who would play in Super Bowl III against the NFL champions, who proved to be the Baltimore Colts.