October 21, 1975: Mere hours before Game 6 of the World Series (for which I have a separate entry), the World Football League folds in the middle of its 2nd season. Unlike the 1946-49 AAFC and the 1960-69 AFL, it didn't get to merge or even partly merge with the NFL. Unlike the 1983-85 USFL, it didn't go out with a bang (in the USFL's case, the bang of a judge's gavel). It went out with a whimper. Indeed, if you weren't a fan of a WFL team, most likely, in the wake of Games 6 and 7 of the World Series, you might not have even heard about the league's folding for days.
Gary Davidson, one of the founders of the American Basketball Association, and one of the founders of the World Hockey Association, thought his third time would be the charm. What he didn't realize was that both the ABA and the WHA had several team owners who either didn't know what they were doing, or didn't have enough money to field their visions on the court or the ice, or both.
And the WFL was worse than both. Before the 1st season, 1974, could even get underway, they were set to be on the cover of Sports Illustrated, with Davidson and 2 of the league's big signings: Calvin Hill of the Dallas Cowboys and Ted Kwalick of the San Francisco 49ers, both of whom went to the Honolulu Hawaiians. But the week that the cover was supposed to appear, Hank Aaron hit his 715th career home run, and that was put on the cover instead. For once, "The Dreaded SI Cover Jinx" jinxed something because SI didn't put it on the cover!
The cover that never was
Would that cover getting out have helped the league? Probably not, because the mismanagement really was bad. One of the intended teams, the Toronto Northmen, owned by former Toronto Maple Leafs co-owner John Bassett, had to move, due to Canadian law allowing only the Canadian Football League to host professional football games in Canada.
So Bassett moved the team, the Northmen becoming the Memphis Southmen. They had the biggest signing coup, getting Paul Warfield, Larry Csonka and Jim Kiick away from the 2-time defending NFL Champions, the Miami Dolphins. They did make the SI cover, and went 17-3, but after a bye in the Quarterfinals, they lost in the Semifinals, to the Birmingham Americans.
The league couldn't get a contract with one of the Big Three TV networks, settling for a minor network, TVS, which syndicated the games to "independent" stations. And, in order to avoid scheduling conflicts with the NFL, college and high football, they could only play on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays. That drove attendance and viewership down.
A a 20-game season was intended. But the Houston Texans had to move after just 11 games, becoming the Shreveport Steamer (no S on the end). The WFL desperately needed a New York team to survive, but the timing was bad: Yankee Stadium was being renovated, Giants Stadium wouldn't be ready until 1976, and with the WFL starting in mid-July, and the Yankees and the Jets already sharing Shea Stadium with the Mets, there simply weren't enough open dates for the New York Stars, so they had to play at the 22,000-seat Downing Stadium on Randall's Island. It had opened in 1939, and its only update since had been the addition of lights from Ebbets Field. After their 13th game, at home to the Detroit Wheels, a 37-7 win in front of just 4,220 fans, they moved, becoming the Charlotte Hornets.
As for those Detroit Wheels, they had a similar venue issue, with Tiger Stadium being shared by the NFL's Lions, and the Silverdome in suburban Pontiac still under construction. They were forced to play 40 miles away at Eastern Michigan University in Ypsilianti. They lost that game against the New York Stars, 37-7, and, that very day, they filed for bankruptcy. They played 1 more game, folded, and forfeited the reason of their games, finishing 1-19.
Typical of the WFL's ineptitude was the "Papergate" scandal. The Philadelphia Bell, named for the Liberty Bell, had announced a crowd of 55,534 fans for their home opener at John F. Kennedy Stadium. For their 2nd game, they announced an even bigger crowd, 64,719. For comparison's sake, the NFL's Eagles, playing at Veterans Stadium a couple of blocks to the north, topped that figure only twice in 1974, and only once in 1973.
But when the Bell had to pay city taxes on the attendance figures, it was revealed that they had massively inflated the gate. They had sold block tickets to several area businesses at a discount, and it was not reported. The actual paid attendance for the 1st home game was 13,855, which wouldn't have sold out The Spectrum; and for the 2nd, just 6,200, which wouldn't have sold out The Palestra. There were high school games in the Philly area that drew more than that.
And so, with a game scheduled for a Wednesday night, October 16, 1974, with rain coming down hard on the Delaware Valley, only 750 fans came to JFK Stadium to see the Bell, who lost 30-25 to Shreveport. Steamer. (No S on the end.) They finished 9-11. But 8 of their 11 losses were by a touchdown or less, and they did qualify for the Playoffs, losing to the Orlando-based Florida Blazers in the Quarterfinals.
The Chicago Fire forfeited their last game, to the Bell, because they literally could not afford to make the trip to Philadelphia. The Orlando-based Florida Blazers, who lost the 1974 title game, World Bowl I, to Birmingham, had to move after that season, becoming the San Antonio Wings.
Another weird feature of the WFL is how many teams changed their names without moving: The Champion Birmingham Americans became the Birmingham Vulcans, the Chicago Fire became the Chicago Winds, the Jacksonville Sharks became the Jacksonville Express, and the Portland Storm became the Portland Thunder.
The 1975 season would not only be no better than '74 for the WFL, but worse. TVS canceled their contract, leaving the league with only local TV coverage. The Chicago Winds were expelled from the league after 5 games, because they had failed to keep a promise to the league office to sign quarterback Joe Namath away from the NFL and the New York Jets. So there was no team in the nation's Number 1 market (New York), Number 3 market (Chicago) or Number 4 market (the San Francisco Bay Area); and the team in the Number 2 market, the Southern California Sun, while having a winning record at 7-5, topped out at 17,811 fans at Anaheim Stadium.
By October 21, most of the 10 teams that were still going had played 11 games, but the money just wasn't coming in. And with sports fans' attention focused on the established NFL and the World Series, they folded. They folded the same day as, as it turned out, one of the greatest games in the history of baseball. The WFL couldn't even die with dignity.
The NFL held no consequences against the players who had jumped to the WFL. And the names of 3 teams would live on: The Houston Texans became the name of an NFL team in 2002, the Charlotte Hornets that of an NBA team in 1988, and the Chicago Fire that of a team in Major League Soccer in 1998. Charlotte and Jacksonville, neither of which had ever had an NFL team before, got NFL expansion teams in 1995.
John Bassett used his WFL experiences, both the good and the bad, to guide him in putting together an ownership group for the USFL, which included actor and former Florida State football player Burt Reynolds. The team was named the Tampa Bay Bandits, after one of Reynolds' movies, Smokey and the Bandit. It was easily the best-run team in that league, even though it never made a championship game, but the illness that would claim Bassett's life in 1986 helped to derail that league's chances of a settlement with the NFL.
*
October 21, 1975 was a Tuesday. Game 6 of the World Series was played at Fenway Park in Boston, and it was an all-time classic, with the Boston Red Sox beating the Cincinnati Reds, 7-6, on Carlton Fisk's home run in the bottom of the 12th inning. This forced a Game 7 the next night, which the Reds would win.
Football was in midweek. And the NBA season didn't start for another 2 days, and the ABA season for another day after that. There were 3 games played in the NHL:
* The New York Islanders and the Vancouver Canucks played to a tie, 5-5 at the Nassau Coliseum.
* The Montreal Canadiens beat the Pittsburgh Penguins, 7-1 at the Civic Arena in Pittsburgh.
* And the St Louis Blues beat the Los Angeles Kings, 6-1 at the St. Louis Arena.
And there were 3 games played in the World Hockey Association:
* The Quebec Nordiques beat the New England Whalers, 6-1 at the Colisée de Québec.
* The Minnesota Fighting Saints beat the Indianapolis Racers, 2-1 at the Market Square Arena in Indianapolis.
* And the Winnipeg Jets beat the Cincinnati Stingers, 7-0 at the Winnipeg Arena.
No comments:
Post a Comment