New York was to be the home of one of the first eleven teams to play in the American Basketball Association (ABA) in 1967, the year that league debuted. However, the franchise, awarded to trucking magnate Arthur J. Brown, had trouble finding a home in the Big Apple and wound up in New Jersey. Island and became the New York Nets. They eventually moved back to New Jersey,
The Virginia Sailors were a minor league football team that operated in the Washington suburbs for three seasons from 1966 to 1968. The Sailors captured back-to-back ACFL titles in 1966 and 1967 and returned to the championship game once again in 1968, only to see their three-peat bid spoiled by the Hartford Knights.
Cox’s squad returned to the title game in 1968 with a chance for a three-peat, but lost 30-17 on the road to the Hartford Knights.
The Baltimore Elite Giants got their start in Nashville, before moving to Columbus, Ohio for one year, then to Washington, D.C. They moved down the road in Baltimore in 1938 and played there until 1950, before spending their final season back in Tennessee.
The original Winnipeg Jets were charter members of the WHA in 1972. They moved to the NHL in 1979, along with three other WHA squads. In 1995, they were sold and moved to Phoenix for the 1996-97 hockey season. The name was revived when the Atlanta Thrashers moved to Manitoba in 2011 and assumed the Jets name but not their history.
The Atlantic City Surf were one of the six original franchises in the Atlantic League of Professional Baseball. The Atlantic League was (and remains) the most ambitious league to arise out of the independent baseball boom of the 1990’s. The Surf played at the Sandcastle, a 5,900-seat ballpark built on the grounds of Atlantic City’s municipal airport, Bader Field. The stadium was built with $11.5 million in Casino Reinvestment Development Authority funds and $3 million in taxpayer bonds.
Soccer League As I draft this column, I’m sitting in the athletic center at Endicott College in Beverly, Massachusetts administering the final exam for my Sports Promotions & Marketing course (SM 203). I taught two sections of the course as a guest instructor this semester and it was a blast.
The New England Sea Wolves were the second attempt to establish the Arena Football League at the Hartford Civic Center. Like their predecessor, the Connecticut Coyotes (1994-1995), the Sea Wolves lasted only two seasons at the Civic Center before getting sold off and relocated.
A detailed history of the New Orleans Buccaneers (1967-1970) a founding member of the ABA that played three seasons in the Big Easy and later moved to Memphis.
Canadian Football League (1994) Born: July 26, 1993 – CFL expansion franchise Folded: April 1995 First Game: July 8, 1994 (W 32-26 @ Sacramento Gold Miners) Last Game: November 5, 1994 (L 51-10 @ Edmonton Eskimos) Grey Cup Championships: None Sam Boyd Stadium (31,000) Opened: 1971 Team Colors: Desert Sand, Black & White Owner: Nick
