The World Football League (WFL) was a disastrous attempt to set up a fall-season rival to the National Football League (NFL) in the mid-1970’s. It opened to much fanfare in July of 1974, but was soon undone by scandal and financial issues.
The Portland Loggers were a One-Year Wonder in the minor Continental Football League during the autumn of 1969. The Loggers formed in August 1969, with less than three weeks to get organized before their home opener at Civic Stadium on August 24th. The Loggers inherited the contracts of the CoFL’s defunct Orange County Ramblers club. The Ramblers had played in the league’s championship game in both the 1967 and 1968 seasons. The Loggers’ last-minute formation showed when a puny gathering of just 2,316 fans turned out for the team’s Portland debut victory. The Loggers would win just two more games all season, en route to a 3-9 last place finish.
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.
United Soccer League (2018) Born: November 15, 2017 – Re-branded from Harrisburg CIty Islanders Ceased Operations (professional club): Late 2018 First Match: March 24, 2018 (L 1-0 @ Charleston Battery) Last Match: October 13, 2018 (T 0-0 vs. Toronto FC II) USL Championships: None FNB Field Opened: 1987 Team Colors: Blue,
The Texas Terror were an Arena Football League based in Houston that played two seasons in 1996 and 1997. The team was owned by the management of the Houston Rockets and, like their NBA parent, played at the Compaq Center (formerly the Houston Summit). After a dreadful sophomore season in 1997 that saw the team’s attendance plummet by over 50%, ownership abandoned the “Terror” identity and re-branded the team as the Houston ThunderBears in 1998. The ThunderBears eventually went out of business in 2001, closing the book on this indoor football franchise.
The American Basketball Association (ABA) was formed in 1967 as a competitor to the established National Basketball Association (NBA). It started with 11 teams, and within a few years was angling for a merger with the older league. In 1976, the NBA took in four ABA teams, while three other surviving teams disbanded.
The Memphis Mad Dogs were a short-lived chapter in the Canadian Football League’s expansion misadventure into the United States between 1993 and 1995. The Mad Dogs arrived at the Liberty Bowl just in time for the final season of the CFL’s three-year American experiment in the fall of 1995. The ‘Dogs featured an outstanding defense and CFL legend Damon Allen at quarterback but never quite put it all together and finished their only season at 9-9. The team did make a star out of unheralded community college wide receiver Joe Horn, who leapt from the Mad Dogs to a 12-year career in the NFL and four Pro Bowl nods. The team folded after the 1995 season.
