The Canadian Soccer League played seven seasons of summertime outdoor soccer from 1987 to 1992. Organizers formed the league in the wake of Canada’s first-ever qualification for the World Cup in 1986 and two years after the demise of the North American Socccer League (1968-1984) which featured several Canadian team’s over it’s run.
When it comes to the United States Football League, the 1980’s spring football adventure that still enjoys a sizable cult following today, you might say the Jacksonville Bulls are the team that time forgot. The Bulls, for example, barely merit a mention in director Mike Tollin’s definitive and affectionate Small Potatoes: Who Killed the USFL? documentary for ESPN’s 30-for-30 film series. So let me make a brief case for why the Jacksonville Bulls deserve a lot more love from retro football fetishists.
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.
The sport of indoor soccer spread across the country during the 1980’s and into the early 1990’s. Thanks to organizations like the Major Indoor Soccer League, National Professional Soccer League and the Continental Indoor Soccer League, practically every Major League city in the country had seen one or more indoor soccer teams come through town by 1999. Salt Lake City, Utah was an exception until the upstart World Indoor Soccer League (WISL) rolled into town at the E Center in West Valley in 1999.
The Colorado Crush were Denver’s entry in the Arena Football League for six seasons between 2003 and 2008. This was Denver’s second go round with the Arena League, following the earlier Denver Dynamite that played at McNichols Arena between 1987 and 1991. The Crush played at Pepsi Arena, the city’s NBA/NHL palace that had replaced McNichols in 1999, and were owned by a trio of local sports titans: Broncos owner Pat Bowlen, Hall of Fame quarterback John Elway, and Nuggets/Avalanche owner Stan Kroenke. The Crush’s finest hour came at the end of the 2005 season, when they defeated the Georgia Force 51-48 in Arena Bowl XIX.
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 San Antonio Texans were a One-Year Wonder in the Canadian Football League, playing a single season at the Alamodome in the autumn of 1995. The franchise had a twisty backstory, dating back to the formation of the NFL-backed World League of American Football (WLAF) in 1990.
