In 1974, Gary Davidson was looking to start a football league. He had previously been involved in the American Basketball Association and the World Hockey Association—both of which were able to merge, to some extent, with the NBA and NHL, respectively.
He had planned to get the league started in 1975, but attempting to seize upon labor unrest in the NFL and CFL proved to be too enticing, so he began things a year early.
Thus, the World Football League was born.
The setup was three divisions of four teams each, arranged here taking two rows apiece. I might have gone with a different setup, with the Florida teams together with Memphis and Birmingham, but it’s a moot point.
Oh, and the teams in italics or not bolded? Those are marked as such for a reason. We’ll get to them.
Despite the name, all twelve teams were in the United States. The Hawaiians were the only team not located in the lower 48. The owner of the Memphis Southmen (also called the Grizzlies, like the current NBA team) had originally wanted to place his team in Toronto and call it the Northmen. However, the Canadian Parliament threatened to give the CFL a legally enforced monopoly on professional football in Canada, so those plans had to be abandoned.
The league also featured some rule differences from the NFL, as alternative leagues tend to have. The most notable was the elimination of point-after-touchdown kicks. Touchdowns were worth 7 points on their own, with a one-point conversion known as an “Action Point” available after the touchdown.
The schedule for each team was 20 games, to be played over 19 weeks. This was accomplished by doubling up on games in the week of Labor Day: teams would play on Monday and Friday of that week (labeled as weeks 9 and 10 here for simplicity), while most ordinary weeks saw action on Wednesday. The season was played from July to November, giving the league a head-start on the NFL.
At first, those games appeared to be well-attended. Later on, as the financial returns didn’t match up, it turned out that several teams were allowing in “fans” for free or for significantly reduced prices.
By the middle of the season, that was starting to take its toll on a number of teams. Two of them, the Jacksonville Sharks and Detroit Wheels, folded after 14 games each and a combined 5 wins. Two other teams relocated around the same time: the New York Stars to Charlotte, where they’d become the Hornets (again, like a current NBA team) and the Houston Texans to Shreveport, where they rebranded as the Steamer. For simplicity’s sake, those two teams are referred to by their original names in the graphics for this season’s post.
In order to maintain the schedule, teams who were set to play the Sharks and Wheels were matched against each other in the last weeks of the season.
Additionally, the Chicago Fire would forfeit their final game against the Philadelphia Bell. Because the game wasn’t played, it is not included in the final ratings or in the standings table below.
Unsurprisingly, the teams who ended up making the playoffs were ones who had relatively less trouble staying afloat. The Southmen and Birmingham Americans, as the two best teams in the league (and the only teams remaining in the Central Division), were given byes to the semifinals. One note: the Bell were selected over the Charlotte Hornets despite the latter’s better record because of poor ticket sales for the Hornets-Blazers opening round game. The Bell were able to meet the travel budget without high ticket sales and were put up against the Florida Blazers instead.
The biggest upset of the playoffs came in Memphis, where the 17-3 Grizzlies were bounced by the Blazers.
After that, the Americans and Blazers met in World Bowl 1 in Birmingham, where the Americans held off a late surge by the Blazers for a 22-21 victory. The Blazers scored three touchdowns in the fourth quarter but couldn’t convert a single Action Point.
Despite this, the Americans are fifth on my 1974 WFL ratings. A number of factors play into this, but among them is Birmingham’s second half of the regular season, where they went 5-5 after starting 10-0. Teams ahead of them just had better stretches there; even if they weren’t winning games, they were playing close.
The Chicago Fire followed a similar trajectory but accompanied by an even more precipitous decline. Injuries caused a 7-2 start to turn into a 7-12 finish, with the aforementioned forfeit and eventual folding of the team. Had the Sharks and Wheels remained around and not turned their seasons around, they likely would occupy the bottom two spots in the ratings; it’s because the Fire played in those heavily weighted later weeks that they end up in twelfth.
The Southmen finish at the top, and it shouldn’t be especially surprising. They got blown out a couple times early but really put it together by the end, losing just once, by one point in Portland, in their final 15 games.
And despite all the turmoil, the WFL survived to see another year. But what would 1975 hold in store for them?
He had planned to get the league started in 1975, but attempting to seize upon labor unrest in the NFL and CFL proved to be too enticing, so he began things a year early.
Thus, the World Football League was born.
The setup was three divisions of four teams each, arranged here taking two rows apiece. I might have gone with a different setup, with the Florida teams together with Memphis and Birmingham, but it’s a moot point.
Oh, and the teams in italics or not bolded? Those are marked as such for a reason. We’ll get to them.
Despite the name, all twelve teams were in the United States. The Hawaiians were the only team not located in the lower 48. The owner of the Memphis Southmen (also called the Grizzlies, like the current NBA team) had originally wanted to place his team in Toronto and call it the Northmen. However, the Canadian Parliament threatened to give the CFL a legally enforced monopoly on professional football in Canada, so those plans had to be abandoned.
The league also featured some rule differences from the NFL, as alternative leagues tend to have. The most notable was the elimination of point-after-touchdown kicks. Touchdowns were worth 7 points on their own, with a one-point conversion known as an “Action Point” available after the touchdown.
The schedule for each team was 20 games, to be played over 19 weeks. This was accomplished by doubling up on games in the week of Labor Day: teams would play on Monday and Friday of that week (labeled as weeks 9 and 10 here for simplicity), while most ordinary weeks saw action on Wednesday. The season was played from July to November, giving the league a head-start on the NFL.
At first, those games appeared to be well-attended. Later on, as the financial returns didn’t match up, it turned out that several teams were allowing in “fans” for free or for significantly reduced prices.
By the middle of the season, that was starting to take its toll on a number of teams. Two of them, the Jacksonville Sharks and Detroit Wheels, folded after 14 games each and a combined 5 wins. Two other teams relocated around the same time: the New York Stars to Charlotte, where they’d become the Hornets (again, like a current NBA team) and the Houston Texans to Shreveport, where they rebranded as the Steamer. For simplicity’s sake, those two teams are referred to by their original names in the graphics for this season’s post.
In order to maintain the schedule, teams who were set to play the Sharks and Wheels were matched against each other in the last weeks of the season.
Additionally, the Chicago Fire would forfeit their final game against the Philadelphia Bell. Because the game wasn’t played, it is not included in the final ratings or in the standings table below.
Unsurprisingly, the teams who ended up making the playoffs were ones who had relatively less trouble staying afloat. The Southmen and Birmingham Americans, as the two best teams in the league (and the only teams remaining in the Central Division), were given byes to the semifinals. One note: the Bell were selected over the Charlotte Hornets despite the latter’s better record because of poor ticket sales for the Hornets-Blazers opening round game. The Bell were able to meet the travel budget without high ticket sales and were put up against the Florida Blazers instead.
The biggest upset of the playoffs came in Memphis, where the 17-3 Grizzlies were bounced by the Blazers.
After that, the Americans and Blazers met in World Bowl 1 in Birmingham, where the Americans held off a late surge by the Blazers for a 22-21 victory. The Blazers scored three touchdowns in the fourth quarter but couldn’t convert a single Action Point.
Despite this, the Americans are fifth on my 1974 WFL ratings. A number of factors play into this, but among them is Birmingham’s second half of the regular season, where they went 5-5 after starting 10-0. Teams ahead of them just had better stretches there; even if they weren’t winning games, they were playing close.
The Chicago Fire followed a similar trajectory but accompanied by an even more precipitous decline. Injuries caused a 7-2 start to turn into a 7-12 finish, with the aforementioned forfeit and eventual folding of the team. Had the Sharks and Wheels remained around and not turned their seasons around, they likely would occupy the bottom two spots in the ratings; it’s because the Fire played in those heavily weighted later weeks that they end up in twelfth.
The Southmen finish at the top, and it shouldn’t be especially surprising. They got blown out a couple times early but really put it together by the end, losing just once, by one point in Portland, in their final 15 games.
And despite all the turmoil, the WFL survived to see another year. But what would 1975 hold in store for them?
Comments
Post a Comment