Author: Scott Adamson

You get one chance to make a good first impression, and 47 years ago today the World Football League put its best foot forward – and made a lasting impression on me.

July 10, 1974, ranks as one of my all-time favorite days, thanks to the Birmingham Americans defeating the Southern California Sun, 11-7, at Legion Field. It was the first pro football game I’d ever seen live, caused me to fall in love with a new team and new league, and ultimately was the catalyst for writing “The Home Team: My Bromance With Off-Brand Football.”

But while I was focused on the goings on at the Football Capital of the South, WFL fever seemed to be taking hold at other stadiums on opening night. Attendance was high – as was fan enthusiasm – and it appeared the WFL had gotten off to a dream start.

“I’ll tell you what’s fantastic,” Birmingham quarterback George Mira said in an Anniston Star story. “This was the first ballgame in a brand new league and we had over 50,000 fans out there rooting their heads off. They acted like we’d been here for 10 years, and they were behind us even when we got behind 7-0.”

Dick Vermeil, then the young head coach of UCLA, watched the Birmingham-Southern California game on TV back in Los Angeles.

“I thought both teams played well for the first game, but I’m thinking in comparison with what would be the first NFL exhibition game,” Vermeil told the Associated Press. “They played fundamentally sound football – well-drilled and well-coached – and they executed well for the first game.

“The Suns played a typical NFL offense but Birmingham used some of the Canadian influence with their man in motion and used it to advantage.”

The league featured seven-point touchdowns and several other rule innovations and had already made headlines by signing NFL stars such as Paul Warfield, Larry Csonka, Daryle Lamonica, Ken Stabler and Calvin Hill to future contracts. The inaugural season, however, would be contested mostly by rosters featuring NFL castoffs and Canadian Football League defectors. That being the case, there was a worry that turnout would be low for what some perceived as minor league football. But announced attendance exceeded expectations at almost every venue.

In Birmingham it was 53,231, with WFL commissioner Gary Davidson on hand.  

“I was awed and impressed with the enthusiasm of the Birmingham fans,” Davidson said in an Associated Press story. “I was expecting a crowd of perhaps 40,000 but to get a crowd of 53,000 is just wonderful.”

King Corcoran – dubbed the “poor man’s Joe Namath” – threw two touchdown passes in the Philadelphia Bell’s 33-8 victory over the Portland Storm before 55,534 fans at JFK Stadium.

“It seemed major league to me,” Corcoran told the Pittsburgh Press. “It’s major league when you’re out there in front of 55,000 people. I think the WFL is here to stay.”

Virgil Carter hurled two touchdown passes in the Chicago Fire’s 17-0 win over the Houston Texans before 42,000 fans at Soldier Field.

John Huarte, a 10-year NFL backup and Heisman Trophy winner out of Notre Dame, had a touchdown pass and Paul Miles scored two rushing TDs in the Memphis Southmen’s 34-15 win over the Detroit Wheels with 30,122 fans watching in the Liberty Bowl.

If there was an opening night letdown it came in the Tangerine Bowl as only 18,625 patrons were on hand to see the Florida Blazers edge The Hawaiians, 8-7. But considering the stadium in Orlando seated only 27,000 at the time, it was still two-thirds full.

And a day later the league got to shine from coast to coast as its first nationally televised game featured the New York Stars at the Jacksonville Sharks. The hosts won, 14-7, and 59,112 people filled the Gator Bowl close to capacity for the Thursday night clash.

Notre Dame coach Ara Parseghian watched the TVS telecast, and gave relatively high marks to the WFL when asked his opinion by AP.

“Just looking at one game, it didn’t look too bad,” he said. “But I’ve seen high school games on television that looked damn good. As the teams get to play one another and we get to know the players better, we’ll get a better line on how good this league is, but my general opinion is that it’s not bad at all.”

As a 13-year-old who became a superfan overnight, I reveled in the validation. The WFL wasn’t just popular in Birmingham, it was a hit from sea to shining sea. Never mind that the average score from the self-proclaimed “wide-open” league’s first week was 19.5-7.3 and five of the 12 teams failed to break single digits – as far as I was concerned this was big time professional football and the NFL had some real competition.

As we all quickly found out, though, that first impression was a misconception.

Attendance was inflated – especially in Philadelphia where the house was papered – and it wasn’t long before franchises were folding and relocating. By the time Birmingham defeated Florida, 22-21, in the World Bowl, the WFL had already established itself as one of the greatest financial disasters in sports history. Although it reorganized and rebooted for 1975, it never made it to week 13 of the second season.

But that’s a sad story for another day. July 10, 1974, on the other hand, will always be a special day that marked a special time. The World Football League didn’t live long, but the joy it gave me lives on.

I’ve always been jealous of sports fans who live in cities large enough to support multiple professional teams in the same sport.

In New York, for example, you can choose between the Jets and Giants, Yankees and Mets, Rangers and Islanders and Knicks and Nets among the “Big Four.”

Los Angeles has the Rams and Chargers, Dodgers and Angels (Anaheim is close enough), and Lakers and Clippers.

And of course Chicago (home base of my friend and “From the 55 Yard Line” podcast partner Greg Smith) features a Windy City split between the Cubs and White Sox.

Well, gentle reader, I can now join the club because I have a choice to cheer for either the Alabama Airborne of Major League Football or the Alabama Airmen of the Freedom Football League. I mean, both these leagues are coming soon, right?

Right?

With all the news about the new United States Football League and XFL 3.0 dominating alternative pro football talk, there’s a chance you’ve tabled your discussions about MLFB and the FFL (for the record I’ve written about both before). Major League Football was founded in 2014, while the Freedom Football League was announced in 2018. So what else do we know about them?

Well, MLFB has threatened to get up and running several times during its seven years of shelf-sitting. It was originally designed to be a bridge league between college football and the NFL, similar to the Alliance of American Football (BTW, MLF bought some of the AAF’s used equipment after that league went cleats up before completing its first season in 2019). Trademarks were filed for the Alabama Airborne, Arkansas Attack, Florida Fusion, Northwest Empire, Ohio Union, Oklahoma Nation, Oregon Crash, Texas Independence, Utah Stand and Virginia Armada, with a spring/summer season format.

Rule changes were to include four-point field goals (kicked from 50 yards or longer) and PATs attempted from the hash mark furthest from where the touchdown was scored, creating a more severe angle.

And as a publicly traded company, fans could own a piece of MLFB.

In May the league announced it was “continuing its plan for a late summer 2021 demonstration season” although summer has less than three months left and MLF has yet to demonstrate it still has a plan.

And what about the Freedom Football League? It unveiled team names right out of the gate: Austin Revolution, Birmingham Kings, Connecticut Underground, Florida Strong, Oakland Panthers, Ohio Players, Oklahoma City Power, Portland Progress, San Diego Warriors and St. Louis Independence.

That was in 2018. Since then there have already been name changes. The Birmingham Kings are now the Alabama Airmen, the Portland Progress is the Portland Power, the Austin Revolution is the Texas Revolution and the St. Louis no longer has a nick – that’ll be for the fans to decide.

The league, founded by Ricky Williams and a handful of other former NFL players, is built on the cornerstones of social justice and activism. And according to its website, “… the FFL will be owned by a unique consortium that includes former NFL players, active players from each FFL team, the local franchise operators, and most uniquely, the fans.”

In the past few months the FFL has conducted some interesting “Founders Roundtable” discussions and provided profiles of front office personnel. As for the kind of football the Freedom League will play, though, that’s one of the best kept secrets in sports. I’ve gone over its website with a flea comb and still can’t figure out if it’s indoor or outdoor, spring or fall, touch or tackle – no clue whatsoever. Those of us with an alt-football addiction go into a frenzy when we read about rule innovations, so related tidbits of information are vital if that frenzy is to continue.

I mean, I need more info if I’m going to pledge allegiance to the Airborne or the Airmen.

The new USFL is rushing to market next spring, but since it’s run by The Spring League founder Brian Woods and FOX Sports (which televises TSL), it at least has the makings of an infrastructure.

Dany Garcia, Dwayne Johnson and RedBird Capital bought the XFL, which was a solid product before the 2020 season – and second version of the league – was wiped out by the COVID-19 pandemic. If it reboots as a third incarnation of itself or in alliance with the Canadian Football League, it’ll already have a boilerplate.

But new sports organizations that pop up out of nowhere have to show people they’re going somewhere to be taken seriously. In other words, when forming a league at some point that league actually has to take form.

And with MLFB spinning its wheels for seven years and the FFL still a mystery, they aren’t doing themselves any favors to that end. But maybe someday they’ll finally hit the field and I can have two pro football teams to choose from.

Then again, maybe not.

At this point I’d be happy if the two leagues merged and became the Major League of Freedom Football and my hometown clubs combined to create the Alabama Air.

It wouldn’t give me a multiple choice option like my friends in major markets enjoy, but it would have the perfect nickname. Because like air, this is a football team I’ll never be able to see.

If the new United States Football League gets off the ground, fans of the old USFL might get to move their retro apparel back to the “active” pile.

I have several Birmingham Stallions tee shirts, so if they come galloping back to Legion Field (or the new Protective Stadium) next spring, I’ll be ready to suit up without having to buy new stuff.

But here’s a bit of trivia for you … back in 2015 the Denver Gold, Los Angeles Express, Michigan Panthers, New Jersey Generals, Philadelphia Stars and Tampa Bay Bandits – brands from the original USFL – were supposed to take the field again.

Instead of reviving America’s gridiron spring fling of 1983-85, though, they would be competing in something called the A-11 Football League.

Founded in 2013 and ultimately abandoned in 2014, the A11FL hoped to bring familiar USFL names to a wide-open league – one in which all 11 players on offense (hence the name) could be eligible receivers.

In its fan guide released on April 16, 2013, the primary game plan was unveiled:

The A11FL makes ONE rule change to the game of football, allowing for all eleven offensive players on the field to wear eligible jersey numbers. This rule change creates a game where every athlete can be interchangeable within any formation depending on the strategy of each play. The offense still needs to have 7 men on the line of scrimmage and 5 of those 7 players will be considered “restricted linemen” if they are not aligned on the end of the line of scrimmage – the same formation eligibility requirement mandated at every level of football.

The A-11 offense is the brainchild of Kurt Bryan and Steve Humphries, who popularized the attack at Piedmont High School in California. The scheme basically turned the kicking formation into a scrimmage play, but the National Federation of State High School Associations closed the loophole after two seasons.

Bryan was the executive vice president of league development for the A11FL and wanted to show that the free-for-all style could not only go national, but go pro.

“As a football coach for 25 years, I’ve seen a lot of things come and go, which I refer to as fads,” Bryan told the San Francisco Examiner for a February, 2014 story. “We started having success in the A-11 offense, and the phones never stopped ringing. Coaches from all over wanted to know about this offense.”

In the same article, A11FL commissioner Scott McKibben said the new league was the right product at the right time. He expected attendance to average more than 30,000 per game with fans paying $30 per ticket.

“This country thirsts for more football and the live action sports content value has never, ever been higher,” McKibben said. “We believe football played in the spring, at the highest level, in the greatest markets, with the greatest players, will be successful.”

ESPN signed on to televise a pair of “showcase games” for the spring of 2014, and by 2015 eight inaugural franchises would play a 14-week regular season followed by three weeks of playoffs. Players were to be selected via a late winter territorial draft.

Alas, the wheels came off quickly.

A couple of months after the Examiner piece ran, the scheduled showcase games were canceled and it was revealed that the L.A. Express (and any other California-based teams) would not be part of the league at the outset due to workers’ compensation issues in that state.

By July, 2014, A11FL officials announced that the league was sticking with the A11 offense but dropping its original name. And when February, 2015, rolled around, organizers had abandoned the idea altogether in favor of forming a different league based on more traditional rules.

That league – whatever it was supposed to be – never materialized.

With or without the USFL nostalgia trip, I would’ve been intrigued by an A-11 pro league. It would be the ultimate representation of a spread offense, and every play would be tricky, if not a trick play.

As I’ve said before, if you can’t be as good as the NFL talent-wise, try to be better than the NFL gimmick-wise. And the A-11 Football League would’ve been about as gimmicky as it gets.