Author: Scott Adamson

By the mid-1990s, Joe Kapp had already done a little bit of everything in football. He had completed a Hall of Fame playing career as a Canadian Football League quarterback, finished a four-year stint in the NFL that resulted in a league title and Pro Bowl selection, and coached five years at the University of California as well as one season of arena football.

So when he decided he was going to invent a brand new football league, it seemed like a natural progression for one of the game’s larger-than-life figures.

On January 16, 1996, Kapp announced that he and former Dallas Cowboys quarterback Craig Morton were forming “All Star Football,” a 16-team league that would start play in September, 1997. Unlike the United States Football League and World League of American Football, the new venture would play during the traditional gridiron season.

“How can you succeed playing football in the summer?” Kapp said in an interview with Associated Press. “We’re a moving pocket. We’ll adjust. If (NFL teams) play in the afternoon, we might play at night. If it’s affordable, it will succeed. We don’t have to beat them. We’ve got a plan that works.”

The league targeted both major and secondary markets, with the idea of using stadiums that were sitting idle during the fall.

“The stadiums are there,” Kapp said. “Shea Stadium in New York, Tiger Stadium in Detroit, the Orange Bowl in Miami, the Citrus Bowl in Orlando.”

Set to join Detroit, Miami, New York and Orlando as flagship franchises were Chicago, Cleveland, Columbus, El Paso, Hartford, Houston, Los Angeles, Memphis, Mexico City, Milwaukee, Philadelphia and San Jose.

“Too many cities have been left out for too long,” Kapp told AP. “Who says Columbus can’t have a team? Milwaukee’s been shut out by Green Bay. Oakland sold out 268 straight games and then left, and then came back. They left L.A. without a team. The Jets and Giants are in New Jersey. New York doesn’t have a team.”

The business plan of All Star Football was a single entity model with players and league employees owning equity in the company. According to USA Today, Kapp’s company, Team Dynamics, would own 33 percent of the league, followed by investors (20 percent), players (19 percent), TV distributors (15 percent) and league employees (13 percent).  If there were any profits, 14 percent would go to active players annually, with five percent allotted to retired players. Owners of the 16 teams pledged $15 million each for three years to ensure the launch and stability of the league.

There would be a balanced budget mandate and instead of selling TV rights to an established network, BKS/Bates Entertainment (a TV syndication company and equity partner in All-Star Football) would offer a weekly schedule of games throughout the country.

As for players, the league would simply recruit; no draft was planned.

“We’ll get our players from the same place (the NFL) gets their players,” Kapp said. “So many players never get a chance. I was fifth in the Heisman balloting and nobody called, so I went to Canada. I coached at California from 1982-1986. We had three quarterbacks who could play pro football. One of them, Gale Gilbert, still is in the league. The other two never got on the field.”

The All Star Football plan came on the heels of the short-lived idea for the “A League,” which was to be funded by corporate sponsors, and the end of the CFL experiment with United States-based franchises.

“A lot of planning has been done,” Kapp said. “We spent a long time consulting with experts and specialists. We visited cities all over the country (in 1995) and found a welcome audience. The stadiums are there. The components are in place. There’s no reason to wait.”

But the wait continued until there was nothing left to wait for.

By November of 1996 the plan had been downsized to eight cities the first season. The minimum player salary was to be $50,000 per season with a maximum of $400,000 in a $4 million salary cap.

All Star Football went dark for more than a year until Kapp was touting it again in February, 1998. This time the league was seeking a partnership with Turner Sports and NBC and it was announced that rule innovations would include 4-point field goals from beyond the 40-yard line.

But …

In the summer of 1998 – when Turner and NBC announced they were exploring the possibility of forming their own league – Kapp was no longer promoting his organization but instead hoping the networks could pull off the feat.

“I applaud their vision and courage,” Kapp told the New York Times. “It’s an open book, and they can write and do football in a better way. These two strong entities can carry a financial load for a long time.”

Looking back, it appears All Star Football was never really close to getting off the ground. Other than an article here or there reminding you that Kapp wanted to start a league, there was no information that led you to believe investors were ready and willing to step in and pay up.

Like many alternative football ideas, it was an interesting one. Being interesting – and being interesting enough to get millions of dollars in backing – are sometimes two very different things, however.

On one end of the field is a team adorned in brown, red and gold, with a regal eagle bursting through an “A” on its helmets.

On the other, a side dressed in purple and orange, with an arrow cleverly incorporated into its team name.

The excitement would’ve been palpable inside the stadium, because when Anheuser-Busch St. Louis squares off with Federal Express Memphis in an A League clash, you can throw those record books right out the window.

For a two month period in the summer 1994, big business toyed with the idea of making professional football its business – and force the NFL to face its most serious threat since the American Football League. Mike Lynn, who had previously served as general manager of the Minnesota Vikings and commissioner of the World League of American Football, was spearheading an effort that would see 12 Fortune 500 companies put up $10 million each to fund a league that would go head-to-head with the NFL in the fall.

Play was to start in 1995 with franchises placed in cities where the headquarters of their corporate sponsors were located. The “nicknames” would be the name of the company paying the bills.

Aside from Anheuser-Busch and FedEx, other corporations supposedly interested in what was being touted as “The A League” were the Walt Disney Company, PepsiCo, and American Express.

“The timing is right, and these corporations aren’t interested in being associated with anything that isn’t major league,” Lynn told Associated Press in early May, 1994.

Of course businesses need to advertise, and there was once no better way to do that than via television. And in the A League, a game would be a three-hour commercial for the teams’ sponsors.  CBS, which saw its 38-year run of televising the NFL end after being outbid by FOX, was set to be the A League’s TV partner – as long as the league had franchises in the nation’s top three TV markets.

“Other than the markets of New York, Chicago and Los Angeles, the companies that would own teams will determine where the other franchises are,” Lynn said in an interview with the Scripps-Howard News Service. “There really are no untargeted markets in the U.S.”

Lynn, who made the pitch to CBS executives in December, 1993, said partnering with a major network and playing in the traditional football season gave it a better chance to succeed than spring circuits such as the United States Football League and WLAF. And he was unconcerned with competition from the Canadian Football League, which had four United States-based franchises in 1994 and planned further American expansion in 1995.

“Our league has more in common with the American Football League,” Lynn said. “The games will be in the fall and carried by a major network. The other leagues didn’t have the viability of CBS.”

TV executive Jim Spence – along with Lynn, one of the venture’s organizers – was enthusiastic about the prospects of a corporate-sponsored league succeeding.

“It’s a terrific concept,” Spence said in an interview with AP. “When it was broached to me as a TV guy, it addressed all that comes to mind – credibility, viability and financial commitment. The corporate involvement lends instant credibility and long-term viability.

“The companies we’ve discussed this with think it’s a terrific marketing opportunity. It’s a natural evolution for it to happen in the United States.”

Spence added that it had to be “major league” to become a money maker.

“There’s a lot of work to be done, but it’s an excellent opportunity,” he said. “The fact that CBS is without football makes for a positive opportunity. If the league is to be successful, there will have to be a number of top quality players in the league.”

Alas, the next real news that came out of the A League camp was that there would, in fact, be no A League. On July 20, 1994, Lynn said the money simply wasn’t there.

“After looking at the revenues from TV and corporate sponsorships, it doesn’t make economic sense and I will not be involved going forward,” he told AP. “We’re $90 million short, or $30 million a year for each of the (first) three years. For this to work we’d need enough capital to pool revenues and go after marquee players and it isn’t there.”

International sports (European soccer and Japanese baseball are good examples) show that corporate sponsorship is certainly a viable path to sustainability. But it’s hard to imagine any professional football entity competing with the behemoth that is the National Football League. Apparently the movers and shakers of the A league realized this – and decided to cut their losses before there were any losses to cut.

Have you ever wondered how “Stranger in Town” – episode 12 of the first season of “The Andy Griffith Show” – relates to the Canadian Football League?

Of course you haven’t, because it doesn’t.

At no point does Sherriff Andy Taylor say, “Barn, let’s me and you go up to Calgary and watch the Stampeders play ball.”

And Aunt Bee never once referenced a rouge.

However, I often think of that episode when I try to describe my CFL fandom. See, it’s the story of a man named Ed Sawyer who had never been to Mayberry but shows up one day and seems to know all the people and everything about them.

It’s unsettling to the townsfolk, but it turns out Sawyer fell in love with the place by befriending Mayberry native Joe Larson while the two were in the Army. After hearing stories of its people and subscribing to the Mayberry newspaper, Sawyer felt like it was home and started telling people he was from Mayberry.

Ultimately, he bought a gas station and moved there.

So basically, I’m Ed Sawyer and the CFL is Mayberry – although I can’t afford to buy a gas station and the border is closed to travel right now.

Truth is, I’ve never been to Canada, but if anyone asks me a question about the CFL I might as well be waving the Maple Leaf Flag and altering my pronunciation of “about.” I don’t know if it’s a gridiron version of cultural appropriation or merely cultural appreciation, but it’s a league I’ve felt a kinship with for almost as long as I’ve been a football fan.

Shoot, I even co-host a CFL-centric podcast from my home base in Birmingham (which is a league legacy city thanks to the 1995 Birmingham Barracudas).

Tonight – while wearing a Hamilton Tiger-Cats T-shirt and cap – I’ll cheer on the Tabbies as they take on defending Grey Cup champion Winnipeg. I’m not sure how many other people in the neighborhood will be tuned in and don’t care; this is Must See TV for me and I must see every down.

On Friday I’ll turn my attention to the game between the BC Lions and Saskatchewan Roughriders. I don’t have a rooting interest in either team, so I’ll just sit back and enjoy the spectacle.

And Saturday I’ll cap off opening week by watching the Toronto Argonauts tangle with the Calgary Stampeders, followed by the Ottawa Redblacks versus the Edmonton Elks.

I’ve spent years spreading the good news of the CFL, and have gotten used to being greeted with either blank stares or rolled eyes when I start talking it up. A friend of mine likes to say, “I watch it until real football starts” and when he says that I’m always tempted to hit him with a croquet mallet (but I don’t because that might put a wedge between us – and also I no longer own a croquet mallet).

For me, though, football doesn’t get more real than the CFL. I realize it doesn’t have the planet’s best players, but for my money it has the planet’s best gridiron rules.

Which is not to say I don’t love the NFL and college football, because I most certainly do. But in my football galaxy there’s plenty of room, and the three down game will always have a place in it. Its greatness lies in its uniqueness.

Maybe when I first watched a game back in the early 1970s it was a novelty, but the novelty quickly became a sincere interest. And while TV coverage was hit or miss for decades, thanks to ESPN+ I can now watch every game (except for the ones on ESPN News, which makes me very, very cross).

Due in large part to Twitter, I’ve made some great Canadian friends over the years and they’ve all welcomed my passion for their game. And thanks to the “From the 55 Yard Line” podcast, I can talk about it with like-minded people.

Technology has helped make it a smaller world, and I’m glad the CFL is part of mine – regardless of where I’m located on the map.

Oh, and as for Ed Sawyer, he was never referenced again after the “Stranger in Town” episode. I like to think he realized North Carolina would never get a CFL expansion franchise so he moved to Ottawa and took a front office job with the Rough Riders.