Alternative Football Archives - Page 34 of 89

Branding time in the XFL

The original XFL was one-and-done in 2001 because it lost its primary broadcast partner due to astonishingly low TV ratings.

Nearly two decades later the rebooted XFL was one half-and-done because the plug was pulled midseason due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

**Scott Adamson writes stuff. Follow him on Twitter @adamsonsl**

The third XFL? Only time will tell if Dany Garcia, Dwayne Johnson and RedBird Capital Partners can provide the 2023 league with a path to sustainability. Once the league kicks off next February, we’ll start to have a better idea.

For now, though, it’s time for alternative football nerds to unite and make our feelings known about the eight teams’ logos.

“The team names and logos are the results of the diligent work and tireless collaboration between the league marketing team, ownership and our creative partners,” XFL President Russ Brandon said in a statement. “This is the moment where our brand comes to life and our shared vision becomes reality for our cities and fans everywhere. We couldn’t be more excited by what we have built, and there is more on the horizon.”

Branding – I freely admit – is now my primary interest in any tackle football league outside the NFL or CFL. I may or may not watch them play in the late winter and spring (really, I just want the guys to get paid and keep their major league dreams alive), but I need to know if they make my fashion sense tingle. If so, I might throw some cash their way and buy a hat or shirt.

So, here is how I’m grading the eight teams. It has nothing to do with their coaches, locale, or potential for on-field success, it’s based solely on my personal preference of their look.

And remember, this is only one short, bespectacled man’s opinion; if yours is different, we can still be friends (or at least friendly acquaintances).

Away we go …

Kudos for repping the city of Arlington, where the team and XFL headquarters are located and which is 20 miles from Dallas. I can see why the team kept the nickname, though. “Renegades” is just a good, solid alt-football identity, although the bandit-style logo from XFL 2.0 (now the secondary logo) was much better than this one – at least to me.

Grade: C.

Nothing particularly wrong with the nickname or logo, but I was hoping for some more color to go with the red. Plus when I think of Defenders I think of Marvel, not DC (if you know, you know).

Grade: C.

I tend to root for New York-based sports teams (I took Mick Jagger’s advice and once bit the Big Apple), so I decided to pull for the New York Guardians in the most recent XFL. However, I also really liked the name “Guardians” as well as the gargoyle-inspired logo.

Since many New Yorkers move to Florida when they retire, I’m gonna pretend that’s why Orlando didn’t go to the trouble of finding something new to call the club.

Grade: A.

Good name and logo two years ago, good name and logo now. I liked the callback to the Houston Oilers in 2020, which prompted the Tennessee Titans and NFL to file for trademark protection because a business that generates $18 billion annually must scratch and claw for every cent. Not sure why they felt the need to protect the brand of a team that moved to the Volunteer State a quarter century ago and changed its name to Titans in 1999, but whatever.

At any rate, there should be no such issues with this one.

Grade: B.

Brahma is the Hindu god of creation, and if you’re like me that’s the first thing that comes to mind when you think of San Antonio, Texas.

I kid, I kid …

A Brahma is also a bull, so for me it’s reminiscent of one of the city’s most famous and successful minor league football teams – the Toros. That San Antonio-based club played in the Texas Football League, Continental Football League, Trans-America Football League, Southwestern Football League and Mid-America Football League.

Of course, the San Antonio Toros have nothing to do with the San Antonio Brahmas, I just felt the need to briefly hijack my own column with obscure facts.

Grade: C

The gridiron artists formerly known as the Dragons are now the Sea Dragons. When the rebrand leaked I wasn’t sure why they wanted to switch from a mythical monster to a real (if weird) fish, but that was really none of my concern. Fortunately, a Sea Dragon is a dragon hailing from Seattle, while a seadragon is something very different.

Good to see they stuck with the fire-breathing reptile for the logo and made it even better than before.

Grade: A

If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it, right? Not only was this team the attendance leader in the 2021 XFL (28,541 fans per game) but it already had a sweet logo and uniform.

Grade: A

After flopping in Tampa, the Vipers slithered west. A viper is a venomous snake, and there are all sorts of these no-shouldered creatures in the Nevada desert. The logo gives me a strong “meh” vibe, but the name “Vegas Vipers” rolls off the forked tongue.

Grade: C

The WFL’s path to Memphis

The Memphis Southmen were arguably the most notable team in the brief history of the World Football League. They shocked the sports world by luring Larry Csonka, Paul Warfield and Jim Kiick away from the NFL champion Miami Dolphins, counted Elvis Presley as one of their biggest fans, and even met payroll – a rarity in the WFL.

What’s interesting, though, is the Southmen (also known as the Grizzlies) were actually the second WFL franchise awarded to the land of the Delta Blues. And Memphis city officials initially wanted no part of this new league at all.

Gary Davidson formed the WFL in late 1973, touting a league that would be international in scope. But as the fledgling circuit moved closer to a July, 1974, launch date, it became apparent that its flagship clubs would be in North American cities.

San Francisco sports promotor Steve Arnold, who was involved with other Davidson ventures such as the American Basketball Association, World Hockey Association and World Team Tennis, owned the Memphis entry. He was officially granted the franchise on January 15, 1974, and said his first order of business was to get local people involved.

A local person not involved, however, was Memphis mayor Wyeth Chandler.

“Nobody from that league (the WFL) has contacted me,” Chandler told the Associated Press. “My aim is to get us into the NFL. At the present time, I think Memphis will only support big league sports and that means the National Football League.”

The NFL Expansion Committee was slated to meet just days after Davidson gave Arnold rights to the team, and Memphis, Phoenix, Seattle, Portland, Tampa and Honolulu were considered leading candidates to land one of two new NFL teams expected to begin play in 1976.

The president of Mid-South Sports Inc., Mike Lynn (who went on to become an executive and minority owner of the Minnesota Vikings and president of the World League of American Football) certainly didn’t want the sport’s biggest league to have a reason not to come there.

“The community would boycott any move at this time to bring in a World Football League franchise,” Lynn told AP. “It would be an economic disaster unlike any that has ever been seen in the history of professional sports.”

While Arnold faced resistance from the mayor, he did get a slightly warmer reception from the Memphis Park Commission, which operated Memorial Stadium. As the NFL continued to consider its expansion options, the commission in February voted to negotiate with Arnold about use of the stadium on Wednesday and Thursday nights when WFL games would be played.

But the commission decided not to discuss the negotiations again until a March meeting, which was just four months before the new league’s July 10 launch.

Arnold considered that a stalling tactic and believed the commission wanted to wait until the NFL made a firm decision on 1976 expansion before getting in bed with the WFL. So instead of waiting around, he decided to take his franchise to Houston.

With the WFL out of the picture Memphis could put all its energy behind an NFL push, and for a time it appeared to be a smart move. At a February meeting Lamar Hunt, head of the expansion committee, had high praise for the Bluff City and hinted that when the NFL announced an expansion decision in April, pro football fans in Tennessee might just hear some pretty good news.

Instead, only Tampa was named as a future NFL franchise and the second team for 1976 wouldn’t be determined until June. Still, Lynn told the Memphis Commercial Appeal in late April he had heard from “the highest possible source” that Memphis would join the exclusive NFL club on June 4. NFL commissioner Pete Rozelle denied the report, saying “there has been no decision of any kind relative to expansion that was not publicly announced.”

But Memphis’ WFL story was not over.

John Bassett, owner of the WFL Toronto Northmen, had caused a seismic quake in the sport by signing Csonka, Warfield and Kiick for the 1975 season. That deal demonstrated that the new gridiron business was serious about being a major league but pressure from the Canadian government – who wanted to keep the Canadian Football League safe from an American football invasion – prompted Bassett to take his franchise south of the border.

Just as news broke that Memphis was apparently headed to the NFL, Northmen officials began touring Memphis and scouting the city as a possible relocation site.

Had Memphis officials received a public commitment from the NFL, the Toronto club would’ve continued to search for a new home in the United States. But on May 2, 1974, Chandler and members of the Park Commission met with Bassett to discuss a non-exclusive contract for Memorial Stadium, which was home of the annual Liberty Bowl.

Just five days later, the movers and shakers in Memphis had become convinced the NFL was, in fact, not ready to set up shop in Tennessee. Seattle’s construction of a domed stadium and the NFL’s chance to grow the league in the Pacific Northwest had apparently moved that city next in the expansion line.

So, on May 6 the commission voted 3-1 to lease the stadium to the WFL entry, angering NFL proponents who saw the move as a death knell.. In fact, on the same day Bassett held his news conference announcing the Northmen’s southern move, Mid-South Sports filed a class action suit in an effort to void the WFL stadium lease.

Millionaire grain dealer Ned Cook was hoping to be part of an NFL ownership group but said those dreams were shattered by the commission’s vote.

“Well,” he told United Press International, “Memphis just kissed the NFL goodbye.”

Chandler, who was quick to oppose the WFL’s first flirtation with Memphis, told the Commercial Appeal the situation had changed dramatically due to the NFL’s indecisiveness.

“I think I would have to have from Mr. Rozelle a statement to the effect that the NFL will come to Memphis,” he said. “I think we’ve heard this other and we’ve heard it up to our ears prior to this (expansion committee) meeting in New York.

“Everybody said, ‘Chandler, you’re in, just hang in there.’ And then I went to New Orleans and got the word that we weren’t in, we weren’t out – we were in limbo, and that’s even worse.”

Chandler added that Bassett leading the ownership group and changed his opinion of the WFL.

“Steve Arnold came here to sell a franchise,” Chandler said. “He owned the franchise, he lived wherever it was (San Francisco), he had no intention of ever moving to Memphis or anything else. He was coming here merely to try to get a stadium agreement on the front end and then try to sell the franchise to somebody. We didn’t have any idea who it might be or who we were dealing with or anything else. He was a seller.

“Now the guy we dealt with here (Bassett) is a businessman, the son of a very wealthy man and, of course, apparently wealthy in his own right who, together with other identified parties, also well-to-do businessmen in Canada, are now the buyers. They’re not selling anything.”

On June 5 the NFL granted Seattle an expansion franchise, and Chandler told AP that meant allowing the WFL to set up shop was the proper move.

“It would appear we made the right decision,” he said. “We felt that the NFL was keeping us hanging loose while they negotiated with Seattle. The NFL hasn’t contacted me since the WFL moved here. It just shows that there weren’t enough votes to get an NFL franchise then (in April) or now.”

The Southmen had the best regular season record in the WFL’s 1974 season (17-3) and won the Central Division before being upset by the Florida Blazers in the playoffs. They averaged 21,505 fans per game.

The league itself was a financial dumpster fire but was reinvented in 1975, allowing Csonka, Warfield and Kiick to show off their abilities seven times at Memorial Stadium, pulling in 19,695 fans per game. The trio’s star power notwithstanding, with no national TV contract the “new” WFL had no chance at survival.

It folded on October 22, 1975, and Memphis – along with the Birmingham Vulcans – announced they were applying for membership in the NFL.

That’s another column for another time …

The beginning of the end

Officially, the Canadian Football League’s “American Experiment” ended on February 2, 1996. That was the day the league approved the relocation of the Baltimore Stallions to Montreal and disbanded the Birmingham Barracudas, Memphis Mad Dogs, Shreveport Pirates and San Antonio Texans.

As a Birmingham native, losing a hometown team was hardly a new experience for me; I had already witnessed my city say hello and goodbye to the Americans and Vulcans of the World Football League, Stallions of the original United States Football League, and Fire of the World League of American Football.

The failure of the WFL and USFL franchises broke my heart (the loss of the WLAF team didn’t really faze me, if I’m being honest) but man, seeing the CFL team go under was a gut-punch I didn’t expect.

When Birmingham was granted a CFL franchise, I genuinely thought my city was finally in a league to stay and, therefore, had a team to last. Jack Pardee was a big-time coach, and he was hired to run the show. And with Matt Dunigan throwing to Marcus Grant and Jason Phillips and a defense featuring guys like Andre Strode and Anthony Drawhorn, the Cudas were sure to be contenders right out of the gate.

Because I was in love with the “longer, faster, wider” game, I just assumed all my local gridiron loving brothers and sisters would feel the same way.

Sadly, I assumed incorrectly.

And that brings me to September 17, 1995, the day I realized the Magic City was about to add another tombstone to its football graveyard. It was just the twelfth game of an 18-game regular season, but the contest between the Barracudas and Ottawa Rough Riders marked the beginning of the end.

Why?

After drawing 31,185 fans to its home opener in July and averaging 24,843 fans per game through five dates at Legion Field, the vast majority of fans decided they were no longer interested in CFL football.

Despite the Barracudas sitting at 6-5 and battling for a playoff spot, only 5,289 folks showed up to see them improve to 7-5 with a 40-9 trouncing of Ottawa.

“I was told from the start that our biggest challenge was going to be when the college football season started,” Cudas owner Art Williams told the Birmingham Post-Herald. “We’re obviously seeing that. We had a disappointing crowd … we have to do better the next three games.”

The game started at 12:30 p.m. CDT, which put it in direct competition with televised National Football League games. In the Birmingham market that day, the Atlanta Falcons vs. the New Orleans Saints and Oakland Raiders vs. Kansas City Chiefs were brodcast starting at 11:30 a.m.

I guess I was naïve enough to think that since Birmingham didn’t have an NFL team, even NFL fans who lived here would show up for the pro team we had. I knew playing on Saturdays in the fall would be suicidal but honestly believed the Barracudas would always be able to count on 20,000-25,000 regular paying customers on Sundays.

Instead, once American football season began, the CFL became an afterthought. Hell, it wasn’t even that – it was barely thought of at all.

Making matters worse, Williams and some of the other owners of American teams were hoping to turn to CFL into something quite different from what it was.

“There’s a lot of things about the CFL I admire and respect,” Williams said. “But the way it’s being played today, it’s not working in the U.S.”

Williams suggested changing the league’s name, “Americanizing” the rules, and competing against the NFL for local marquee players. He even hinted that the U.S. teams might break away from the CFL and form their own league.

“I think the NFL is very vulnerable right now to another league,” he said. “It could happen.”

It’s never a good sign when an owner is already plotting an exit strategy two-thirds of the way through his first season in a new league. And the threat of losing the franchise didn’t inspire fans to initiate any “Save the Barracudas” measures.

While the crowd against Ottawa proved to be the season low, none of the remaining home games did much better. Ticket sales numbered 6,314 for Shreveport; 6,859 for San Antonio; and 8,910 for Edmonton.

Birmingham’s season home average of 17,625 was still better than the Texans (15,855), Pirates (14,359) and Mad Dogs (13,691), but Memphis was the only other club to draw under 10,000 for a home game – that coming on September 24 when the Dogs beat the Cudas, 28-19, before 7,830 fans at the Liberty Bowl.

By the time Birmingham was blown out by San Antonio, 52-9, in a first-round playoff game on November 5, Williams had already announced the franchise would not be returning to the CFL in 1996 but hoped it would be part of a new alternative league.

“My first preference is to get a contract with CBS, sign a few marquee players and play in the spring at Legion Field,” Williams, who said he expected to lose as much as $10 million on his pro football venture, told the Post-Herald. “The only thing that’s certain is we won’t be back in Birmingham in the CFL in the fall.”

And that – as they say – was all she wrote.

Birmingham’s only franchise in an established, major North American football league was of the one-and-done variety, and made me rather cynical about my city’s long-term pro football prospects in the future.

Since then, the Ham has been home to three spring league teams. I tried to like the 2001 XFL Bolts but didn’t; rooted for the 2019 Alliance of American Football Iron up until the league went cleats up before completing its only season; and was a casual fan of the 2022 USFL Stallions, who won the league championship and – with a second season planned – have a chance to grow on me.

But the Birmingham Barracudas? I believed they were built to last.

Instead, they were built to last only a single season.