Barring an unexpected development, the United Football League is set to return next year, marking four consecutive seasons of “offseason” professional gridiron action.
That’ll break the original United States Football League’s record of three competitive seasons (1983-85) which – truthfully – I thought would probably stand forever. With the World League of American Football leaving North America after two years and most other circuits going one-and-done, 11-on-11 spring/summer ball seemed like a fool’s errand for almost 40 years.
Yet, while it’s easy to look back on the late, great USFL as “the” groundbreaker when it comes to playing football during baseball season, that honor belongs to the Trans-American Football League.
Dave Dixon came up with the idea for a January through May circuit in 1965, but it was six years later before a league actually abandoned the fall. The TAFL, a rebranded version of the Texas Football League, decided to tee it up in 1971.
The news was announced in March of that year via a press release:
The greatest innovation in professional football for 1971 will have its beginning in the city of San Antonio. San Antonio, the home of the “winningest team in professional football,” will be the site of pro football’s first spring season football game. The opening day for the Trans-American Football League was first conceived in Chicago, Illinois, in 1970. The league as it was then proposed would consist of four divisions which would span the continental United States. In 1971, this idea will become a reality as four Texas cities join together to host pro football’s first spring schedule. These four teams will be known as the Southwest Division of the Trans-American League and they will make up the only operative division for the 1971 season. Because of the response by season ticket holders and advertisers alike, it is an excellent possibility that the other three divisions will be ready to operate in 1972.
The original concept was for the TAFL to play a fall schedule and be second only to the newly-merged National Football League and American Football League in quality. Aside from San Antonio – winners of four consecutive Texas Football League titles – there were to be franchises in Fort Worth, Los Angeles, Chicago and Hershey, Pennsylvania, with possible locales including Memphis, Birmingham, Tampa, and Columbus, Ohio.
A stock offering as well as a network TV deal were also in the works and by 1972, the league would feature as many as 16 teams.
In early 1971, however, plans were changing – dramatically.
Henry Hight, owner of the San Antonio Toros, said he planned to apply for a Canadian Football League franchise for 1972. Before then, however, his club would participate in a bold experiment.
“We’ve got a lot going on for us down in San Antonio,” Hight said in the January 13, 1971, edition of the North Bay Nugget. “We plan to play spring ball. We’ll go into camp March 1. With that one move, we’ll do away with all competition. Think of the stadiums we’ll have available. And the players – think of the players we’ll be able to use.
“Our season will end in June … NFL camps will open in July.”
The 1971 TAFL was a completely Texas-based circuit with only four teams, built on the hope that those clubs (the Dallas Rockets, Fort Worth Braves, Toros and Texarkana Titans) would somehow be so successful other owners from across the country would be clamoring for a spring pro football franchise.
For that to happen, the TAFL would need to be a huge box office success and garner national publicity despite being a minor league with no national TV contract.
Duncan McCauley, director of development for the TAFL, was excited about the prospects.
“I’m very enthusiastic about the possibilities and about the reception I think it will receive,” he said in an April 20, 1971 story in the San Antonio Express. “I’ve talked to hundreds of people and practically all of them are anticipating football at this time of year, and most of them have indicated they plan to attend as many games as possible.
“We’re offering the football fan his favorite sport at a time when he can enjoy getting out to see a live game without facing a conflict with his son or daughter who might be involved in a high school or college game or some of the activities that accompany them.”
Texarkana coach Durwood Merrill agreed.
“Although it’s strictly on a trial basis, it has already won the enthusiasm of fans and coaches,” Merrill told the Tyler Telegraph.
Alas, fans weren’t enthused.
At all.
Despite what was, by all accounts, quality play, fans didn’t exactly show up in droves. The largest crowd of the season came when 4,500 ticket buyers converged on North East Stadium to see San Antonio top Texarkana, 20-19, in the TAFL championship game on July 19.
Before the contest was played, team owners had already decided the spring schedule simply wasn’t working out.
“When the league went to a spring and summer schedule, it did so to get away from competition with dozens of high school, college and pro teams in the area, as well as get recognition for the teams and the league, plus allowing the better players in the league to move directly on to major league training camps in July,” San Antonio coach George Pasterchick told Austin American Statesman columnist George Breazeale a week before the title matchup. “But we knew then the key to it all was attendance – how many people would pay money to get in. And the attendance hasn’t been what we expected.”
By 1972 the TAFL was no more, with the San Antonio and Dallas franchises moving to the Southwest Professional Football League and a fall schedule. Hight did continue his CFL push, though, saying that potential owners in Phoenix, Los Angeles, Seattle and Las Vegas were ready to join San Antonio in an American Division.
Of course, it would be a couple of decades before the Canadian circuit ventured south of its border.
As for spring pro football, well, that experiment wasn’t attempted again until the birth of the USFL in 1983.