EPISODE 314: The UK (Hearts) the NFL - With Ben Isaacs

Domestically, American football has never been more popular (or prosperous)  than it is today - yet questions continue to circle among the ownership class of the NFL as to how the pro game can continue to grow outside the confines of its current 32-team franchise structure.  

While the feasibility of pursuing more club expansion within the US is hotly debated, there is no denying that the true future of the league's fortunes rests on its ability to more reliably tap into the massive fan fervor for pro pigskin building in international markets.

Ben Issacs ("The American Football Revolution: How Britain Fell in Love with the NFL") makes the case that the UK might be one of the most logical regions to put on the league's shortlist - buttressed by a surprisingly strong history of interest in and support for the game - especially in London, where nearly three dozen regular season games have been played since 2007.

In fact, the British Isles have been fascinated with American football for much longer than that - and Isaacs takes us through some of the evidence, including: the NFL's American Bowl pre-season exhibition series during the 1980s; the post-season 1984 USFL Wembley Stadium matchup between the champion Philadelphia Stars and the Burt Reynolda/Tim Bassett-owned Tampa Bay Bandits (for the long-forgotten "Jetsave Challenge Cup"); the ill-fated league-sponsored World League of American Football (with the 1991 World Bowl champion London Monarchs); and the reconstituted NFL Europe/Europa and its still-revered Scottish Claymores.

The American Football Revolution: How Britain Fell in Love with the NFL - Buy Book Here

EPISODE 184: Birmingham's Quixotic Quest for Pro Pigskin - With Scott Adamson

Veteran sportswriter and Birmingham, AL native Scott Adamson (The Home Team: My Bromance with Off-Brand Football) joins the pod to discuss his curious decades-long relationship with the various attempts at rooting pro football in the "Magic City."

Birmingham's venerable Legion Field - known legendarily as the "Football Capital of the South" for its long-time association with the annual Alabama-Auburn "Iron Bowl" college season-ender - has also been home base for a parade of franchises in virtually every major challenger pro football league since the 1970s, including:

• The World Football League "World Bowl" champion Birmingham Americans (1974);

• 1975's de facto title-winning Birmingham Vulcans of the reincarnated second edition WFL;

• The USFL's perennially competitive Birmingham Stallions (1983-85);

• The World League of American Football's Birmingham Fire (1991-92);

• 1995's Birmingham Barracudas of the Canadian Football League;

• The woeful Birmingham Thunderbolts of 2001's original XFL; AND

• The playoff-qualifying Birmingham Iron of the 2019's short-lived Alliance of American Football

Adamson helps us dig into Birmingham's checkered history with the pro game, the pathology of its fandom over that time, why the city is reliably found on new/startup league short lists, and whether the XFL's return in 2022 might portend yet another chance - this time with a brand new Protective Stadium as a lure.

The Home Team: My Bromance with Off-Brand Football - buy book here

EPISODE 145: The United Football League – With Michael Huyghue

We kick off the new year with a return to the gridiron, and a revealing behind-the-scenes look at the brash, but ultimately ill-fated United Football League of 2009-12 – with its only commissioner, Michael Huyghue (Behind the Line of Scrimmage: Inside the Front Office of the NFL).

Formed in 2007 out of big-budget dreams to establish a national top-tier, Fall-season minor league pro football circuit by high-wattage investors like San Francisco investment banker Bill Hambrecht, Google executive Tim Armstrong and Dallas Mavericks owner/firebrand Mark Cuban (who later backed out, along with initially-rumored financier T. Boone Pickens) – the UFL was also conveniently timed to capitalize on fallout from any potential labor/owner strife prior to the 2011-12 NFL season, when the league’s collective bargaining agreement with its players expired.  The bet backfired when a correctly-anticipated owner lockout of players quickly ended in July of 2011, ensuring no regular season disruption or drama.

Over the course of its history, five teams played in the league: the Las Vegas Locomotives, Hartford Colonials (originally the New York Sentinels), Omaha Nighthawks, Sacramento Mountain Lions (née California Redwoods), and Virginia Destroyers (successors to the Florida Tuskers).  The Locomotives were historically the best of the franchises, winning two of the UFL’s three championship games, and possessing an undefeated regular season record when the league suspended operations (ultimately for good) in mid-Fall 2012.  Big-name NFL coaches like Jim Haslett, Jay Gruden, Dennis Green, Marty Schottenheimer, and Jim Fassel were featured attractions, as were recognizable pro talent like Simeon Rice, Josh McCown, Daunte Culpepper, and Jeff Garcia – to name just a few.

Huyghue walks host Tim Hanlon through the numerous ups, frequent downs and multiple sideways’ of the UFL’s brief lifespan, including: how early-career front office experiences in the NFL (Lions, Jaguars), WLAF (Birmingham Fire), and NFL Players’ Association uniquely prepared him to the UFL commissioner’s role; league ownership’s original intention to play as a Spring league; the allure of then-untapped pro markets like Omaha, Las Vegas Sacramento; and lessons learned that could have helped last year’s AAF and this year’s soon-to-launch XFL.

Support the show with Dollar Shave Club’s “Ultimate Shave Starter Set” for just $5!

Behind the Line of Scrimmage: Inside the Front Office of the NFL - buy here

United Football League T-shirts, Replica Jerseys & Mini-Helmets (from 503 Sports) - buy here

EPISODE 134: The World League of American Football’s London Monarchs – With Alex Cassidy

By popular request, we begin our exploration of the enigmatic 1990s international experiment known (initially) as the World League of American Football with a deep dive into its first championship team – the London Monarchs – with author Alex Cassidy (American Football's Forgotten Kings: The Rise and Fall of the London Monarchs).

Resurrected from an idea originated (but never launched) by the NFL in 1974 called the “International Football League,” the WLAF was formed in 1989 as both a spring developmental circuit as well as an operational test bed for full-fledged expansion of American football into markets outside the United States.

Eventually comprised exclusively of European teams by 1995 (later under the banners “NFL Europe” from [1998-2006] and “NFL Europa” [2007]), the first two seasons of the WLAF also featured a Canadian franchise (the Montreal Machine) as well as six in the US – most of which (Orlando, Birmingham, Sacramento, San Antonio, Raleigh-Durham [1991], and Columbus, OH [1992]) were historically forlorn pro markets.

The Monarchs played their first two seasons at the original/famed Wembley Stadium and became an immediate sensation in London, averaging over 40,000 fans per game – including a league-record-setting 61,108 for the WLAF’s inaugural World Bowl 21-0 championship over the Barcelona Dragons on June 9, 1991. 

Though the team never achieved the level of success or stability in the years that followed (the league’s return in 1995 began a peripatetic journey of future home stadiums across London, as well as Bristol and Manchester), the Monarchs boasted a memorable array of characters that – like other WLAF/NFLE teams – consisted of veteran NFL journeymen and promising young developmental talent from both the US and the Continent, including:

• Kicker Phil Alexander, the league's 1991 points leader (and now Managing Director of Crystal Palace);

• RB Victor Ebubedike, the first European native to score a touchdown (vs. the Orlando Thunder, 4/6/91):

• Journeyman NFL QB Stan Gelbaugh, 1991’s WLAF Offensive Player of the Year; and

• Former Chicago Bears Super Bowl-winning defensive lineman William “Refrigerator”Perry.

PLUS: The “Yo-Go” Monarchs theme song!

American Football’s Forgotten Kings: The Rise and Fall of the London Monarchs - buy here

EPISODE #65: The CFL’s American Expansion Experiment with Sportswriter Ed Willes

As Johnny Manziel’s pro football comeback journey wraps up a promising pre-season with the Canadian Football League’s Hamilton Tiger-Cats, we take a moment this week to reminisce on the approaching 25th anniversary of the CFL’s bold, but ultimately ill-fated attempt to bring its exciting brand of pigskin south of the border in 1993.

When the NFL put the brakes on its two-year World League of American Football experiment in the summer of 1992 (which included a franchise in Montreal, dubbed the “Machine”), an economically wobbly CFL sensed an opportunity to fill the gap in US markets newly comfortable with the notion of pro football, as well as a potential growth path for the tradition-rich Canadian game to expand outside the Provinces.  In fact, two WLAF owners, Fred Anderson (Sacramento Surge) and Larry Benson (San Antonio Riders) "crossed over" to the Canadian League and were awarded newly rechristened franchises for 1993 – Anderson’s Sacramento Gold Miners and Benson's San Antonio Texans. 

While the Gold Miners were the only ones to make it into the following season’s expanded CFL schedule (Benson literally – and ominously – left the league at the altar by bowing out the day of the league’s press conference announcing the expansion), the door was open to a wild three-season adventure that brought the wide-open Canadian game to far-flung American outposts in Baltimore, Las Vegas, Shreveport, Memphis, Birmingham, and, ironically (via eventual relocation from Sacramento), San Antonio.

Longtime Vancouver Province sportswriter Ed Willes (End Zones and Border Wars: The Era of American Expansion in the CFL) joins the podcast to discuss the league’s short-lived American expansion effort, which then-commissioner Larry Smith had hoped to eventually encompass ten US teams in a fully expanded 20-team league.  

Among the misadventures, Willes recounts: the 1995 champion Baltimore Stallions (who operated as the nickname-less “CFLers” the previous season in a trademark dispute with the NFL over the “Colts” moniker); the woefully attended Las Vegas Posse (who practiced on the Strip in the Riviera Hotel’s parking lot and were forced to play their last “home” game in Edmonton); the Memphis Mad Dogs’ unique approach to fitting the longer/wider CFL field into the Liberty Bowl; why football-mad Birmingham couldn’t draw flies for Barracuda games once college and high school seasons started; and the “Great Tucker Caper” – featuring the infamous brothers Glieberman and their attempt to steal away the Shreveport Pirates to the greener pastures of Norfolk, VA.

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End Zones & Border Wars: The Era of American Expansion in the CFL - buy book here