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
