EPISODE 376: The 5th Annual(-ish) Year-End Holiday Roundtable Spectacular!

December 29, 2024

It's our year-end Holiday Roundtable Spectacular - featuring a look back at the year's newest additions to "what used-to-be" in professional sports (RIP MLB's "Oakland" Athletics & the NHL's Arizona Coyotes), and a predictive glimpse into what might be in store for 2025 - with two of our favorite fellow defunct sports enthusiasts: Steve Holroyd (Crossecheck, Philly Classics & Episodes 92, 109, 149, 188 & 248); and Paul Reeths (OurSportsCentral.com, StatsCrew.com & Episode 46).

Buckle up for our yearly mélange of amusement and bemusement at the fringes of the pro sports establishment, as we simultaneously marvel at and lament some of the most curious events of the past year, debate who and what might be next to stumble into oblivion, and conjecture about future scenarios for the next generation of defunct and otherwise forgotten pro sports teams and leagues - including:

Spring football's unified UFL
Arena Football League 2.0 RIP (and Arena Football One 2025)
MLB's now-Sacramento-and-someday-Las Vegas (maybe) Athletics
The NHL's Utah Hockey Club (fka Arizona [née Phoenix] Coyotes, via the WHA's original Winnipeg Jets)
Major League Cricket
Baseball's genre-bending Savannah Bananas - and its soon-to-launch Banana Ball Championship League
Indoor soccer's new Baller League
Premier League Lacrosse's pivot to city teams and a new women's division
The new League One Volleyball (LOVB) takes on the 2nd-year Pro Volleyball Federation (PVF)
NWSL soccer
PWHL hockey

PLUS: Can Diamond Baseball Holdings (41 MiLB teams and counting!) be stopped?

AND: Will Michael Jordan, et al. break up the NASCAR stock car monopoly?

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EPISODE 330: The 4th Annual(-ish) Year-End Holiday Roundtable Spectacular!

December 24, 2023

We press the rewind button on a most interesting 2023, and peer ahead into the uncharted waters of 2024 with our fourth-annual(-ish) Holiday Roundtable Spectacular - featuring three of our favorite fellow defunct sports enthusiasts: Andy Crossley (Fun While It Lasted & Episode 2); Paul Reeths (OurSportsCentral.com, StatsCrew.com & Episode 46); and Steve Holroyd (Crossecheck, Philly Classics & Episodes 92, 109, 149, 188 & 248).

Takes of varying temperatures fly as we review some of the most curious events of the past year, debate who and what might be next to wobble into obscurity, and conjecture about future scenarios for the next generation of defunct and otherwise forgotten pro sports teams and leagues - including:

USFL 2.0 + XFL 3.0 = TBD 2024
Oakland A's to Las Vegas (maybe)
Major League Cricket
Savannah Bananas
MiLB ownership consolidation
Premier Lacrosse League: from tour to teams
Professional Box Lacrosse Association (RIP)
Women's pro volleyball
MLS vs. US Soccer
NBA, NHL & MLB expansion/relocation rumors
NWSL expansion & TV deal
Women's hockey 3.0: PWHL

PLUS, we speculate on the dubious reincarnation of the Arena Football League!

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EPISODE 248: 2004's Pro Cricket - With Steve Holroyd

January 30, 2022

Fresh off his appearance on last month's Year-End Holiday Roundtable Spectacular, fellow defunct sports enthusiast Steve Holroyd returns to the show for a dive into the deep end of the "forgotten sports" pool, with a look back at the little-remembered, but ahead-of-its-time Pro Cricket from 2004.

An attempt to quickly capitalize on the venerable sport's faster-paced Twenty20 format launched in England a year earlier, Pro Cricket was essentially a rogue creation formed outside of cricket's US and international sanctioning bodies - featuring eight teams in a three-month summer season played largely in minor league baseball stadiums across the country.

Crowds were sparse, mainstream sports media attention was minimal, television coverage (Dish Network PPV) was limited, and sustaining funds (supposedly three seasons' worth) were quickly exhausted.

Yet, the play was surprisingly competitive (a smattering of international stars played; the San Francisco Freedom defeated the New Jersey Fire for the only title), and cricket enthusiasts were inspired at the potential the game could ultimately have in the States, once "done right."

That chance could come again next summer, when the new Major League Cricket launches.

Replete with at least one purpose-built stadium (the soon-to-be-converted minor league baseball AirHogs Stadium in Grand Prairie, TX), and backed by a blue-chip roster of investors including media giant Times of India Group and tech backers like Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and Adobe Chairman/CEO Shantanu Narayen - MLC promises to bring "world-class T20" to the States, nearly twenty years after Pro Cricket sowed the first seeds