World Football League The World Football League was a short - lived American football league that played in 1974 and part of 1975 . Although this pro grid circuit ' s proclaimed ambition was to bring American football onto a worldwide stage , the farthest the WFL reached was placing a team – the Hawaiians – in Honolulu , Hawaii . The league folded partway into its second season , in 1975 . A new minor football league began play as the World Football League in 2008 after acquiring the rights to its trademarks and intellectual property . History . The idea behind the World Football League was originally created by Tony Rizzano and Louis Goldman , who in 1973 proposed a Universal Football League that would include teams in Toronto , Mexico City , New York City , Anaheim , Chicago , Phoenix , Seattle , Tampa Bay , Memphis , and Birmingham . All but Phoenix and Mexico City would eventually get a new NFL or WFL franchise by the end of the decade ; Phoenix would have to wait for a USFL team to arrive in 1983 , while Mexico City still has no professional football . Gary L . Davidson was the driving force behind the WFL . He had helped start the successful American Basketball Association and World Hockey Association , some of whose teams survived long enough to enter the established basketball and hockey leagues . His World Football League did not bring any surviving teams into the NFL , much less survive as a whole league . The fledgling WFL did succeed in raising stagnant salaries in the NFL . Average salaries of NFL players were among the lowest in the four major sports . Davidson ' s league garnered major news when the Toronto Northmen , led by John F . Bassett , signed three Miami Dolphins players , fullback Larry Csonka , halfback Jim Kiick , and wide receiver Paul Warfield to what was then the richest 3 - player deal in sports , an astounding US $ 3 . 5 million to start in 1975 . The pact was a guaranteed , personal services contract , so the three would be paid even if the WFL did not survive its first season . Immediately , the NFL took notice as did its players when they were approached to jump leagues . The Oakland Raiders lost both their quarterbacks , Ken Stabler , who signed with the Birmingham Americans and Daryle Lamonica , who penned a contract to play for the Southern California Sun , starting in 1975 . The Dallas Cowboys also took roster hits when WFL teams in Hawaii and Houston signed running back Calvin Hill and quarterback Craig Morton respectively . The Hawaiians also signed Minnesota Vikings Pro Bowl WR John Gilliam and San Francisco 49ers All - Pro TE Ted Kwalick . However , Gilliam would end up with the Chicago Winds and Kwalick signed with the Philadelphia Bell prior to the 1975 season . By early June 1974 , the WFL claimed they had some 60 NFL stars and regulars under contract . The top minor leagues in the United States at the time , the Atlantic Coast Football League and Seaboard Football League , were also tremendously affected . The ACFL had survived a suspension of operations in 1972 to return to play in 1973 , only to have the WFL lure away most of the ACFL ' s players with the prospect of playing in a " major " league . Both leagues were forced to fold . 1974 season . Playing a 20 - game regular season schedule in 1974 – six games longer than the NFL ' s then 14 - game season – the WFL staged no exhibition games ( although its teams did participate in preseason scrimmages ) . The season was to begin on Wednesday , July 10 and ended on Wednesday , November 13 . This was a 20 - game season in 19 weeks - - - a schedule accomplished by having double games ( primarily Monday and Friday ) on Labor Day weekend . Some complained that the schedule was poorly drafted . For one thing , although most teams played on Wednesday nights with a national TV game slated for Thursday nights , the Hawaiians played their home games on Sunday afternoons . This meant that when the Hawaiians had a home game they played an opponent who flew to Honolulu after having played just four days earlier . In addition , back - to - back meetings between two teams were common . As was common with many upstart leagues , the WFL ' s intended lineup of teams changed several times before it even played a down . Most notably , Bassett ' s Toronto Northmen were forced to find a new home after the Canadian government threatened to ban " any " American football team from competing with the Canadian Football League ; though the Canadian Football Act never passed , the mere threat of it prompted Bassett to move the team to Memphis , where it became the Memphis Southmen . The original schedule called for a four - team playoff , with semifinal playoffs held on Wednesday - Thursday November 20 - November 21 , and the World Bowl on Friday , November 29 ( the night after Thanksgiving ) . League officials boldly discussed plans for expansion teams in Europe and Asia . In the first few weeks , the WFL looked to be a resounding success . Attendance outpaced the first week of the American Football League of 1960 , averaging just under 43 , 000 a game . The box office numbers proved to be the beginning of the WFL ' s undoing . In Jacksonville , the Sharks admitted that 44 , 000 tickets were giveaways . The Philadelphia Bell whose first two home games totaled 120 , 000 fans , told the press that over 100 , 000 had been sold for almost nothing . Presumably the giveaways were intended in part to pique the public ' s curiosity and interest , but the attempt was unsuccessful . Six games into the first season , WFL franchises were in serious trouble . The Detroit Wheels were looking to move to Charlotte , North Carolina and the Florida Blazers made overtures of bringing the first place club to Atlanta . By September , the barely one - year old league had bottomed out when two franchises relocated . The New York Stars relocated to Charlotte , North Carolina as the Charlotte Hornets , and the Houston Texans , the first WFL team to relocate in mid - season , moved to Shreveport , Louisiana as the Shreveport Steamer . On top of this , the aforementioned Wheels briefly moved for one game to London , Ontario ( this time with nary a complaint from Canadian officials ) , and then became a traveling team for the next six weeks . In October , the league pulled the plug on the Detroit Wheels and the Jacksonville Sharks after 14 games . The folding of the Jacksonville franchise meant that the Gator Bowl would not host World Bowl I . ( Coincidentally , Jacksonville was also slated to be the host of the 1986 USFL Championship Game , but that game was never played . It would not be until February 2005 that the city would host its first championship pro football game , Super Bowl XXXIX . ) Reports of financial hardship abounded . Most of the teams were badly undercapitalized ( notable exceptions being Birmingham , Memphis , Southern California and the Hawaiians ) , despite league officials ' bold plans . For instance , the Portland Storm ' s players were reportedly being fed by sympathetic local fans . The Charlotte Hornets had their uniforms impounded for not paying a laundry bill from the time the team was located in New York , and were forced to miss the playoffs because they couldn ' t afford to travel to Orlando for their first - round game . The Florida Blazers weren ' t paid for the last three months of the season , and reportedly survived on McDonald ' s meal vouchers . Davidson resigned as commissioner by the end of October 1974 , Hawaiians owner Christopher Hemmeter was named the new commissioner a month later . Late in the year , the league announced that it was going to award its MVP a cash prize at the World Bowl . It was literally a cash prize . Rather than endure the embarrassment of media sneers about whether a WFL check would clear , the league neatly stacked cash high upon a table in the middle of the field . The MVP award was a three - way split , and the players involved split the cash . Despite the disasters , many thought the WFL performed fairly well , though below NFL standards . Many games were tight , decided by seven points or less , and the Action Point , the one - point conversion run or pass attempt after a touchdown , was favored among WFL coaches and critics . The league championship – the World Bowl , or " World Bowl I " – was staged in Birmingham between the hometown Birmingham Americans and Florida Blazers . The Action Point proved to be the decider as the Americans won the championship by a single point , 22 - 21 . The day after the World Bowl , the champions ' uniforms were confiscated by sheriff ' s deputies . ( " Sports Illustrated " referred to the game , prophetically , as " The first , and possibly " only " World Bowl " . ) 1975 season . Though many predicted the WFL was dead , the league returned for the 1975 season , with a new leader , commissioner Chris Hemmeter , former co - owner of the 1974 Hawaiians franchise , and some new owners with new names . The deceased Sharks of Jacksonville came back as the ' Express . ' The Portland Storm became the Portland Thunder , the Birmingham Americans were replaced by the Vulcans , and the Chicago Fire became the Winds . The World Bowl runner - up Florida Blazers folded ; its franchise rights were relocated to San Antonio , Texas , as the San Antonio Wings . Only two teams , Memphis and Philadelphia , returned with the same ownership from the prior season . The league changed its scheduling format from 20 games without exhibitions to 18 games ( played in 20 weeks due to the odd number of teams ) with exhibitions . Gone were weeknight games ; the new schedule had games on Fridays , Saturdays , and Sundays . But the league still was snake - bit . Although the original plan called for a July 5 preseason opener and August 2 regular season openers , the regular season had to open a week earlier , with a single game on Saturday , July 26 , due to a stadium conflict . This meant that a single regular season game was played in the midst of the last weekend of preseason play ( with some preseason games being played the next night ) . Several more NFL free agents including Calvin Hill and Ted Kwalick signed on with the struggling WFL , and the Chicago Winds made an offer to aging Super Bowl III MVP Joe Namath , who seriously considered the offer before refusing and resigning with the New York Jets . The embarrassing rejection by Namath , after they had invested so much in the effort to sign him , seriously hurt the Winds , who folded five weeks into the season . Shortly afterward , the entire league shut down and the Birmingham Vulcans , with a league best record of 9 - 3 were awarded the league championship . With the relative financial stability of the Birmingham and Memphis clubs , both attempted to join the NFL but were refused . In 1979 , the Memphis club owners filed an anti - trust suit against the NFL . Their case was ultimately dismissed on May 30 , 1984 , by which time the owners had already established the Tampa Bay Bandits in the next professional league , the United States Football League ( which incidentally filed its own , more famous antitrust suit against the NFL in 1986 ) . Although the NFL expanded in 1976 , that expansion had been planned before the WFL ' s first season . Legacy . The league ' s struggles led to endless sarcastic comments ( starting with the league ' s own abbreviation , which was often pronounced " Wiffle " ) . Chicago Fire offensive lineman Steve Wright quipped bitterly that he had been offered a million dollar contract : " A dollar a year for a million years ! " The WFL , for all its embarrassing miscues , produced a number of coaches who found success in the NFL : notably Jack Pardee , Lindy Infante , and Marty Schottenheimer . Jim Fassel , a quarterback for the Hawaiians , became a head coach in the NFL and UFL , taking the New York Giants to Super Bowl XXXV in 2001 and the Las Vegas Locomotives to a win in the 2009 UFL Championship Game . Memphis head coach John McVay went on to become head coach of the New York Giants , but had more success as general manager of the San Francisco 49ers during the 1980s dynasty years . Several players , most notably Pat Haden , Danny White , Alfred Jenkins , Greg Latta and Vince Papale , later found success in the NFL as well . Two WFL alumni made it to the Pro Football Hall of Fame : Larry Csonka and Paul Warfield . ( Csonka and Warfield were , however , already established stars in the NFL before joining the WFL . ) The league ' s most severe impact was on the Miami Dolphins , who had just won consecutive Super Bowl s before the WFL ' s snagging of three of their star players . This changed the course of NFL history , by opening the door to dominance by two other AFC teams , the Steelers and the Raiders , during the remainder of the 1970s . While by no means the pioneer of " singular " team nicknames , which had been used by some college and professional sports teams since the 19th century , the quantity of them in a single league ( " Fire " , " Sun " , " Bell " , " Storm " , " Steamer " , " Thunder " , " Express " ) was rare in professional sports at the time , and was a distinguishing mark of the league . The WFL also had an impact on locations of other professional football teams : from the NFL , Hawaii hosted the Pro Bowl from 1980 through 2009 , Jacksonville got the Jacksonville Jaguars in 1995 , Charlotte received the Carolina Panthers in the same year , and Houston ' s expansion franchise , the Texans , revived the name of the WFL team in 2002 . Though the WFL ' s Toronto establishment failed due to Canadian resistance , the Buffalo Bills ( with Canadian ownership backing and special conditions ) are playing home games in Toronto as of 2008 . Other cities became regular stops for franchises in other leagues : The NFL ' s Houston Texans revived the name of the WFL ' s franchise for that city ; " Texans " has also been used by an NFL Dallas team in 1952 – the remnants of which became the Baltimore / Indianapolis Colts , by an AFL Dallas team in the early 1960s – who became the Kansas City Chiefs , an arena football team in Dallas in the early 1990s , and by a CFL San Antonio team for one year in the 1990s . There is also a Major League Soccer team called the Chicago Fire , and there are / were also NBA teams called the Memphis Grizzlies ( 2001 – present ) and Charlotte Hornets ( 1988 – 2002 ) ( although the nickname " Hornets " for minor league baseball teams in Charlotte long precedes the WFL entry , and the " Grizzlies " name for the Memphis NBA team was selected when the franchise was still in Vancouver ) . The Jacksonville Sharks name was later revived for a team in the 2010 revival of the Arena Football League . Television and radio . The league ' s only national television contract was with the TVS Television Network , a syndicator of American sports programming . Merle Harmon and Alex Hawkins served as the announcers TVS ' Thursday Night Game . Guest announcers were often brought into the booth including Paul Hornung , George Plimpton , Alex Karras , and McLean Stevenson . TVS would not renew its WFL contract in 1975 and the league would not be able to reach a broadcast deal with any other network . Local affiliates provide most of the television and radio coverage throughout the WFL existence . Notable local announcers include John Sterling ( New York Stars / Charlotte Hornets television ) , Spencer Ross ( New York Stars radio ) , Bob Sheppard ( New York Stars PA ) , Mike Patrick ( Jacksonville Sharks ) , Larry King ( Shreveport Steamer ) , Larry Matson ( Birmingham Americans / Birmingham Vulcans ) , Fred Sington ( Birmingham Americans / Birmingham Vulcans ) and Eddie Doucette and Vince Lloyd ( Chicago Fire radio and TV respectively ) . Had the WFL come into existence a few years after it did , the league might have succeeded . The league predated the vast expansion of cable television and sports networks by only a few years . The money infused by a national television contract with a major network and the national interest that game telecasts would probably have generated might have made all the difference for the fledgling league . The league also had some significantly negative long - term impacts : when its actions resulted in the end of the Atlantic Coast Football League , it effectively ended minor - league professional football in the United States . Season - by - season overview . 1974 season . " W = Wins , L = Losses , T = Ties , PCT = Winning Percentage " Notes : ( 1 ) Jacksonville and Detroit folded after 14 games ; each week thereafter , the teams that had games against those teams played each other . ( 2 ) Shreveport Steamer began the season as Houston Texans . ( 3 ) Charlotte Hornets began season as New York Stars ; upon moving to Charlotte , played one game as Charlotte Stars , and remaining games as Hornets . ( 4 ) Chicago forfeited its 20th game to Philadelphia , 2 - 0 . 1974 Playoffs . In the original WFL schedule , the three division champions plus one wild - card were to qualify , culminating in a " World Bowl " on the evening after Thanksgiving ( at the Gator Bowl in Jacksonville , Fla . ) . Then , with financial problems mounting , it was announced that ( 1 ) the team with the best record would be declared the champion ; ( 2 ) Three teams ( Memphis , Birmingham , and Florida ) would play - off ( thus leaving West champ Southern California out ) ; ( 3 ) Eight of the remaining 10 teams would qualify ; and , finally , ( 4 ) the top two teams in each division would qualify , seeded entirely by won - lost record . This last format was followed , except that Charlotte said it couldn ' t participate due to a lack of funds , resulting in Philadelphia being selected as the East ' s second qualifier . Quarterfinals . Hawaiians defeated the Southern California Sun , 32 - 14 ( @ Anaheim , California on Wednesday , November 20 , 1974 ) Florida Blazers defeated Philadelphia Bell , 18 - 3 ( @ Orlando , Florida on Thursday , November 21 , 1974 ) Semifinals . Birmingham Americans defeated The Hawaiians , 22 - 19 ( @ Birmingham , Alabama on Wednesday , November 27 , 1974 ) Florida Blazers defeated Memphis Southmen , 18 - 15 ( @ Memphis , Tennessee on Friday , November 29 , 1974 ) World Bowl . Birmingham Americans 22 , Florida Blazers 21 ( @ Birmingham , Alabama on Thursday , December 5 , 1974 ) 1974 All - WFL Team . Offense WR – Tim Delaney , Hawaiians ( TSN , P & C ) WR – Alfred Jenkins , Birmingham Americans ( TSN , P & C ) TE – Ed Marshall , Memphis Southmen ( TSN ) TE – Greg Latta , Florida Blazers ( P & C ) OT – Bob Wolfe , Birmingham Americans ( TSN ) OT – Wally Highsmith , Memphis Southmen ( P & C ) OT – Ron Mikolajczyk , Memphis Southmen ( P & C ) OG – Rick Anthony , Florida Blazers P & C ( P & C ) OG – Dave Bradley , Chicago Fire ( TSN ) OG – Buddy Brown , Birmingham Americans ( TSN , P & C ) C – Bob Kuziel , New York Stars / Charlotte Hornets ( TSN ) C – Ralph Hill , Memphis Southmen ( P & C ) QB – Tony Adams , Southern California Sun ( TSN ) QB – Randy Johnson , Hawaiians ( P & C ) RB – Tommy Reamon , Florida Blazers ( TSN , P & C ) RB – J . J . Jennings , Memphis Southmen ( TSN , P & C ) K – Grant Guthrie , Jacksonville Sharks / Birmingham Americans ( TSN , P & C ) Defense DE – Gerry Philbin , New York Stars / Charlotte Hornets ( TSN , P & C ) DE – Louis Ross , Florida Blazers ( TSN ) DE – John Ricca , Florida Blazers ( P & C ) DT – Mike McBath , Florida Blazers ( TSN , P & C ) DT – John Elliott , New York Stars / Charlotte Hornets ( TSN ) DT – Dave Roller , Southern California Sun ( TSN , P & C ) LB – Ross Brupbacher , Birmingham Americans ( TSN , P & C ) LB – Rudy Kuechenberg , Chicago Fire ( TSN , P & C ) LB – John Villapiano , Houston Texans / Shreveport ( TSN , P & C ) CB – Miller Farr , Florida Blazers ( TSN , P & C ) CB – Ron Mabra , Philadelphia Bell ( TSN , P & C ) S – Dave Thomas , Memphis Southmen ( TSN , P & C ) S – Jeff Woodcock , New York Stars / Charlotte Hornets ( TSN , P & C ) P – Ken Clark , Portland Storm ( TSN , P & C ) Head Coach : Jack Pardee , Florida Blazers ( TSN , P & C ) Tri - MVPs : Tony Adams , Southern California , J . J . Jennings , Memphis , and Tommy Reamon , Florida . 1975 season . " W = Wins , L = Losses , T = Ties , PCT = Winning Percentage " Rules . The WFL had several important rules differences from the National Football League of that era , and many were eventually adopted by the older league : Minor league rebirth . In 2007 the World Football League was purchased by Chip Pierce of Beaumont , Texas . The league was brought back to life as a minor league system that does not compete with the NFL , but gives players of a higher talent level than that of the many players involved in semi - pro football the opportunity to showcase their skills . Players like Willie Ponder who have exited the NFL but have aspirations of returning and players like Kejuan Jones or Prentiss Elliot who are looking to get a shot to make in the NFL . At the end of the season SiteInDeX , Inc . CEO negotiated to purchase the WFL from Mr . Pierce . The World Football League has been operating as a minor league system since 2008 . This inaugural rebirth season of the WFL as a minor league system had 6 teams in Texas , Arkansas , and Oklahoma . World Bowl II ( continuing the number from the original league ) was held at Independence Stadium in Shreveport , LA . The World Bowl matched the Oklahoma Thunder against the Austin Gamebreakers . The Thunder prevailed making them the first champion of the WFL in the minor league era . The Thunder also won WFL ' s World Bowl III ( vs . Dallas Diesel ) in 2009 and defeated the Des Moines Blaze in the World Bowl IV on July 31 , 2010 , in Tulsa . The Thunder have won all 40 of their games in WFL history .