Sacramento Gold Miners The Sacramento Gold Miners were a Canadian football team based in Sacramento , California . The franchise was the first American team in the Canadian Football League . The Gold Miners were originally the " descendants " of the Sacramento Surge from the defunct World League of American Football . The team played its home games at Hornet Stadium . History . On the field . 1993 season . When the WLAF suspended operations in 1992 , Surge owner Fred Anderson received a franchise in the CFL after that league expanded to the United States in 1993 . The two teams could be seen as one and the same . The two entities had the same colors ( aqua and yellow ) and head coach ( Kay Stephenson ) . Additionally , several players and administrators made the switch from the WLAF to the CFL . These players included starting quarterback David Archer , Rod Harris ( WR ) , George Bethune ( DT ) , Mike Oliphant ( RB ) and Mike Pringle ( RB ) . One notable team administrator was Jack Youngblood , who was the Gold Miners ' Director of Marketing in 1993 and 1994 , which was a similar post he held with the Surge in 1991 and 1992 . Rick Mueller , the team ' s wide receivers coach ( after serving as a defensive assistant with the Surge ) and later director of player personnel , later would become general manager of the Omaha Nighthawks in the United Football League . When the 1993 CFL season started , the Gold Miners , with an all - US staff , took some time to learn the intricacies of Canadian football . But the team was fortunate enough to have leadership from Archer and got great plays from Harris . In their first season , the Sacramento Gold Miners entered the CFL history books by : It is sometimes stated that the Gold Miners were the first American team to play against a Canadian team and to play on Canadian soil when they were the guests of the Ottawa Rough Riders ( losing 32 – 23 ) on July 7 . This is not true . In the 1950s and 1960s the National Football League and the CFL ( and its predecessor , the IRFU ) played a series of exhibition games , all in Canada , with the NFL team winning all of those matches . The American Football League also played one game in Canada against a CFL team in 1961 , with CFL ' s Hamilton defeating AFL ' s Buffalo , 38 – 21 . Prior to that , the Columbus Bullies of the American Football League ( 1940 ) played the Winnipeg Blue Bombers in 1941 in a three - game series , which Columbus won , 2 games to 1 . The Sacramento Gold Miners also entered the CFL record books by recording the most wins by an expansion team with 6 wins ( the record was eventually broken in 1994 by the Baltimore Stallions ) . The Gold Miners finished the season with a 6 – 12 record , which placed them in last place of the West Division . The positives for the franchise were the facts that they had a 5 – 4 home record and were ranked 5th in team defense . Harris was also selected as a member of the 1993 CFL All - Star Team , which showed signs that the team had a good mix of players and staff to improve on for the following season . 1994 season . In their second season , the Gold Miners were no longer the lone American team as the CFL introduced three new teams : The Las Vegas Posse , the Shreveport Pirates and the Baltimore Stallions ( who were known as the CFLers when the NFL did not allow the Colts name to be used ) . The Gold Miners were once again a part of CFL history when they played against the Las Vegas Posse in Sacramento on July 8 , 1994 . The game was the first - ever game that involved two American - based teams in the CFL . Las Vegas won the game , 32 – 26 . The Gold Miners made a decided improvement from their 1993 inaugural season with a 9 – 8 – 1 record . They had a 5 – 3 – 1 home record and a 4 – 5 road mark . Sacramento was ranked fourth in team defense , behind Calgary , Edmonton and Baltimore — who were the top teams in the league . But the record was only good enough for fifth place in the tough West Division . The Miners would have finished fourth with a 10 – 7 – 1 record , if not for a poor call by the officials in the team ' s last game of the season in Edmonton , where an erroneous " incomplete " ruling negated an apparent game - winning touchdown . Replays showed that Archer ' s pass did not short - hop into Baysinger ' s hands . As it was , the Gold Miners finished one point behind the 10 - 8 Saskatchewan Roughriders for the last playoff spot in the West . As it turned out , this would be the last game the team would play in Sacramento . Off the field . Despite a mediocre on - field record , the Gold Miners represented a serious attempt to form a viable professional football organization . Anderson and Baltimore Stallions owner Jim Speros were considered the only truly dedicated US CFL owners . Anderson ' s sidekick Tom Bass oversaw the operation , run by coach Kay Stephenson and GM Tom Huiskens . As with the team , it took Stephenson some time to adapt to the Canadian game , but he was eventually successful . However , the Gold Miners were hobbled by substantial off - the - field problems that ultimately proved too much to overcome . Since the San Antonio club that was also supposed to be a part of the 1993 expansion had folded , the Gold Miners were the only American team in the CFL during the 1993 season . They had to market themselves , receiving no assistance from the CFL . Competition from the San Francisco 49ers hurt attendance . Another drag on attendance was Hornet Stadium , which was well below the standards expected for a professional football team . It only had threadbare amenities , and fans were forced to use port - a - potties . This was a completely untenable situation for a professional football team . Attendance did hover around 15 , 000 per game , but it was widely known that as many as 2 , 000 of those 15 , 000 were given free tickets . In 1993 the average home attendance was 16 , 979 , but in 1994 the average home attendance fell to 14 , 226 . Unable to persuade Sacramento State to upgrade Hornet Stadium to something approaching professional standards , Anderson tried to get the city to build a new stadium for the Gold Miners and his minor - league baseball club . He planned to complete a project that had been started several years earlier to lure the Raiders to Sacramento , but had ended up being mothballed . Anderson , however , could not come to terms with the local governments . Move to San Antonio . The team moved to San Antonio and became the Texans for the 1995 CFL season . Anderson decided to fold the team at the end of the season after Memphis , Shreveport and Birmingham all folded and the Stallions relocated to Montreal to become the new Alouettes . Anderson did not want to be the only remaining American CFL owner . Radio and television . Gold Miners games were broadcast on KFBK radio and with Tim Roye and Lee Grosscup on radio and Grant Napear and Jack Youngblood on television . Roye replaced Youngblood as TV analyst in 1994 and former San Francisco Giants announcer David Glass became the Miners ' radio play - by - play announcer .