The Las Vegas Thunder were a six-year entry in the International Hockey League during that organization’s gold rush era of nationwide expansion in the mid-1990’s. Minor league baseball investors Hank Stickney and his son Ken paid a $2.0 million expansion fee for the Thunder in 1993. The Stickneys also owned the Las Vegas Stars Class AAA baseball team.
The original Buffalo Bills football team, related to the current National Football League (NFL) franchise in name only, began as a charter member of the All-America Football Conference (AAFC) in 1946. In 1949, three AAFC teams joined the NFL, but the Bills were not one of them, despite success on the field and at that gate. What happened?
The Baltimore Elite Giants got their start in Nashville, before moving to Columbus, Ohio for one year, then to Washington, D.C. They moved down the road in Baltimore in 1938 and played there until 1950, before spending their final season back in Tennessee.
The original Winnipeg Jets were charter members of the WHA in 1972. They moved to the NHL in 1979, along with three other WHA squads. In 1995, they were sold and moved to Phoenix for the 1996-97 hockey season. The name was revived when the Atlanta Thrashers moved to Manitoba in 2011 and assumed the Jets name but not their history.
The Atlantic City Surf were one of the six original franchises in the Atlantic League of Professional Baseball. The Atlantic League was (and remains) the most ambitious league to arise out of the independent baseball boom of the 1990’s. The Surf played at the Sandcastle, a 5,900-seat ballpark built on the grounds of Atlantic City’s municipal airport, Bader Field. The stadium was built with $11.5 million in Casino Reinvestment Development Authority funds and $3 million in taxpayer bonds.
The Boston Tigers were a semi-professional soccer team that played in Chelsea and Lynn, Massachusetts, melting pot cities that bordered the northern edge of Boston. The Tigers competed in the American Soccer League (ASL) against competition from other Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic cities. Future two-time NASL Most Valuable Player Carlos Metidieri suited up for the Tigers in 1967.
The Florida Bobcats were a hard luck Arena Football League outfit that wandered in the wilderness for a decade in the notorious pro sports graveyard of Southern Florida. Ownership squabbles and building problems plagued the franchise throughout its existence. The team was also reliably terrible in competition, posting ten straight losing seasons.
A detailed history of the New Orleans Buccaneers (1967-1970) a founding member of the ABA that played three seasons in the Big Easy and later moved to Memphis.
The Sacramento Gold Miners were the first U.S.-based franchise admitted into the Canadian Football League during the CFL’s short-lived American expansion adventure from 1993 to 1995. The Gold Miners weren’t a brand new operation though. Owner Fred Anderson’s team previously played in the NFL-sponsored World League of American Football (WLAF) as the Sacramento Surge in 1991 and 1992. After NFL owners pulled the plug on the WLAF in September 1992, Anderson applied for entry to the CFL. The team retained its color scheme, Head Coach Kay Stephenson and a number of players from the WLAF era, but changed its name upon joining the CFL.
