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 New Orleans Breakers were a relatively popular entry in the United States Football League during the spring of 1984. The team gained national attention by signing teenage Marcus Dupree to a $6 million contract after the ex-University of Oklahoma star dropped out of college. The Breakers got off to a hot start 5-0 start in league play that spring and brought in crowds of over 30,000 to the Superdome. But the USFL’s sudden lurch to move to a fall season in 1986 doomed the franchise in the Big Easy.
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.
Reno 1868 FC was a 2nd Division pro soccer club affiliated on the technical side with the San Jose Earthquakes of Major League Soccer and operated on the business side by the front office staff of Minor League Baseball’s Reno Aces of the Pacific Coast League. 1868 played out of Greater Nevada Field, the Aces’ 9,000-seat baseball stadium, from 2017 through 2020.
“This isn’t just about high-speed, in-your-face football action, it’s about saving an entire generation of Minnesota’s game fish from becoming shore lunch.” – Minnesota Fighting Pike President Tom Scallen describing – obliquely – his Arena Football team’s offbeat nickname in November 1995. I love this name and logo, but not nearly as much as I love Tom Scallen’s nonsensical explanation for it.
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.
In the spring of 1982, the Canadian Football League’s venerable Montreal Alouettes franchise collapsed under a mountain of debt. Seeking a clean slate for new ownership, league officials folded the Alouettes on May 13, 1982 and awarded a new Montreal expansion club to Seagram’s liquor baron and Montreal Expos founder Charles Bronfman the next day. The club embarked on a star-crossed four year voyage under the new name “Concordes”, drawing inspiration from the iconic supersonic transatlantic jets of the era.
