Tombstone
Born: 1973 – WTT founding franchise
Moved: November 1974 (Indiana Loves)
First Game: May 9, 1974 (W 28-19 vs. Toronto-Buffalo Royals)
Last Game: August 20, 1974 (L 32-17 @ Pittsburgh Triangles)
Bancroft Cup Championships: None
Arena
Marketing
Team Colors:
Ownership
Owners: Seymour Brode & Marshall Greenspan
Editor's Pick
Bustin' Balls
World Team Tennis 1974-1978, Pro Sports, Pop Culture & Progressive Politics
by Steven Blush
Bustin’ Balls tells the strange but true story of World Team Tennis (1974-1978) that attempted to transform the prim and proper individual sport of tennis into a rowdy blue-collar league. Billie Jean King and her partners merged feminism and civil rights with queer lifestyle, pop culture and a progressive political agenda to create a dazzling platform for the finest tennis players of the day to become overnight stars.
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Background
The Detroit Loves were a one-year wonder, active for the inaugural season of World Team Tennis in the summer of 1974. World Team Tennis sought to take the genteel sport of tennis and market it to the American masses in large hockey arenas. Fans were encouraged to boo and cheer loudly. Each match consisted of five sets – one each in men’s and women’s singles, men’s and women’s doubles, and mixed doubles. Each game won was worth a point towards the match’s final score. Teams earned wins and losses in a league standings table, as with the dominant American team sports leagues of the era.
Roster
The Detroit Loves were one of sixteen franchises that began play in the spring of 1974, playing a busy 44-match schedule. The fledgling league was relatively successful in attracting top players from around the world, particularly from the women’s game. The Loves boasted one of the top American females in Rosie Casals, the singles runner-up at the U.S. Open in both 1970 and 1971.
Casals was the top gate attraction on a roster that also included Aussies Phil Dent, Allan Stone and Kerri Harris and Americans Mary-Ann Beattie and Lenny Simpson. Dent would achieve some notoriety later in that summer of 1974, reaching the final of the Australian Open where he lost to Jimmy Connors in what would turn out to be the only Grand Slam singles final of Dent’s career. Simpson was one of the few African-Americans to play World Team Tennis in the 1970’s. The team was highly competitive, finishing first in their division with a 30-14 record, before a disappointing first round playoff exit courtesy of the Pittsburgh Triangles.
Move To Indianapolis
The Loves fared poorly at the gate, attracting a disappointing announced crowd of 3,600 to their home debut on May 9th, 1974 at the 11,000-seat Cobo Arena in downtown Detroit. Crowds for the season hovered around the 2,000 mark in the big building, according to The Associated Press. Tthe club lost a reported $300,000 on operations for the lone season of play. In November 1974, Loves owners Seymour Brode and Marshall Greenspan sold the franchise to Indianapolis tennis promoter William Bereman who relocated it to that city’s Market Square Arena.
The Loves continued in Indianapolis as the Indiana Loves for four seasons (1975-1978) before folding along with the rest of the league in November 1978.
Any material from the Detroit Loves lone season is exceptionally scarce, but we were lucky to dig up these rare 8″ x 10″ glossy PR stills in a collection a few months back.
Detroit Loves Shop
WTT Wear
World Team Tennis
Logo T-Shirt
World Team Tennis has been around in one form or another for nearly fifty years now, but this chill logo tee from our partners at Old School Shirts pays tribute to the original league and its mid-70’s glory days when Billie Jean King, Chris Evert, Martina Navratilova, Bjorn Borg and Ilie Nastase suited up for their WTT clubs in between Grand Slam finals at Wimbledon and Flushing Meadows.
Also available in women’s scoop neck and women’s racerback tank styles!
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