Sacramento Gold Miners

Like its prior incarnation as the “Surge”, the Sacramento-based CFL Gold Miners were DOOMED from the start, due to lack of a suitable venue. Sacramento State’s Hornet Stadium was fine for what it was built for…a then Division-II (now FCS) level college football program. As even a second-tier or “AAA” football venue, it was patently undersized and inadequate, despite the growing Sacramento area, which had already shown its enthusiasm for the NBA’s Kings, recently moved to the River City for the 1985-1986 season and playing in the then-new ARCO (later “Sleep Train”) Arena, since demolished after the Kings moved to their downtown Golden One Center in 2015. The other football stadiums, Sac City’s Hughes Stadium, and UC Davis’ Toomey Field (replaced in 2007 by UC Davis Health Field, still too small in its current 10K seating capacity, but able to be readily expanded to about 30K seats if the program or a pro tenant justified it), were even worse than Hornet Field. Stagg Field in nearby Stockton had the capacity at nearly 30K, and could be expanded to about 40K if needed, but the UOP Tigers football program itself was foundering and would be discontinued in 1995. The aging, then fifty-year old stadium badly needed renovation, and without a viable football program, the University was unwilling to spend money on it. The Gold Miner’s nearest CFL opponent, the Las Vegas Posse, had been a disaster and embarrassment off and on the field in its lone season in 1994. It’s last home game was moved to Edmonton with the league paying for the travel expenses so the Posse could finish their season of futility. This left the nearest CFL team in Vancouver, BC, some 1300 miles away, but at least in the same time zone, and the nearest USA-based team in Shreveport, LA, some 1,800 miles distant. A final consideration of Fresno, CA was rejected as the Fresno State Bulldogs didn’t want to work out the scheduling conflicts and extra field wear that’d arise from having a pro tenant.

This left relocation as the only option left. The CFL, pleasantly surprised at the runaway success that was their Baltimore club, was willing to try one more season to see if US fan interest would be sufficient for their brand of football. There was a city that had a new indoor 65K stadium, built in anticipation of winning an entry for the 1993 award of two NFL expansion franchises. The timing couldn’t have been WORSE, as the recently resurgent Dallas Cowboys voted against the San Antonio entry, and the Houston Oilers, unhappy with the Astrodome and sagging attendance, were looking to relocate as their their lease was up. Once the Oilers departed for Tennessee, the NFL prioritized getting a replacement into the nation’s 4th-largest city and TV market. This left the Alamodome with no expected NFL tenant. There had been an unsuccessful World League franchise, the Riders, that played in San Antonio in 1991 and nearby San Marcos in 1992, both seasons to sparse crowds. With the WLAF being placed on hiatus after the 1992 season, the Riders would not get the expected TV money, they had no funds to put a down payment on a lease for the new ‘Dome which would open as of May 1993. Sadly, the Riders, having applied to and accepted by the CFL, had their loans called in, and had to fold. They would have been renamed the “Texans” had they continued. When Surge/Gold Miners owner Fred Anderson decided to relocate to San Antonio for the 1995 CFL season, the Rider’s creditors, having a storage unit full of unused “Texans”-branded equipment, like helmets and jerseys, were only too happy to accept Anderson’s offer to buy them and the team name. The football team did well on the field, going 12-6 and making the playoffs, but attendance was only fair. The same problem of Texans shunning any competitor to “Friday Night Lights” and Saturday College ball, which are all but RELIGION in Texas and the South, still was a problem that marketing couldn’t overcome. To make it worse, the other “Southern” USA CFL teams did even WORSE at the gate, and save for the Baltimore Stallions, the CFL had enough of it’s “American experiment”. The might have been willing to continue with the Stallions and the Texans, but when the Cleveland Browns announced their move to Baltimore for the 1996 season, that was the end of the Stallions as an American-based CFL team. Attempts to relocate to DC (RFK Stadium) and Houston (Astrodome) were rebuffed an interfered with by the NFL, despite the NFL tenants of both venues moving out after the 1996 season. This left Jim Speros with but the obvious choice to move the team to Montreal and become the third, and thus far, lasting incarnation of “les Alouettes”. The League simply wasn’t interested in scheduling and travelling to a lone USA-based team in Texas, and no Canadian city that was considered large enough to support a CFL team had a usable stadium. Anderson, having lost $6 million on his CFL venture, accepted the buyout of his CFL franchise and folded the team.