Мировая Футбольная Лига: Краткая история и основатели

Former American football league (1974–1975)

The World Football League (WFL) was an American football league that played one full season in 1974 and most of its second in 1975. Although the league's proclaimed ambition was to bring American football onto a worldwide stage, the farthest the WFL reached was placing a team – the Hawaiians – in Honolulu, Hawaii. The league folded midway through its second season, in 1975. A new minor football league began play as the World Football League in 2008 after acquiring the rights to its trademarks and intellectual property; it folded in 2011.

Gary Davidson, a California lawyer and businessman, was the driving force behind the World Football League. He had helped start the moderately successful American Basketball Association and World Hockey Association, These men were Robert Schmertz, who owned the WHA's New England Whalers and NBA's Boston Celtics; a former hockey prospect named Howard Baldwin (future owner of the NHL's Pittsburgh Penguins), who ran the Boston Bulls charter; Ben Hatskin, who owned the WHA's Winnipeg Jets; and R. Steve Arnold, another WHA associate. Perhaps one of the biggest of the "founding fathers" was a Canadian movie producer, John F. Bassett. A former tennis prodigy and owner of the WHA's Toronto Toros, Bassett came from a wealthy Canadian family. The family owned (among other entities) the Toronto Argonauts of the Canadian Football League, two Toronto newspapers and interests in television stations. The younger Bassett had been mulling over starting his own professional football league when he happened to meet Davidson and he was given a franchise for Toronto. Bassett went on to own a team in another alternative football league, the USFL's Tampa Bay Bandits in the mid 1980s. Along with the original founding fathers, the rest of the owners soon fell into place, including a man whose own dreams of playing football were ended by a heart ailment, Thomas Origer, who later ran the Chicago Fire. Davidson had initially planned for his league to commence play in 1975. However, the league came under pressure to accelerate its timetable, largely on account of strained labor relations affecting both established professional leagues. In the spring of 1974, players were threatening to go on strike in both the NFL and CFL, which could have delayed the start of their seasons and/or caused the quality of their product to deteriorate if owners attempted to bring in replacement players. The possibility of being the only major professional football league in operation (or, at least, the possibility that the quality of WFL football might be compared favorably with that of established league rosters filled with "scab" players) appeared to be too good an opportunity to pass up – combined with rumors of another upstart league, it persuaded Davidson to advance the new league's planned debut to 1974. One team went through several identities. The team slated to play in Maryland was to be called the Washington Capitals, but the expansion NHL team had already trademarked the rights to the nickname. A contest held to name the team came up with the name Ambassadors. The team then became the Baltimore Washington Ambassadors, and then the Baltimore name was dropped, and the team simply became known as the Washington Ambassadors. to what was then the richest three player deal in sports, an astounding US$3.5 million to start in 1975. The pact was a guaranteed, personal services contract, so the trio would be paid even if the WFL did not survive its first season. The NFL took notice, as did their players when they were approached to jump leagues. The Oakland Raiders nearly lost both their quarterbacks. Ken Stabler

Despite the various disasters, many thought the WFL performed fairly well, though below NFL standards. Many games were tight, decided by seven points or less, and the Action Point, the one point conversion run or pass attempt after a touchdown, was favored among WFL coaches and critics. The league championship—the World Bowl, or "World Bowl I"—was staged in Birmingham between the hometown Birmingham Americans and the Florida Blazers. Not even the World Bowl could go off without a hitch. For a time, it appeared that the game would not take place because the Americans owed $237,000 in back federal taxes. However, the Internal Revenue Service agreed to let the game go ahead in return for a portion of the gate. Both teams were owed several weeks' back pay; the Americans only agreed to play when their owner promised them championship rings if they won. Aside from the money woes the league was having, the players did not hold back in complaining about the officiating during the game. Florida Blazers running back Tommy Reamon scored what he thought was a touchdown, but the officials on the field ruled that he fumbled the ball out of the end zone before he hit the ground, resulting in a touchback that gave the ball to Birmingham. Replays clearly showed that the ball had broken the plane of the end zone before slipping out of Reamon's hands. While the phantom turnover did not account for any Birmingham points, it did serve to break the spirits of the Blazers. Birmingham led 15–0, with Birmingham quarterback Matthew Reed scoring an action point. Birmingham led 22–0, and thought they had the game wrapped up. However, Florida managed a small comeback, trailing 22–21 as the gun went off in the fourth quarter. As if losing a championship game in a squeaker was not bad enough, things got much worse. Florida head coach Jack Pardee bolted back to the NFL to take over the Chicago Bears, and the Blazers' franchise was sold off at a court ordered auction after it was discovered that Blazers owner Rommie Loudd had financed the team through selling cocaine and a tax evasion scheme, for which he was arrested shortly after the season (and later convicted). The champions did not fare much better; only days after the World Bowl, the Americans' office furniture was repossessed by sheriff's deputies. Only two teams, Memphis and Philadelphia, returned with the same ownership from the prior season. Sports Illustrated, in its postmortem, noted that the change between 1974 and 1975 was so drastic that for all intents and purposes, the WFL of 1975 was a nearly completely different entity than its predecessor. The WFL of 1974 was described as a bombastic credit risk, while the WFL of 1975 was a safer but much quieter entity that failed because it was ignored. An idea produced by the league was to have players wear different colors of pants based on their position. Offensive linemen were to wear purple pants, running backs green pants, receivers blue pants, linebackers red, and defensive backs yellow. Quarterbacks and kickers were to wear white pants. In addition to the colors, the pants were also adorned with items such as pinstripes (for the offensive linemen) or large stars (for quarterbacks) for those not watching on color television. After a test run in preseason games, this idea was scrapped. On Wednesday, October 22, a few days before the start of week 13, the WFL ceased operations. Hemmeter said that the league would have needed to spend as much as $40 million over two years to be successful, a bill that the league's directors, seven of whom sat on the boards of banks, did not feel could be justified. The Birmingham Vulcans, by virtue of their league best record of 9–3 at the time of the shutdown, were proclaimed league champions. With the relative financial stability of the Birmingham and Memphis clubs, both attempted to join the NFL but were refused. In 1979, the Memphis club owners filed an anti trust suit against the NFL. Their case was ultimately dismissed on May 30, 1984, by which time the owners had already established the Tampa Bay Bandits in the next professional league, the United States Football League (then in the midst of its second season; that league incidentally filed their own, more famous antitrust suit against the NFL in 1986). Although the NFL expanded by two teams in 1976, that expansion had been planned before the WFL's first season, and neither city (Tampa and Seattle) had hosted a WFL franchise. One of the issues facing the WFL going into 1975 was how to hold a draft. The owners of the WFL teams collectively agreed they did not have the money to seek out the top college prospects. Instead, the league came up with a different plan. Instead of drafting a certain player, a WFL team would draft an entire NFL or CFL team. This gave that team the rights to negotiate with players under contract for that team. For example, only the Charlotte Hornets had the right to offer contracts to players from the Buffalo Bills, Baltimore Colts, and Detroit Lions, and only the Chicago Winds could offer contracts to players from the Pittsburgh Steelers, New York Jets, and Edmonton Eskimos of the Canadian Football League. The WFL, for all its embarrassing miscues, produced a number of coaches who found success in the NFL, notably Jack Pardee, Lindy Infante, and Marty Schottenheimer. Jim Fassel, a quarterback for the Hawaiians, became a head coach in the NFL and UFL, taking the New York Giants to Super Bowl XXXV in 2001 and the Las Vegas Locomotives to a win in the 2009 UFL Championship Game. McVay worked his way up the Giants organization and eventually became the team's head coach; he had even more success as general manager of the San Francisco 49ers during the 1980s dynasty years. Several players, most notably Pat Haden, Danny White, Alfred Jenkins, Greg Latta, and Vince Papale, later found success in the NFL as well. Four WFL alumni made it to the Pro Football Hall of Fame: Larry Csonka, Paul Warfield, Leroy Kelly and Don Maynard; all four were already established stars in the NFL before joining the WFL. The league's most severe impact was on the Miami Dolphins, who had just won consecutive Super Bowls before the WFL's snagging of three of their star players. This changed the course of NFL history, by opening the door to dominance by two other AFC teams, the Steelers and the Raiders, during the second half of the 1970s. While by no means the pioneer of "singular" team nicknames, which had been used by some college and professional sports teams since the 19th century, the high quantity of them in a single league ("Fire", "Sun", "Bell", "Storm", "Steamer", "Thunder", "Express") was rare in professional sports at the time, and was a distinguishing mark of the league. The WFL also arguably affected locations of other professional football teams: from the NFL, Hawaii hosted the Pro Bowl from 1980 through 2009 and again from 2011 to 2016, Jacksonville got the Jacksonville Jaguars in 1995, Charlotte received the Carolina Panthers in the same year, and Houston's expansion franchise, the Texans, revived the name of the WFL team in 2002. Though the WFL's Toronto establishment failed due to Canadian resistance, the Buffalo Bills (with Canadian backing and special conditions) played one home game in Toronto a season from 2008 to 2013, and the league's original intent to expand the game globally is being partially fulfilled by the NFL International Series. Other cities became regular stops for franchises in other leagues:

Memphis hosted the Showboats of the USFL from 1983 to 1985, the Mad Dogs of the CFL in 1995, the XFL's Maniax in 2001 and the Express in the AAF in 2019. The NFL also used Memphis as a temporary home for the Tennessee Oilers in 1997 before their stadium in Nashville was completed. Birmingham hosted the Vulcans and Magic of the AFA, Stallions of the USFL, the Fire of the WLAF from 1991 to 1992, Barracudas of the CFL in 1995, the Thunderbolts of the XFL in 2001 and the Iron in the AAF in 2019. In 2022, the Birmingham Stallions of the second reiteration of the USFL became the champions of the new league version. Orlando hosted the Americans of the AFA, Renegades of the USFL, Thunder of the WLAF, Rage of the XFL, the Tuskers of the UFL and the Apollos of the AAF. Shreveport later hosted the Steamers of the AFA and the Pirates of the CFL. Jacksonville hosted the Firebirds of the AFA and the Bulls of the USFL before the NFL Jaguars franchise was awarded. In 2010, Jacksonville received an Arena Football League expansion franchise, which revived the Sharks name. Charlotte later hosted the Chargers of the AFA before the NFL Panthers franchise was awarded. San Antonio later hosted the Charros of the AFA, Gunslingers of the USFL, the Riders of the WLAF, the Texans of the CFL, the Matadors of the SFL, the Commanders of the AAF, and four home games for the NFL New Orleans Saints during their 2005 "road season", in which the Saints had to abandon their usual stadium, the Louisiana Superdome, due to damage from Hurricane Katrina. (San Antonio has also hosted NFL exhibition games.) Southern California hosted the Express of the USFL, the Xtreme of the 2001 XFL, the Wildcats in the 2020 XFL, the Dragons of the SFL and was expected to host a franchise in the UFL, a promise that was never fulfilled before the league's sudden shutdown in 2012. The New York/New Jersey metropolitan area hosted the New Jersey Generals of the USFL, the New York Sentinels of the UFL, and the Guardians of the 2020 XFL, and two teams that bore both states' names: the Knights of the WLAF and the Hitmen of the 2001 XFL. Chicago hosted the Fire of the AFA, Blitz of the USFL and the Enforcers of the 2001 XFL. Detroit later hosted the Michigan Panthers of the USFL and was targeted as a possibility for XFL expansion before the 2001 XFL folded. Portland later hosted the Breakers of the USFL and served as the launching point for the CFL USA initiative with an exhibition game in June 1992, though it never received a CFL team. Houston later hosted the Marshals in the SFL and the Roughnecks in the 2020 XFL. The NFL's Houston Texans revived the name of the WFL's franchise for that city when it began play in 2002. ("Texans" had been used by an NFL Dallas team in 1952—after it folded, the remnants were taken over by the expansion Baltimore Colts—and by an AFL Dallas team in the early 1960s, which became the Kansas City Chiefs.) The moniker was also used by an arena football team in Dallas in the early 1990s, and by a CFL San Antonio team for one year in the 1990s. There is also a Major League Soccer team called the Chicago Fire, and there are/were also NBA teams called the Memphis Grizzlies (2001–present) and Charlotte Hornets (1988–2002, 2014–present) (the nickname "Hornets" was used for minor league baseball teams in Charlotte long before the WFL entry; also, the "Grizzlies" name for the Memphis NBA team was in use when the franchise was still in Vancouver). The Jacksonville Sharks and Portland Thunder names were later revived for teams in the 2010 revival of the Arena Football League, with the indoor Sharks (outlasting its namesake by several years) having since moved to the National Arena League. The American Football Association was conceived as a successor to the WFL, and in some newspapers was even referred to as the "New WFL". Many of the AFA teams revived, with slight alterations, the names of WFL teams that had resided in its respective cities, and several of the AFA's key personnel had previously served in similar capacities with WFL teams; the league operated from 1977 to 1983. The league also caused significant problems for the lower levels of professional football. Its arrival resulted in the end of the ACFL and SFL, effectively killing minor league professional football in the United States until the AFA's formation in 1979.

Gary Davidson, a California lawyer and businessman, was the driving force behind the World Football League. He had helped start the moderately successful American Basketball Association and World Hockey Association, These men were Robert Schmertz, who owned the WHA's New England Whalers and NBA's Boston Celtics; a former hockey prospect named Howard Baldwin (future owner of the NHL's Pittsburgh Penguins), who ran the Boston Bulls charter; Ben Hatskin, who owned the WHA's Winnipeg Jets; and R. Steve Arnold, another WHA associate. Perhaps one of the biggest of the "founding fathers" was a Canadian movie producer, John F. Bassett. A former tennis prodigy and owner of the WHA's Toronto Toros, Bassett came from a wealthy Canadian family. The family owned (among other entities) the Toronto Argonauts of the Canadian Football League, two Toronto newspapers and interests in television stations. The younger Bassett had been mulling over starting his own professional football league when he happened to meet Davidson and he was given a franchise for Toronto. Bassett went on to own a team in another alternative football league, the USFL's Tampa Bay Bandits in the mid 1980s. Along with the original founding fathers, the rest of the owners soon fell into place, including a man whose own dreams of playing football were ended by a heart ailment, Thomas Origer, who later ran the Chicago Fire. Davidson had initially planned for his league to commence play in 1975. However, the league came under pressure to accelerate its timetable, largely on account of strained labor relations affecting both established professional leagues. In the spring of 1974, players were threatening to go on strike in both the NFL and CFL, which could have delayed the start of their seasons and/or caused the quality of their product to deteriorate if owners attempted to bring in replacement players. The possibility of being the only major professional football league in operation (or, at least, the possibility that the quality of WFL football might be compared favorably with that of established league rosters filled with "scab" players) appeared to be too good an opportunity to pass up – combined with rumors of another upstart league, it persuaded Davidson to advance the new league's planned debut to 1974. One team went through several identities. The team slated to play in Maryland was to be called the Washington Capitals, but the expansion NHL team had already trademarked the rights to the nickname. A contest held to name the team came up with the name Ambassadors. The team then became the Baltimore Washington Ambassadors, and then the Baltimore name was dropped, and the team simply became known as the Washington Ambassadors. to what was then the richest three player deal in sports, an astounding US$3.5 million to start in 1975. The pact was a guaranteed, personal services contract, so the trio would be paid even if the WFL did not survive its first season. The NFL took notice, as did their players when they were approached to jump leagues. The Oakland Raiders nearly lost both their quarterbacks. Ken Stabler

Despite the various disasters, many thought the WFL performed fairly well, though below NFL standards. Many games were tight, decided by seven points or less, and the Action Point, the one point conversion run or pass attempt after a touchdown, was favored among WFL coaches and critics. The league championship—the World Bowl, or "World Bowl I"—was staged in Birmingham between the hometown Birmingham Americans and the Florida Blazers. Not even the World Bowl could go off without a hitch. For a time, it appeared that the game would not take place because the Americans owed $237,000 in back federal taxes. However, the Internal Revenue Service agreed to let the game go ahead in return for a portion of the gate. Both teams were owed several weeks' back pay; the Americans only agreed to play when their owner promised them championship rings if they won. Aside from the money woes the league was having, the players did not hold back in complaining about the officiating during the game. Florida Blazers running back Tommy Reamon scored what he thought was a touchdown, but the officials on the field ruled that he fumbled the ball out of the end zone before he hit the ground, resulting in a touchback that gave the ball to Birmingham. Replays clearly showed that the ball had broken the plane of the end zone before slipping out of Reamon's hands. While the phantom turnover did not account for any Birmingham points, it did serve to break the spirits of the Blazers. Birmingham led 15–0, with Birmingham quarterback Matthew Reed scoring an action point. Birmingham led 22–0, and thought they had the game wrapped up. However, Florida managed a small comeback, trailing 22–21 as the gun went off in the fourth quarter. As if losing a championship game in a squeaker was not bad enough, things got much worse. Florida head coach Jack Pardee bolted back to the NFL to take over the Chicago Bears, and the Blazers' franchise was sold off at a court ordered auction after it was discovered that Blazers owner Rommie Loudd had financed the team through selling cocaine and a tax evasion scheme, for which he was arrested shortly after the season (and later convicted). The champions did not fare much better; only days after the World Bowl, the Americans' office furniture was repossessed by sheriff's deputies. Only two teams, Memphis and Philadelphia, returned with the same ownership from the prior season. Sports Illustrated, in its postmortem, noted that the change between 1974 and 1975 was so drastic that for all intents and purposes, the WFL of 1975 was a nearly completely different entity than its predecessor. The WFL of 1974 was described as a bombastic credit risk, while the WFL of 1975 was a safer but much quieter entity that failed because it was ignored. An idea produced by the league was to have players wear different colors of pants based on their position. Offensive linemen were to wear purple pants, running backs green pants, receivers blue pants, linebackers red, and defensive backs yellow. Quarterbacks and kickers were to wear white pants. In addition to the colors, the pants were also adorned with items such as pinstripes (for the offensive linemen) or large stars (for quarterbacks) for those not watching on color television. After a test run in preseason games, this idea was scrapped. On Wednesday, October 22, a few days before the start of week 13, the WFL ceased operations. Hemmeter said that the league would have needed to spend as much as $40 million over two years to be successful, a bill that the league's directors, seven of whom sat on the boards of banks, did not feel could be justified. The Birmingham Vulcans, by virtue of their league best record of 9–3 at the time of the shutdown, were proclaimed league champions. With the relative financial stability of the Birmingham and Memphis clubs, both attempted to join the NFL but were refused. In 1979, the Memphis club owners filed an anti trust suit against the NFL. Their case was ultimately dismissed on May 30, 1984, by which time the owners had already established the Tampa Bay Bandits in the next professional league, the United States Football League (then in the midst of its second season; that league incidentally filed their own, more famous antitrust suit against the NFL in 1986). Although the NFL expanded by two teams in 1976, that expansion had been planned before the WFL's first season, and neither city (Tampa and Seattle) had hosted a WFL franchise. One of the issues facing the WFL going into 1975 was how to hold a draft. The owners of the WFL teams collectively agreed they did not have the money to seek out the top college prospects. Instead, the league came up with a different plan. Instead of drafting a certain player, a WFL team would draft an entire NFL or CFL team. This gave that team the rights to negotiate with players under contract for that team. For example, only the Charlotte Hornets had the right to offer contracts to players from the Buffalo Bills, Baltimore Colts, and Detroit Lions, and only the Chicago Winds could offer contracts to players from the Pittsburgh Steelers, New York Jets, and Edmonton Eskimos of the Canadian Football League. The WFL, for all its embarrassing miscues, produced a number of coaches who found success in the NFL, notably Jack Pardee, Lindy Infante, and Marty Schottenheimer. Jim Fassel, a quarterback for the Hawaiians, became a head coach in the NFL and UFL, taking the New York Giants to Super Bowl XXXV in 2001 and the Las Vegas Locomotives to a win in the 2009 UFL Championship Game. McVay worked his way up the Giants organization and eventually became the team's head coach; he had even more success as general manager of the San Francisco 49ers during the 1980s dynasty years. Several players, most notably Pat Haden, Danny White, Alfred Jenkins, Greg Latta, and Vince Papale, later found success in the NFL as well. Four WFL alumni made it to the Pro Football Hall of Fame: Larry Csonka, Paul Warfield, Leroy Kelly and Don Maynard; all four were already established stars in the NFL before joining the WFL. The league's most severe impact was on the Miami Dolphins, who had just won consecutive Super Bowls before the WFL's snagging of three of their star players. This changed the course of NFL history, by opening the door to dominance by two other AFC teams, the Steelers and the Raiders, during the second half of the 1970s. While by no means the pioneer of "singular" team nicknames, which had been used by some college and professional sports teams since the 19th century, the high quantity of them in a single league ("Fire", "Sun", "Bell", "Storm", "Steamer", "Thunder", "Express") was rare in professional sports at the time, and was a distinguishing mark of the league. The WFL also arguably affected locations of other professional football teams: from the NFL, Hawaii hosted the Pro Bowl from 1980 through 2009 and again from 2011 to 2016, Jacksonville got the Jacksonville Jaguars in 1995, Charlotte received the Carolina Panthers in the same year, and Houston's expansion franchise, the Texans, revived the name of the WFL team in 2002. Though the WFL's Toronto establishment failed due to Canadian resistance, the Buffalo Bills (with Canadian backing and special conditions) played one home game in Toronto a season from 2008 to 2013, and the league's original intent to expand the game globally is being partially fulfilled by the NFL International Series. Other cities became regular stops for franchises in other leagues:

Memphis hosted the Showboats of the USFL from 1983 to 1985, the Mad Dogs of the CFL in 1995, the XFL's Maniax in 2001 and the Express in the AAF in 2019. The NFL also used Memphis as a temporary home for the Tennessee Oilers in 1997 before their stadium in Nashville was completed. Birmingham hosted the Vulcans and Magic of the AFA, Stallions of the USFL, the Fire of the WLAF from 1991 to 1992, Barracudas of the CFL in 1995, the Thunderbolts of the XFL in 2001 and the Iron in the AAF in 2019. In 2022, the Birmingham Stallions of the second reiteration of the USFL became the champions of the new league version. Orlando hosted the Americans of the AFA, Renegades of the USFL, Thunder of the WLAF, Rage of the XFL, the Tuskers of the UFL and the Apollos of the AAF. Shreveport later hosted the Steamers of the AFA and the Pirates of the CFL. Jacksonville hosted the Firebirds of the AFA and the Bulls of the USFL before the NFL Jaguars franchise was awarded. In 2010, Jacksonville received an Arena Football League expansion franchise, which revived the Sharks name. Charlotte later hosted the Chargers of the AFA before the NFL Panthers franchise was awarded. San Antonio later hosted the Charros of the AFA, Gunslingers of the USFL, the Riders of the WLAF, the Texans of the CFL, the Matadors of the SFL, the Commanders of the AAF, and four home games for the NFL New Orleans Saints during their 2005 "road season", in which the Saints had to abandon their usual stadium, the Louisiana Superdome, due to damage from Hurricane Katrina. (San Antonio has also hosted NFL exhibition games.) Southern California hosted the Express of the USFL, the Xtreme of the 2001 XFL, the Wildcats in the 2020 XFL, the Dragons of the SFL and was expected to host a franchise in the UFL, a promise that was never fulfilled before the league's sudden shutdown in 2012. The New York/New Jersey metropolitan area hosted the New Jersey Generals of the USFL, the New York Sentinels of the UFL, and the Guardians of the 2020 XFL, and two teams that bore both states' names: the Knights of the WLAF and the Hitmen of the 2001 XFL. Chicago hosted the Fire of the AFA, Blitz of the USFL and the Enforcers of the 2001 XFL. Detroit later hosted the Michigan Panthers of the USFL and was targeted as a possibility for XFL expansion before the 2001 XFL folded. Portland later hosted the Breakers of the USFL and served as the launching point for the CFL USA initiative with an exhibition game in June 1992, though it never received a CFL team. Houston later hosted the Marshals in the SFL and the Roughnecks in the 2020 XFL. The NFL's Houston Texans revived the name of the WFL's franchise for that city when it began play in 2002. ("Texans" had been used by an NFL Dallas team in 1952—after it folded, the remnants were taken over by the expansion Baltimore Colts—and by an AFL Dallas team in the early 1960s, which became the Kansas City Chiefs.) The moniker was also used by an arena football team in Dallas in the early 1990s, and by a CFL San Antonio team for one year in the 1990s. There is also a Major League Soccer team called the Chicago Fire, and there are/were also NBA teams called the Memphis Grizzlies (2001–present) and Charlotte Hornets (1988–2002, 2014–present) (the nickname "Hornets" was used for minor league baseball teams in Charlotte long before the WFL entry; also, the "Grizzlies" name for the Memphis NBA team was in use when the franchise was still in Vancouver). The Jacksonville Sharks and Portland Thunder names were later revived for teams in the 2010 revival of the Arena Football League, with the indoor Sharks (outlasting its namesake by several years) having since moved to the National Arena League. The American Football Association was conceived as a successor to the WFL, and in some newspapers was even referred to as the "New WFL". Many of the AFA teams revived, with slight alterations, the names of WFL teams that had resided in its respective cities, and several of the AFA's key personnel had previously served in similar capacities with WFL teams; the league operated from 1977 to 1983. The league also caused significant problems for the lower levels of professional football. Its arrival resulted in the end of the ACFL and SFL, effectively killing minor league professional football in the United States until the AFA's formation in 1979.