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Documentary filmmakers Jason Reid and Adam Brown (Sonicsgate: Requiem for a Team) join host Tim Hanlon to discuss the long, tortuous and acrimoniously messy departure of the NBA's iconic Seattle SuperSonics to Oklahoma City in the summer of 2008 – a story newly relevant as the "Emerald City" prepares to welcome a new NHL expansion franchise, and as former owner (and Starbucks CEO Emeritus) Howard Schultz publicly explores a run for the US Presidency.

A real-life drama replete with local political intrigue, wily (and/or naïve) business dealings, and an array of villains straight out of Hollywood central casting – the Sonics-to-Thunder saga has quickly become a chilling metaphor for the triumph of business revenue streams and facilities real estate over the spectacle of athletic competition or the rooting interests of fans.

Reid and Brown walk Hanlon through: the landing (in 1967) and honeymoon first years of Seattle's first-ever pro sports franchise; the region's loving embrace of their own pro hoops team (especially during its 1979 league championship season); the Achilles' heel of Key Arena and a city government wary of public stadium subsidies; a litany of lawsuits; and a raft of agenda-driven actors like the in-over-his-skis Schultz, a devious Oklahoma City lead investor Clay Bennett, and a complicit NBA Commissioner David Stern – all of whom share blame for the Sonics' ignominious relocation in the minds and hearts of Seattle sports fans.

Plus: we speculate whether the 2021 arrival of the NHL to Seattle portends a return of NBA basketball – perhaps in the form of a newly constituted SuperSonics – in the years ahead!

Thanks to this week's sponsors: Streaker Sports, SportsHistoryCollectibles.com, OldSchoolShirts.com, and 503 Sports!

In a league uniquely rich in comic misadventures and financial disasters, perhaps no one franchise from the World Football League's inaugural 1974 season stood out more for its own brand of woeful ineptitude than the Detroit Wheels.

Saddled from inception by an unwieldy ownership group of 33 different founding investors – including Motown Records superstar Marvin Gaye and Little Caesar's Pizza founder (and budding Detroit pro sports patron) Mike Illitch – the Wheels' front office featured neither cohesive management nor adequate funding to cover even the most basic of operating expenses, let alone a realistic budget from which to field a competitive team.

Unwilling to spend more than $10,000 per player, management unwittingly took the club out of contention for most of the NFL and CFL veterans flocking to other WFL franchises, while securing only three signings from its 33 picks in the league's college draft. In pre-season desperation, the Wheels even advertised an open tryout that drew over 600 hopefuls, yet produced none good enough to make the roster. As training camp progressed at Eastern Michigan University, one owner even suggested that the team move the players into tents in a nearby public park to help cut costs.

Worse still, the Wheels couldn't secure a lease at either Detroit's downtown Tiger Stadium or Ann Arbor's (University of) Michigan Stadium – having to settle instead for Eastern Michigan's Rynearson Stadium in Ypsilanti, 35 miles and full hour's drive outside of the city. Unsurprisingly, the team averaged just 11,264 fans across five-ever home games, save for a relocated sixth match played in even further-distant London, Ontario, Canada before an assemblage of barely 5,000.

Not that there was much to cheer for anyway. The Wheels lost their first ten games of the season, winning only once (a 15-14 away squeaker at the then-league-leading Florida Blazers in Orlando on September 11, 1974), before dropping their next three to fall to a WFL-worst 1-13 record. By October 10th, creditors and the league had had enough, and the Wheels folded into oblivion – six games short of completing their first and only season.

WFL researcher Mark Speck (Nothing but a Brand-New Set of Flat Tires: The Sad, Sorry Saga of the 1974 Detroit Wheels of the World Football League) returns to the show to fill in the rest of the details!

Be sure to visit our sponsors OldSchoolShirts.com, Streaker Sports, SportsHistoryCollectibles.com, and 503 Sports for great World Football League garb and gear!

On a cold and ominous Sunday, December 7, 1941, Major League Baseball's owners were gathered in Chicago for their annual winter meetings, just two months after one of the sport's greatest seasons. For the owners, the dramatic news of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor earlier that morning was not only an assault on the United States, but also a direct threat to the future of the national pastime itself.

League owners were immediately worried about the players they were likely to lose to military service, but also feared a complete shutdown of the looming 1942 season – and perhaps beyond. But with the carefully cultivated support of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, organized baseball continued uninterrupted – despite numerous calls to shut it down.

Authors David Hubler and Josh Drazen (The Nats and the Grays: How Baseball in the Nation's Capital Survived WWII and Changed the Game Forever) join host Tim Hanlon to discuss the impact of World World II on the two major professional teams in Washington, DC – the American League's Senators (aka Nationals), and the Negro National League's Homestead Grays – as well as the impact of the war on big league baseball as a whole, including:

• How a strong friendship between Senators owner Clark Griffith and Roosevelt kept the game alive during the war years, often in the face of strong opposition for doing so;
• The continual uncertainties clubs faced as things like the military draft, national resources rationing and other wartime regulations affected both the sport and American day-to-day life; AND
• The Negro Leagues' constant struggle for recognition, solvency, and integration.

PLUS: The origin of the twi-night doubleheader!

AND: The ceremonial first-pitch ambidexterity of President Harry Truman!

Show some love for the show by making a purchase from one of our great sponsors: Streaker Sports, Old School Shirts, 503 Sports, SportsHistoryCollectibles.com, and/or Audible!

We celebrate our second anniversary with the intriguing background story of the original Major Indoor Soccer League, with the man who started it all – Ed Tepper.

A commercial real estate developer by trade, Tepper actually got his start in pro sports ownership as the owner of the original National Lacrosse League's Philadelphia Wings – only to switch allegiances to an inchoate indoor offshoot of the world's most popular sport after a chance exhibition (between the 1973 NASL champion Atoms and the Russian CSKA "Red Army" team) at Philadelphia's Spectrum on February 11, 1974.

Originally interested in the game's bespoke Astroturf-covered surface as a potential improvement for his fledgling box lacrosse club, Tepper (along with 11,700+ enthusiastic curiosity-seekers) instead became instantly attracted to the fast-paced action and high scoring of "indoor soccer" – and quickly resolved to make a professional sport out of it.

In this illuminating interview, Tepper recounts some of the notable events and influential people along the journey from concept to the MISL's official debut kick (by Cincinnati Kids part-owner Pete Rose, no less) on December 22, 1978 at Uniondale, Long Island's Nassau Coliseum – including:

• Convincing ABA Virginia Squires owner (and eventual MISL commissioner) Earl Foreman of the game's potential;
• The instant credibility boost of signing American superstar goalkeeper Shep Messing;
• NASL commissioner Phil Woosnam's on-again, off-again interest in the indoor game;
• How (and why) NFL owners Carroll Rosenbloom and Al Davis wanted in; AND
• The unsung role of TV executive Bob Wussler in garnering attention for the fledgling circuit.

PLUS: The untold tale of Tepper's very own (barely one-season long) MISL franchise – the New Jersey Rockets!

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World Football League researcher extraordinaire Mark Speck (And a Dollar Short: The Empty Promises, Broken Dreams, and Somewhat-Less-Than-Comic Misadventures of the 1974 Florida Blazers) returns to the podcast to discuss the incredible story of Orlando's first professional sports franchise – and the crazy challenger football league that hastened both its creation and demise.

The Florida Blazers actually originated in late 1973 as the Washington Ambassadors, one of the originally-envisioned charter WFL teams to begin play the next summer. From the outset, franchise owner/oceanographic engineer Joseph Wheeler had difficulties raising financing and securing a lease for DC's RFK Stadium – and by March, had moved the team to nearby Norfolk, VA – with no better luck.

Hastened by a nervous WFL Commissioner Gary Davidson, Wheeler sold the club in May of 1974 – a mere two months before the start of the season – to an Orlando, FL syndicate led by former New England Patriots player and executive Rommie Loudd, which had just lost (to Tampa Bay) a bid to get an NFL expansion team.

Quickly setting up shop in a small and rickety Tangerine Bowl, the newly rechristened Blazers finally got their act together (at least on the field) with a surprising array of veteran (ex-Jets Bob Davis and Larry Grantham) and rookie (eventual league co-MVP Tommy Reamon) talent assembled by NFL star coach Jack Pardee – who rose to the league's elite and ultimately to the World Bowl championship game.

Incredibly, off the field, the franchise was a financial disaster – riddled with poor attendance, non-existent marketing, inadequate financing, unpaid bills (and players) – and an owner who ultimately would up in jail for tax embezzlement and narcotics trafficking.

And we're only scratching the surface!

Check out all the great World Football League garb and gear from our friends at: 503 Sports, SportsHistoryCollectibles.com, and OldSchoolShirts.com!

Legendary New York Yankees baseball play-by-play man John Sterling joins host Tim Hanlon for a cavalcade of career memories from his 50+ year journey in sports broadcasting – including a treasure trove of stops along the way with previously incarnated or otherwise defunct teams (and leagues).

Now celebrating his 30th consecutive season with the Bronx Bombers, Sterling's unique vocal stylings have become synonymous with some of the Yankees' most signature moments during that time – including the team's dominant run of American League and World Series championships across the late 1990s and much of the 2000s.

The path to becoming one of baseball's marquee team broadcasters was far from direct, however, and we (naturally) obsess over some of Sterling's more memorable "forgotten" gigs along the way, including:

• Falling into radio play-by-play with the NBA Baltimore Bullets as a late fill-in for Jim Karvellas;
• Becoming the almost-voice of the ABA Washington Caps (until a hasty move to Virginia to become the Squires);
• Hustling to secure radio rights to the upstart WHA New York Raiders for Gotham's talk powerhouse WMCA - and the irony of later calling games for the NHL Islanders;
• The highs of the ABA New York, and lows of the NBA New Jersey Nets;
• "Phoning it in" for the World Football League's short-lived New York Stars; AND
• The ahead-of-its-time Enterprise Sports Radio Network.

Check out all the great "forgotten sports" garb and gear from our awesome sponsors: SportsHistoryCollectibles.com, Streaker Sports, OldSchoolShirts.com, and 503 Sports!

We celebrate our 100th(!) episode with one of the founding owners of the pioneering World Hockey Association – and the man ultimately responsible for the absorption of four its teams into the NHL in the "don't-call-it-a-merger" of 1979.

Hollywood film producer and original New England Whalers founder/owner Howard Baldwin (Slim and None: My Wild Ride from the WHA to the NHL and All the Way to Hollywood) joins host Tim Hanlon for a rollicking ride through the modest beginnings, death-defying life, and lasting aftermath of pro hockey's paradigm-transforming challenger league – as well as the tortuous journey of the only US-based franchise to survive the consolidation.

Come for Baldwin's hard-to-believe stories of the Whalers and the WHA, like:

• Winning the Avco Cup championship in the team's (and league's) very first (1972-73) season, despite being fourth in line for Boston Garden home dates behind the Bruins, Celtics and even the AHL Braves;
• The courtship-turned-love-affair between the Whalers and the city of Hartford that led to the club's relocation to the WHA's (and ultimately NHL's) smallest TV market in 1974; AND
• Doubling as league president with the sole purpose of effecting a merger with NHL.

But also stay for tales of Baldwin's incredible WHA after-life, including:

• Riding into the 1980s with the NHL's "Hartford" Whalers;
• The curious interconnection between the Minnesota North Stars and the San Jose Sharks;
• Winning the 1992 Stanley Cup with the Pittsburgh Penguins, but losing the franchise to bankruptcy six years later; AND
• Segueing into life as an Academy Award-winning Hollywood film producer.

Show your support for the show and the legendary WHA by purchasing commemorative garb from our great sponsors 503 Sports, OldSchoolShirts.com and Streaker Sports!

You know him today as the long-time television play-by-play voice of Major League Baseball's Washington Nationals.

But before becoming one of the baseball's most admired and durable broadcasters, Bob Carpenter cut his professional teeth in the burgeoning (but ultimately fleeting) American pro soccer scene of the late 1970s and early 1980s as the lead "man-behind-the-mic" for such iconic teams as the NASL's Tulsa Roughnecks and the MISL's St. Louis Steamers – as well as some less-than-memorable ones, like 1983's ill-fated US Soccer/NASL hybrid, Team America.

His springboard into TV sports broadcasting's "big leagues" – including 15 years of nationally televised baseball with ESPN, plus lead announcing duties for the Texas Rangers, Minnesota Twins, New York Mets, and his hometown St. Louis Cardinals – is rich in anecdotes, and we (naturally!) drag the versatile Carpenter back to some of the more "forgotten" stops made along the way, including:

• A serendipitous segue from minor league baseball to "big time" pro soccer in Tulsa;
• The Roughnecks' gritty road to the 1983 NASL title as the league's smallest-market team;
• Leveraging national exposure from the NASL into soccer-centric gigs with the fledgling USA & ESPN cable networks;
• The "invisible hand" of Anheuser-Busch's soccer-mad executive Denny Long & his Bud Sports production division;
• Returning home to call Steamers MISL indoor games at the often-packed St. Louis Arena (aka Checkerdome); AND
• Masquerading as the "local" voice of the Washington, DC-based Team America – the de facto US National Team that played as an NASL franchise.

Thanks to OldSchoolShirts.com, 503 Sports, Streaker Sports & SportsHistoryCollectibles.com for their support of this week's episode!

As another NFL season closes, we shift gears toward the forthcoming Alliance of American Football – the first of two new leagues attempting to again extend the pro game into viable Spring season play – where the USFL, World League of American Football and NFL Europe have famously tried before.

The other – both in 2001 and in a reincarnated form coming next year – was and is the XFL, which we finally sink our teeth into for the first time this week with Wall Street Journal national security reporter Brett Forrest (Long Bomb: How the XFL Became TV's Biggest Fiasco).

We drop this episode on the 18th anniversary of when the audacious joint venture between the Vince McMahon-helmed World Wresting Federation (now WWE) and the Dick Ebersol-captained NBC Sports opened play at a raucous Sam Boyd Stadium in Las Vegas to see the hometown Outlaws battle the already-villainous New York/New Jersey Hitmen in front of a national primetime television audience.

Nearly two decades later, most who witnessed it (not to mention the tumultuous season that followed) still don't know what to make of it.

Forrest digs into: the process of tackling his then-first-ever book assignment with Long Bomb (including the pre-season magazine article from which it came); some of the curious characters (the seemingly-legitimizing presence of Dick Butkus, the unwitting marketing genius of Rod "He Hate Me" Smart, the hungry group of eager players simply wanting one last shot at playing pro football) he encountered along the way; and the less-than-enthusiastic response of McMahon to the idea of a book about the league in the first place.

Be sure to check out the great XFL shirts and replica jerseys from our friends at 503 Sports!

Win or lose in next week's Super Bowl LIII, the five-time NFL champion New England Patriots are already guaranteed a spot in the annals of pro football history as one of the sport's most dominant teams – especially when viewed through the truncated lens of the last two decades.

That said, a legion of successful clubs over the league's prior eight decades – such as the Green Bay Packers of 1929-44 (and much of the 1960s); the 1981-98 San Francisco 49ers; the 1970s Pittsburgh Steelers; the 1990s Dallas Cowboys; and the early 1970s Miami Dolphins – can legitimately claim the right to be included in the discussion of football dynasties, when normalized across the competitive realities of their respective eras.

Author Andy Piascik (The Best Show in Football: The 1946–1955 Cleveland Browns – Pro Football's Greatest Dynasty) joins host Tim Hanlon this week to detail how one of those teams – the Cleveland Browns of the late 1940s upstart All-America Football Conference and then early 1950s NFL – might just possibly be the proverbial "greatest" of all time, all things being equal.

The Browns were the only champion the well-funded, big-league challenger AAFC ever had in its four-season post-WWII run, and quickly made their prowess known to the pro football establishment in 1950 when they soundly defeated the NFL's defending champion Philadelphia Eagles in the newly merged league's opening game – and then proceeded to steamroll their way to the title later that season, as well as consecutive title game appearances (winning the last two) through 1954.

In the decade spanning 1946-55, the Browns – headed by legendary coach Paul Brown, and joined by no fewer than nine future Pro Football Hall of Famers (Otto Graham, Marion Motley, Lou Groza, Dante Lavelli, Bill Willis, Frank Gatski, Len Ford, Doug Atkins and Mike McCormack) – amassed a better record (105-17-4) and won more championships (seven) than any team in pro football history.

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