The Continental Football League, an ambitious entity that existed between 1965 and 1969, serves as the focal point of our discussion today. We delve into the history and significance of this league, often overshadowed by the more prominent rivalries of the AFL and NFL during the 1960s. Joining us is historian Timothy B. Brown from FootballArchaeology.com, who provides invaluable insights into the league’s formation, its attempt to merge with other football organizations, and the challenges it faced in securing a sustainable fan base. Throughout the episode, we reflect on the impact of the Continental Football League within the broader context of American football history, examining its role as a precursor to future leagues and its contribution to the sport. We invite our listeners to engage with us and share their experiences related to the Continental Football League, fostering a deeper appreciation for the complexities of football’s evolution.
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A comprehensive examination of the Continental Football League, which thrived from 1965 to 1969, reveals an intriguing aspect of American football history that often remains overshadowed by the more prominent rivalries of the NFL and AFL during the same era. The Continental Football League was born out of the remnants of previous leagues such as the United Football League and the Atlantic Football League, ultimately consolidating teams from these defunct entities into a new framework. As the discussion unfolds, we explore the league’s structure, starting with eight initial teams on the East Coast and how it expanded through strategic mergers with other minor leagues, culminating in a total of 22 teams by its dissolution in 1969. This summary delves into the rich narrative of the league’s aspirations, challenges, and its ultimate fate, characterized by a lack of substantial television contracts and dwindling fan attendance, which ultimately led to its decline. The dialogue further illuminates the significance of the Continental Football League within the broader context of American football’s developmental leagues. While it may not have garnered the same level of recognition as the NFL or AFL, the Continental Football League served as a vital platform for aspiring players and coaches. Notably, figures like Bill Walsh and Doak Walker graced its sidelines, highlighting the league’s role in nurturing talent that would later permeate the national scene. The poignant comparison between the Continental Football League and contemporary minor leagues, such as the United Football League and arena football, underscores the cyclical nature of football’s lower-tier competitions and their inherent struggles for visibility and viability. Moreover, the conversation draws parallels between the fan engagement of the 1960s and todayβs sports culture, suggesting a shift in how audiences interact with minor league football. The discussion raises thoughtful insights into the evolution of local football fandom, noting that audiences in the past were more inclined to attend games, whereas today’s consumers often prefer the convenience of televised events. This shift signals a broader transformation in how football is consumed and appreciated, providing a profound commentary on the cultural significance of local teams and the communal experiences they foster.
Transcript
But lost in the shuffle was another league with very high ambitions, the Continental Football League.
Speaker A:Today, historian Timothy B.
Speaker A:Brown of FootballArchaeology.com joins us to tell us about this very interesting and historical league.
Speaker A:Hello, my football friends.
Speaker B:This is Derek.
Speaker B:Thank you.
Speaker B:Thank you.
Speaker B:It will open this session with a quiz.
Speaker A:Oh, boy.
Speaker B:So what did I have to eat this morning?
Speaker A:What did you have to eat this morning?
Speaker A:Well, if I'm going to tie into what our.
Speaker A:Our subject matter is tonight, maybe you stayed at a hotel and had a continental breakfast.
Speaker B:Well, I didn't stay at a hotel.
Speaker B:I actually didn't.
Speaker B:I actually didn't even eat this for breakfast.
Speaker B:But the answer was a continental breakfast.
Speaker A:My second guess was cre wheat, but.
Speaker A:Well, that's for another story.
Speaker A:All right.
Speaker A:But of course, we're alluding into an article that Tim wrote a while back called Mergers in a Continental Football League, A very interesting period in football history.
Speaker A:What can you tell us about it, Tim?
Speaker B:Yeah, so, you know, just.
Speaker B:I didn't position it like this in the article, I don't think.
Speaker B:But.
Speaker B:So, you know, if you think about, like what I'll just call minor league, minor league football has come and gone, right?
Speaker B:I mean, there's been one league after another over the years and.
Speaker B:But it's kind of, it kind of kind of rises out of, you know, first there were town teams, like outside of the college environment, there were, you know, in the military, there were town teams.
Speaker B:And then some of those teams became the early pro and semi pro teams.
Speaker B:And then, you know, especially once the NFL was kind of up and running, I mean, for a while they, I mean, there were all these.
Speaker B:There were a bunch of minor league organizations all over the country and, and then the NFL kind of became the dominant.
Speaker B:You know, they were a minor league, too, but they just had the most success, ended up in the bigger cities, whereas a lot of these minor leagues ended up in some of those cities are big now, but they were, you know, still relatively small towns or at least from a media standpoint and all that kind of stuff.
Speaker B:ue actually existed only from:Speaker B:So franchises failed and they ended up with 10 East coast teams, which is why in the article I said it should have been called The Subcontinental Football League because it only was the east coast.
Speaker B:est show on television in the:Speaker B:So then the, then the league grows through mergers.
Speaker B:The Pacific coast league joins in 67, the Professional Football League of America in 68, and the Texas League in 69, which included a franchise in Monterrey, Mexico that folded, you know, mid season.
Speaker B:So but by 69, they had 22 teams in these like pods.
Speaker B:I think they had five pods around the country.
Speaker B:But, you know, they were in Chicago, they're in Dallas, and then places like Norfolk, Fort Way, Fort Worth, Texarkana, Spokane, you know, so it was a real mix of the, you know, the places, you know, where, where they were located.
Speaker B:But, you know, they had a couple, you know, pretty notable coaches.
Speaker B:Bill Walsh coached in the Continental and so did Doak Walker, a couple of guys who played in the league.
Speaker B:Kenny Stabler, Garo Ya Premian, and one of my favorite guys was Otis Sistron.
Speaker B:So he played for the Raiders.
Speaker B:And he was always the college of none, because he didn't go to college.
Speaker B:I think he came out of like a.
Speaker B:Played for the Marines initially and then, then went from the Marines to, to the Continental or Pacific, whichever.
Speaker B:But, you know, so then it's like the league folded after 69.
Speaker B:They, you know, they didn't have TV money.
Speaker B:They only got about 10,000 people to games.
Speaker B:And maybe that was like the high end, but it's still, it's kind of, you know, so where I was kind of going with it is if you think about it now, like, can you imagine some minor league football team getting 10,000 people to the games?
Speaker B:Now?
Speaker B:That's basically what the UFL is or.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:I mean, that's what's called this time, this time around.
Speaker B:United Football.
Speaker B:Yep.
Speaker A:Ufo.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker B:But, but that's really a made for TV league.
Speaker B:You know, I mean, Fox owns half of it and it's like, you know, the bowl games, ESPN owns more than half the bowl games.
Speaker B:You know, it's just made for TV stuff, which is fine, but that's, you know, that's the reality of it.
Speaker A:And they're almost taking an angle now of almost being a developmental league.
Speaker A:You know, I think is sort of what they've accepted.
Speaker B:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker B:And, and they, you know, so then they, they get the talent from the, you know, and guys are looking either for a shot at the NFL in some cases, you know, some.
Speaker B:They send some guys up to Canada.
Speaker B:But so anyways, I mean, it's just kind of.
Speaker B:I was just thinking like, arena football in a lot of ways is maybe the closest thing to what this Continental was like, you know, I mean, there's like an arena team in like Saginaw, Michigan.
Speaker B:Okay, good for them.
Speaker B:But you know, I mean, it's not like a booming, you know, major media market, you know, and so I, you know, you, you look at some of these, the places where these arena football teams play and you know, I don't know how many people, you know, a couple hundred or a couple thousand, they get to some of those games.
Speaker B:No idea.
Speaker B:I think I've been to one in my life.
Speaker B:But.
Speaker A:Very passionate fan bases, though, people, People really like that.
Speaker A:I mean, we, we used to have an Arena League here in Erie and it was, it was fun to watch.
Speaker A:You know, our team only lasted a couple years.
Speaker A:That's when arena had its big boom, like in the 90s.
Speaker B:But yeah.
Speaker B:So, you know, part of it to me is like in.
Speaker B:So even into the 60s when this league was playing, I think people were still used to.
Speaker B:And especially maybe a little bit older fan, they were still used to going to games rather than watching them on television.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker A:So.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker B:People went to the local small college game to see football, you know, and, and so, you know, that kind of thing happened everywhere now, you know, with a handful of exceptions, people don't go to small college games.
Speaker B:I mean, parents do, the current students, friends, you know, here and there.
Speaker B:You know, you've got the, whatever the small town fan or something.
Speaker B:But, but otherwise it's just, you know, it's not about the fan base.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:It's more the original purpose.
Speaker B:It's for the players and da, da, da.
Speaker B:Recruiting kids to go to school.
Speaker B:So I don't know, it's just kind of, it's an interesting.
Speaker B:I don't know, that's just kind of where I see like arena football is kind of like the class D or maybe class A, you know, baseball.
Speaker B:You know what I mean?
Speaker B:It's like the.
Speaker B:Depending on what league you're in, you.
Speaker A:Know, it's a, It's a localized like almost like minor league baseball.
Speaker A:You're right.
Speaker B:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker B:I mean, nothing, nothing wrong with it or anything.
Speaker B:It's just, it's.
Speaker B:It's just to me, I was just trying to compare, like, what was this Continental League like?
Speaker B:And it was probably something in between the ufl.
Speaker B:I don't think it was that skill level.
Speaker B:Maybe it was.
Speaker B:But so probably some, some probably something closer to the UFL than to arena football.
Speaker B:But some of the teams probably were really.
Speaker B:Probably had more the feel of an arena team.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:It wasn't quite up to the.
Speaker A:The par of what the.
Speaker A:The WFL was or the original USFL where they actually had NFL caliber players and they're paying them to play.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:Continental did not.
Speaker B:I mean there were guys who developed out of it.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:Who got cut and then maybe it's.
Speaker A:Almost more like the, like the, the NFL Europe or they had like five different names, you know, where they were developmenting, developing players to possibly go on the NFL or CFL or or wherever at that time.
Speaker B:So I just want to point out I said I've only attended one arena football game in my life.
Speaker B:That is an arena league football.
Speaker B:One of my sons caught it and it's just always stayed down here.
Speaker B:But no, Steven was the coach of.
Speaker B:Oh yeah, was the coach of the Michigan team.
Speaker B:I think they're in Michigan.
Speaker B:I don't know what they're called.
Speaker A:But anyways the run and shoot.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:And so since he's.
Speaker B:They got him to sign it and so I've, you know, one of these days they'll claim it but at this point it just sits here.
Speaker A:Yeah, that's cool.
Speaker A:We'll have the Mouse Davis connection to it.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Well, hey, you know, you bring back some of the memories that, that people have.
Speaker A:I'm sure there's people out here, they're watching or listening that maybe went to some Continental games.
Speaker A:If you did your drop in the comments that let us know what you thought about when you were watching these games.
Speaker A:But you talk about these leagues that are defunct or defunct teams or rules or you know, anything about the antiquity of football that makes it interesting and maybe you could tell people where they can find your writings at.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:Go to footballarchaeology.com It's a substack site and you can if you subscribe you'll get an email every time.
Speaker B:Yeah, I publish a story which is a couple times a week and then you can also follow on the app on the substack apple.
Speaker B:But otherwise bookmark it, you know, come on and check it out whenever you want.
Speaker B:And I just encourage people.
Speaker B:There's you know,:Speaker B:So you know, if you're looking for something, use a search function and there's a probably pretty good chance some person or some issue has been mentioned somewhere along the line and maybe it gives you the background you're looking for.
Speaker A:Excellent.
Speaker A:Excellent as always.
Speaker A:We really appreciate it folks.
Speaker A:If you want to read the original article, you know, just right down below if you're on YouTube or on the podcast to go to the Show Notes, we have a link there to take you right to Tim's article for this and it takes you right into the Football Archaeology site.
Speaker A:You can enjoy some of his other items as well.
Speaker A:Tim, thanks a lot for joining us today and we'd love to talk to you again next week.
Speaker B:Thank you sir.
Speaker B:Look forward to it.
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