Editing World Football League (section)

===1975 season===
{{Main|1975 World Football League season}}
Though many predicted the WFL was dead, the league returned for the 1975 season. During the offseason, Hemmeter developed a plan to restore a measure of financial sanity to the league by paying players and coaches based on a percentage of revenues, while imposing strict capitalization requirements on the teams. Several markets from 1974 returned under new team names and new ownership. The deceased Sharks of [[Jacksonville, Florida|Jacksonville]] came back as the 'Express.' The Portland Storm became the Portland Thunder, the Birmingham Americans were replaced by the [[Birmingham Vulcans|Vulcans]], and the [[Chicago Fire (WFL)|Chicago Fire]] became the [[Chicago Winds|Winds]]. The World Bowl runner-up [[Florida Blazers]] folded, and their franchise rights were relocated to [[San Antonio, Texas]], as the [[San Antonio Wings]]. [[Akron, Ohio]] was briefly mentioned as a location for the twelfth WFL team (the replacement for the Wheels), but this never materialized, and only 11 teams played in the 1975 season.<ref name="vind-yo-11-14-99">
{{cite news|title=A Century of Sports: The Mahoning and Shenango Valleys|work=The Vindicator|page=4|date=November 14, 1999}}</ref> 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.<ref name=SIMoney>{{cite magazine |url=https://vault.si.com/vault/1975/12/01/the-day-the-money-ran-out |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200808132031/https://vault.si.com/vault/1975/12/01/the-day-the-money-ran-out |url-status=dead |archive-date=August 8, 2020 |magazine=Sports Illustrated |last=Johnson |first=William Oscar |title=The day the money ran out<!-- http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1090543/index.htm -->|date=December 1, 1975|page=84}}</ref>

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.<ref name="worldfootballleague.org"/>

[[File:Larry Csonka 1972.jpg|thumb|right|Fullback [[Larry Csonka]] played for the [[Memphis Southmen]] in 1975.]]
The league changed the scheduling format from 20 games without exhibitions to 18 games (played in 20 weeks due to the odd number of teams) with exhibitions. Gone were weeknight games; the new schedule had games on Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays. But there were still problems, as although the original plan called for a July 5 preseason opener and August 2 regular season openers, the regular season had to open a week earlier, with a single game on Saturday, July 26, due to a stadium conflict. This meant that a single regular season game was played in the midst of the last weekend of preseason play (with some preseason games being played the next night).

Several more NFL free agents, including [[Calvin Hill]] and [[Ted Kwalick]], signed on with the struggling WFL. Memphis had secured three top-line, but fading Dolphins stars in Larry Csonka, Jim Kiick, and Paul Warfield. The Southern California Sun secured the services of former AFL and NFL quarterback Daryle Lamonica.

The [[Chicago Winds]] made an offer to aging [[Super Bowl III]] [[Most valuable player|MVP]] [[Joe Namath]], who seriously considered the offer, before refusing and re-signing with the [[New York Jets]]. The Winds invested considerable money and time in the effort to sign Namath (the team even designed its uniform to emulate the Jets'), and all but promised he was coming to Chicago. The embarrassing rejection by Namath crippled the Winds, who were shut down five weeks into the season. It also resulted in the loss of the WFL's national television deal (see below), rendering the league all but invisible.

Despite Hemmeter's efforts, several teams soon ran into financial difficulties, in part due to alarmingly low attendance figures. (The WFL averaged 21,423 fans per game in 1974, but only 13,931 per contest in '75.) The Winds were shut down five games into the season after dropping below league capitalization requirements, leaving the league with ten teams (which itself was a convenience, because it eliminated the mandatory bye week). It was not enough to stem the tide; by late October rumors abounded that four of the remaining teams were on the verge of folding.<ref name=wcffl>{{cite news |url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=TS8PAAAAIBAJ&pg=4343%2C3873192 |work=Victoria Advocate |location=(Texas) |agency=Associated Press |title=Woes continue for WFL |date=October 22, 1975 |page=2B}}</ref>

On Wednesday, October 22, a few days before the start of week 13, the WFL ceased operations.<ref name=itovr>{{cite news |url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=KNZVAAAAIBAJ&pg=6366%2C6777086 |work=Eugene Register-Guard |location=(Oregon) |agency=Associated Press |title='It's over' for WFL |date=October 22, 1975 |page=1E}}</ref><ref name=cllps>{{cite news |url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=zPJLAAAAIBAJ&pg=7184%2C3119091 |work=Spokesman-Review |location=(Spokane, Washington) |agency=Associated Press |title=World Football League collapses in hopeless debt |date=October 23, 1975 |page=34}}</ref><ref name=gossp>{{cite news |url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=PW5YAAAAIBAJ&pg=6886%2C3074951 |work=The Bulletin  |location=(Bend, Oregon) |agency=Associated Press |title=Ghost of season past kills WFL |date=October 23, 1975 |page=13}}</ref> 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.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1975/10/23/archives/money-ills-force-wfl-to-disband-wfl-gives-up-football.html|title=Money Woes Force W.F.L. To Disband|last=Cady|first=Steve|newspaper=[[New York Times]]|date=October 23, 1975}}</ref> The&nbsp;[[Birmingham Vulcans]], by virtue of their league-best record of 9–3 at the time of the shutdown,<ref name=sdcslg>{{cite news |url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=ZE9OAAAAIBAJ&pg=5099%2C1047746 |work=Spokane Daily Chronicle |location=(Washington) |title=Pro football: World League standings |date=October 21, 1975 |page=14}}</ref> were proclaimed league champions.<ref name="ct780716">{{cite news |first=Rick |last=Talley |work=[[Chicago Tribune]] |title=Origer's feelings for WFL, Fire still burn bright |page=B8 |url=https://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/chicagotribune/access/630803312.html?dids=630803312:630803312&FMT=ABS&FMTS=ABS:AI |quote=Although he could have sold 22000 season tickets for that ill-fated '75 season, he folded the team [...] |date=July 16, 1978 |access-date=April 28, 2010 |archive-date=October 26, 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121026130928/http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/chicagotribune/access/630803312.html?dids=630803312:630803312&FMT=ABS&FMTS=ABS:AI |url-status=dead }}</ref>

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 [[Mid-South Grizzlies v. NFL|anti-trust suit]] against the NFL. Their case was ultimately dismissed on May 30, 1984,<ref>{{cite news|last=New |first=The |url=http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/s/supreme_court/index.html?query=NATIONAL%20FOOTBALL%20LEAGUE&field=org&match=exact |title=U.S. Supreme Court – The New York Times – Narrowed by 'NATIONAL FOOTBALL LEAGUE' |work=The New York Times |publisher=Topics.nytimes.com |access-date=2010-07-29}}</ref> 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.<ref name="worldfootballleague.org"/>