DBWI: No ‘Year Without Sports’ in America

[flippikat]

Hmm.. without the strikes, the USA might not have qualified for the 1996 Cricket World Cup. Even though they got smashed by the top teams, they got a decent team together pretty quickly from some young baseball talent, beat the other non-test playing teams and held their own against Bangladesh.

Sure they still don't have test match status (blame the "old boys network"), but they've become quite a power in limited-overs formats.

 

[Tales Weaver]

if there were one thing that survived this, was professional wrestling

 

[Alstein]

Well, WWF and WCW survived. There were some promising ideas such as Smoky Mountain Wrestling and Eastern Championship Wrestling, but the success of the Big 2 strangled those in the crib.

The National Wrestling Alliance is coming back a bit filling the void, especially out west where the Big 2 don't run that much. Eddie Gilbert's and Terry Gordy's runs with the NWA belt were really good.

 

[Geon]

I understand from some interviews with the new owners of the WWF that plans are afoot to phase out the theatrics and replace them with actual fighting skills being exhibited. Less theater more actual competition.

 

[TheMann]

True, but still, there have been an uninterrupted series of Formula 1 races in the United States since then, even if the 2000s largely saw mediocre street circuits being used until 2010 when the Circuit of the Americas saw its US Grand Prix. There has also been more American involvement in Formula 1 by teams and drivers as well.

It's not coincidence that of the only of the street circuits used by F1 in the 2000s, only New Jersey is still there and still hosting Formula One. Long Beach, Miami and Seattle all went to Indycars and/or IMSA because of the cost of F1. Yeah it's great to see Chevrolet and Chrysler engines and Vector and Crawford in Formula One, but that doesn't defy the costs involved. COTA is only staying afloat because of the sports car races there and lots of tracks days and testing. Lots of people wanna drive their road cars on an F1 circuit....

 

[brokenrobot00]

Then's there's the chameleon of the American sports landscape the NFL or should I say the NRFL as it's called today. As the labor issues continued to build with no sign of a settlement the owners of the United States formerly most popular league began to struggle and fight among themselves as to a solution. There was a real chance the League would reverse the merger struck decades before as a splinter group of owners lead by Al Davis threatened to quit the organization and reform the AFL as an independent entity. This caused an emergency summit and a heated meeting lasting close to 20 hours. Finally Jerry Jones just said "F***k it let's just switch sports." At first the statement was played for laughs but as time passed it was becoming more clear that the CFL had locked down most the top talent in the game and were likely to expand in the United States cementing itself in the marketplace. On what would have been the date of the Superbowl the owners group announced the NFL would cease operations and in it's place would be constructed the National Rugby Football League (NRFL). I've never seen a switch like that done so efficiently before. All former NFL stadiums and fields were retrofitted for Rugby. By late February all club scouting departments were assembled and recruiting talent from Universities. GM's managed to pull a few big fish and prospects from Europe, New Zealand, Oceania, and Australia mainly old lions looking for one last good run or young prospects looking for playing time. By June and July there was a huge advertising and education campaign to acclimate Americans to the game and were they ever ready for a contact sport too, the buzz was insane. Ruggers mania was in full effect, teams with familiar names playing a new game. Over the course of 5 years it almost entirely changed the American sports landscape. Colleges started spending more money on Rugby and the new interested caused an explosion of support for the National Team followed by monetary investment. As it stands right now the USA Eagles are a top 5 team in both 7's and full on 15 man versions of the sport.

 

[flippikat]

Then's there's the chameleon of the American sports landscape the NFL or should I say the NRFL as it's called today.

Over the course of 5 years it almost entirely changed the American sports landscape. Colleges started spending more money on Rugby and the new interested caused an explosion of support for the National Team followed by monetary investment. As it stands right now the USA Eagles are a top 5 team in both 7's and full on 15 man versions of the sport.

Not just the American landscape - It was a huge blow to rugby league. I remember the massive defections from the ARL (Australian Rugby League) competition in the mid 1990s.

Just as they were looking to expand that professional competition outside of Australia's eastern seaboard & capitalise on Melbourne, Auckland & Perth markets.. along comes the NRFL bringing Rugby Union out of it's amateur status & putting HUGE salaries on the table. Seeing Ricky Stuart run out for the LA Rams for the first time was surreal.

 

[brokenrobot00]

Oh man I love the competition between Aussie and American rugby though great rivalry but never any hard feelings can always grab a beer after the game with those guys. The best is at the Raider Bowl every year. I was at the first one in 1999 in Aloha Stadium in Halawa and had so much fun. Now the friendly has become annual tradition between Oakland and Canberra even though they've changed venues a few times.

I hear there are rumors currently that there will be a championship game between the winner of the NRFL Superbowl and the NRL Premiereship within the next few years.

Still holding out hope for traditional Can-Am football though and that the North American Football League (formerly the CFL) will expand to Detroit finally and milk that border crossing with Windsor,Ontario.

 

[Nivek]

There was a real chance the League would reverse the merger struck decades before as a splinter group of owners lead by Al Davis threatened to quit the organization and reform the AFL as an independent entity.

OOC: this would have been amazing to see, the ultimate al davis move

 

[Spens1]

Hmm.. without the strikes, the USA might not have qualified for the 1996 Cricket World Cup. Even though they got smashed by the top teams, they got a decent team together pretty quickly from some young baseball talent, beat the other non-test playing teams and held their own against Bangladesh.

Sure they still don't have test match status (blame the "old boys network"), but they've become quite a power in limited-overs formats.

It will be them, Afghanistan or Nepal that will get in next i suspect. They're still not that good though, which is why i suspect India, Australia and the UK have held out so far for voting them in.

I'd give it another 5-10 years though, they'll get in.

 

[Spens1]

Oh man I love the competition between Aussie and American rugby though great rivalry but never any hard feelings can always grab a beer after the game with those guys. The best is at the Raider Bowl every year. I was at the first one in 1999 in Aloha Stadium in Halawa and had so much fun. Now the friendly has become annual tradition between Oakland and Canberra even though they've changed venues a few times.

I hear there are rumors currently that there will be a championship game between the winner of the NRFL Superbowl and the NRL Premiereship within the next few years.

Still holding out hope for traditional Can-Am football though and that the North American Football League (formerly the CFL) will expand to Detroit finally and milk that border crossing with Windsor,Ontario.

Rivalry, that would require you lot to get good first. You last won a a game back in 09 and we're in horrible form.

Seriously though, Canberra is way to small, they need to bring it up to Qld or have it at SFS or ANZ (they won't sell out but it would be alright at least).

 

[overninethousands]

Officially it started on August 12, 1994 with the first day of the MLBPA strike and ended on July 4, 1995 with the abbreviated 1995 MLB season, and given the folly that was MLS in 1995, it wasn’t totally without sports, but all four major professional leagues were shut down because of disputes between owners and players during that time. Football lost what would have been the 75th NFL season. Hockey and basketball lost the 1994-95 season’s entirely. And MLS...I only brin it up because I was at Columbus’ inaugural game and, oddly enough, at its last one as well. What a sad joke that League was.

Given how all four leagues’ labor situations went to hell at once, is there any way to save ANY of them? For a challenge, save all four with no interruptions and have sports turn into the money and entertainment juggernaut it was looking to become.

The big winners of the year without sports was Motorsports. Any time I turned on the tv that year racing was on. Nascar cemented itself as the top dog but Indycar and Formula One also came back to relevance. Heck I remember even motorcycle events and boat races being heavily covered. Monster Jam had a prime time tv show for goodness sake. Even Rally Car took advantage and restarted the Olympus Rally and Press on Regardless Rally had international attention. Minor League Hockey and Triple A baseball also earned a lot of fans back then and made sports more regional again something not seen in something like 100 years.

Bingo.

With the CART/IRL split started by Tony George at the exact same moment (1994-96) talk about a bad year for sport in general. The sad thing is, had Tony George no split away from CART, Indycar may have benefited from the "year without sports". Of course the huge winner of the twin debacles - "year without a sport" and "Indycar split" was NASCAR - it was the only one standing ! People needed distraction and TV needed something fun to broadcast, and NASCAR was the one.

The Frances family that rules NASCAR for decades just couldn't believed about their sudden luck. Just imagine, not only their main MOTORSPORT competitor commits a "TV ratings suicide", but also some of the most popular SPORT leagues. Unbelievable.

OOC edit

The best part for IndyCar nuts like me in that 1995 season was seeing Tony George take note of all those new fans and do a 180 on the Indy Racing League when it came to rivaling CART, going from pariah from hero in just a few years as a direct result.

Not a chance in hell, unfortunately. 1994 is too late for The Split not to happen. Way too much hatred between Tony George and the CART moguls like Penske, Haas and Patrick.

 

[flippikat]

Oh man I love the competition between Aussie and American rugby though great rivalry but never any hard feelings can always grab a beer after the game with those guys. The best is at the Raider Bowl every year. I was at the first one in 1999 in Aloha Stadium in Halawa and had so much fun. Now the friendly has become annual tradition between Oakland and Canberra even though they've changed venues a few times.

I hear there are rumors currently that there will be a championship game between the winner of the NRFL Superbowl and the NRL Premiereship within the next few years.

It still staggers me how America (and the NFLs switch to rugby) reunited rugby league and rugby union after 100 years apart.

The first couple of seasons (basically under rugby league rules, due to the tackle count being similar to 'downs', they figured the fans would understand it quickly) put a lot of fear into the hearts of rugby union administrators.

There was a very strong rumour that a huge crop of rugby union talent was going to join the NRFL after the 1995 World Cup. To be honest, the exodus of rugby league talent from the Australian & English competitions in that sport had them worried.


Thank goodness for the Boston Agreement - the International Rugby Board, Rugby League International & NRFL negotiated a new set of rules that brought everything together.

 

[flippikat]

Rivalry, that would require you lot to get good first. You last won a a game back in 09 and we're in horrible form.

Seriously though, Canberra is way to small, they need to bring it up to Qld or have it at SFS or ANZ (they won't sell out but it would be alright at least).

Got to admit though, the "Raiders Clash" games in the early 2000s were good spectacles. Oakland Raiders vs Canberra Raiders, George Gregan pulling out incredible plays for Canberra.. in the teeth of some fierce Oakland defence. Brilliant!

Still, as a New Zealander the rivalry that always stands out to me is the late 1990s Denver Broncos v Auckland Blues games. I mean, John Elway vs Carlos Spencer?? Epic games.

 

[Spens1]

Got to admit though, the "Raiders Clash" games in the early 2000s were good spectacles. Oakland Raiders vs Canberra Raiders, George Gregan pulling out incredible plays for Canberra.. in the teeth of some fierce Oakland defence. Brilliant!

Still, as a New Zealander the rivalry that always stands out to me is the late 1990s Denver Broncos v Auckland Blues games. I mean, John Elway vs Carlos Spencer?? Epic games.

Oh yeah, it was a brilliant spectacle. like 2 extra times, golden point. It was really good.

 

[Alstein]

Oh man I love the competition between Aussie and American rugby though great rivalry but never any hard feelings can always grab a beer after the game with those guys. The best is at the Raider Bowl every year. I was at the first one in 1999 in Aloha Stadium in Halawa and had so much fun. Now the friendly has become annual tradition between Oakland and Canberra even though they've changed venues a few times.

I hear there are rumors currently that there will be a championship game between the winner of the NRFL Superbowl and the NRL Premiereship within the next few years.

Still holding out hope for traditional Can-Am football though and that the North American Football League (formerly the CFL) will expand to Detroit finally and milk that border crossing with Windsor,Ontario.

The Carolina Cyclones Grey Cup run was amazing. Carter-Finlay's one of the best stadiums in the league. Rumors are Philip Rivers will be the GOP nominee for Governor in 2020.