Will Birmingham play in the Southern Football League?
January 24, 1953
J. Curtis Sanford announces his plan for a six-team professional football league
that will be based in the South, the Southern Football League. Birmingham is one
of the cities he named that would receive an inaugural franchise.
Other cities joining Birmingham will be Atlanta, Dallas, Houston, Mexico City,
and New Orleans.
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J. Curtis Sanford |
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Sanford is no stranger to organized football. At the college level, he was the
main force behind the Cotton Bowl Classic that began in 1937. As he sat in the
stadium watching the 1936 Rose Bowl game, Sanford wondered, "Why can't Dallas
have a game like this?" When he returned home, he got to work and created a New
Year's Day classic of his own. At the professional level, he was recently an
investor in the Dallas Texans, which recently folded after playing just one
season in the National Football League. With Dallas dropping out of the NFL, pro
football has no teams in the South or Southwest, which gave Sanford his idea.
Sanford didn’t name any prospective team owners, but promised to line up heavy
hitters for each franchise. He hopes to lure some former Texans to the SFL. "The
Texans never released the players. Of course, we can’t make the players play for
us, but I’ve talked to some of the players from last year’s team and their
reaction to the Southern League, with its international flavor, is terrific."
"I don’t think the new league would have any trouble getting players. And I
think the league will go over, with the proper promotion. We will have a strong
promotion program here, you can bet. The Texans would’ve gone over last year
with better promotion. Mexico City is a fine spot for professional football and
will strengthen the league. Mexico City has the finest stadium in the world and
just last month a (soccer) game there drew 122,000 paid admissions," Sanford
said.
Sanford hopes that the warmer climate and lifestyle would be his hook to draw in
top-quality players. "Money isn’t everything to a football player. The players
now take into consideration such things as weather conditions, living
conditions, and a lot of little things that go toward a happy, satisfied life.
Here in the south we can offer the best of all these things and my talks with
some professional football players bear this out. The response from those I’ve
talked to has been terrifically enthusiastic, especially the idea of having
Mexico City as a member of the circuit."
Sanford said he had learned valuable lessons from the Texans failure, and that
knowledge would help make the SFL a success. "Football is a big business and to
succeed it has to be operated as such. The Dallas Texans’ brief fling in the pro
league provided us with a lot of examples of things not to do. But there have
been many other examples of unsound business practices involving even the
long-established clubs. We hope to profit by these mistakes and minimize our
chances of making any fatal errors."
Another advantage for the SFL will be that it wouldn’t have to battle with the
NFL for stadiums or fan support since it was going into mostly new markets. "We
would not be competing for attendance at the gate, for choice dates or use of
the same stadiums, factors which struck heavy financial blows at everyone
concerned. We’re going to do it right or not do it all."
Epilogue
In February an exhibition game was played between the Politecnico All-Stars and
American All-Stars in Mexico City, which could have been seen as a test run for
a SFL team there. It did not go well. The home Politecnico team defeated the
American team 31-6 in front of only 30,000 fans. To make matters worse, fans
spent the afternoon booing the players, threw trash on the field, and set fires
in the grandstands.
It is not known if that horrible display changed Sanford’s plans but nothing
else was heard from him regarding the Southern Football League.
By the time the 1953 NFL season began, the Texans assets had been turned over to
the new Baltimore Colts franchise.
The National Football League didn’t face any real competition until 1960, when
the American Football League began play. Ironically, it was the AFL's new Dallas
Texans, along with the Houston Oilers, that finally gave professional football a
Southern presence.
College football's annual Cotton Bowl Classic is still played to this date.
Contact Gene Crowley
Last update: May 16, 2022