Professional Football Researchers Association Forum

I was only in kindergarten back then, so I have questions about what networks broadcasted the WFL, and if they were national prime time games or only regional on TV. I do remember that in the USFL, ABC broadcasted the Sunday games, while ESPN had Friday, Saturday and Monday nights (and a few Sunday games weren’t broadcasted at all, nor had instant replay!).

In 1974 the Thursday night games were on a nationally syndicated network called TVS which was made up of independent (non-network, that is they weren't ABC, CBS, NBC or PBS) stations. The other games (and all the 1975 games) were broadcast by local stations in each team's market and then it was only road games involving the local team.

I heard that the league tried to get Joe Namath to play in Chicago for the 1975 season, and the failure to do that basically killed the league. If they did get Joe Willie, and he saves the league, I heard that CBS would have given them a national TV deal for the 1976 season.

I was in high school at that time so i can answer your question. On Thursday night a national tv game was broadcast on Thursday night on TVS The rest of the teams except Hawaii were on Thursday night broadcast on local tv.

Didn't HBO also carry some games that first season?

single wing wrote:I was in high school at that time so i can answer your question. On Thursday night a national tv game was broadcast on Thursday night on TVS The rest of the teams except Hawaii were on Thursday night broadcast on local tv.

Do you know if every team played in those national tv games? I remember that in the USFL, not all the teams played in the ABC Sunday games in the first season (I don´t remember seeing the Arizona Wranglers).

vikingsfan1963 wrote:Didn't HBO also carry some games that first season?

I forgot all about HBO, but I believe that was in 1975.

Teo wrote:

single wing wrote:I was in high school at that time so i can answer your question. On Thursday night a national tv game was broadcast on Thursday night on TVS The rest of the teams except Hawaii were on Thursday night broadcast on local tv.

Do you know if every team played in those national tv games? I remember that in the USFL, not all the teams played in the ABC Sunday games in the first season (I don´t remember seeing the Arizona Wranglers).

The answer is yes, even the Detroit Wheels had a Thursday night game - August 22nd against Chicago.

HBO and the WFL:
http://wfl.charlottehornetswfl.com/pages_1974/hbo.php

If you scroll down about 1/2 a page you can see the actual TV schedule for TVS. They broadcasted national games 17 of the 20 weeks.


http://wfl.charlottehornetswfl.com/pages_1974/tvs.php