Veteran sportswriter and
Birmingham, AL native Scott Adamson (The
Home Team: My Bromance with Off-Brand Football) joins the
pod to discuss his curious decades-long relationship with the
various attempts at rooting pro football in the "Magic City."
Birmingham's venerable
Legion Field - known legendarily as the "Football Capital of the
South" for its long-time association with the annual Alabama-Auburn
"Iron Bowl" college season-ender - has also been home base for a
parade of franchises in virtually every major challenger pro
football league since the 1970s, including:
-
The World Football
League "World Bowl" champion Birmingham Americans (1974);
-
1975's de facto
title-winning Birmingham Vulcans of the reincarnated second edition
WFL;
-
The USFL's perennially
competitive Birmingham Stallions (1983-85);
-
The World League of
American Football's Birmingham Fire (1991-92);
-
1995's Birmingham
Barracudas of the Canadian Football League;
-
The woeful Birmingham Thunderbolts of
2001's original XFL; AND
-
The playoff-qualifying
Birmingham Iron of the 2019's short-lived Alliance of American
Football
Adamson helps us dig
into Birmingham's checkered history with the pro game, the
pathology of its fandom over that time, why the city is reliably
found on new/startup league short lists, and whether the XFL's
return in 2022 might portend yet another chance - this time with a
brand new Protective Stadium as a lure.
