World Football League Affilliates

[hipman2]

I'm not sure if this was started, but I remember that there once was the WFL played sometime in 1974 and 75. It was distributed by the TVS Network, which I believe was a syndicator of the games.

The San Diego affilliate for the WFL was XETV from Tijuana.

What other affilliates were there?

[KeithE4]

I'm not sure if this was started, but I remember that there once was the WFL played sometime in 1974 and 75. It was distributed by the TVS Network, which I believe was a syndicator of the games.

The San Diego affilliate for the WFL was XETV from Tijuana.

What other affilliates were there?

TVS was the syndicator, but only for the 1974 season.  There was no national TV coverage for what passed for the 1975 season (the league shut down before the season was complete).

As far as affiliates go, from what I remember, KPHO-TV carried the TVS games in Phoenix.  WGN-TV carried the WFL in Chicago, but those may have been just local telecasts of the Fire/Winds.

[Toledo Eleven]

Here's an ad from 1974 with the NY Stars at the Philadelphia Bells: http://vintagetoledotv.squarespace.com/print-ads-wkbd/wkbd-tv-50-print-ads/3667247

[bpatrick]

WRCB/3 Chattanooga pre-empted NBC's Thursday-night
lineup from 9 PM on in order to carry the WFL; I think even
Johnny Carson was pre-empted on Thursday nights.

Three indies I know carried the WFL:

WTCG Atlanta
WSWB (now WOFL Fox35) Orlando
WTOG Tampa/St. Petersburg

[Ultimajock]

...I'm fairly positive that WVTV/18 Milwaukee also carried the WFL at one point...

[Tim L]

I am also pretty certain that Kaiser's WKBF-61 Cleveland carried the WFL.

[Charles1]

Birmingham's WFL affiliate was NBC affiliate WAPI-13 (now WVTM).

[dhett]

Here's an ad from 1974 with the NY Stars at the Philadelphia Bells: http://vintagetoledotv.squarespace.com/print-ads-wkbd/wkbd-tv-50-print-ads/3667247

Nothing like knowing what you're advertising.  The home team was the Philadelphia Bell not Bells.

[ixnay]

The Philadelphia Bell played at JFK Stadium which stood where the Wachovia Center now stands in South Philly.

The Bell had one of the coolest logos in sports: a Liberty Bell with a lighting bolt where the crack was on the real bell.

The Bell were infamous for grossly padding attendance figures (courtesy of ticket giveaways by the boxcarload) thus turning the WFL into the World Freebie League.

WPHL-17 televised the Bell’s games in 1974 on Wednesday nights with local announcers.  WPHL otoh was Philly’s TVS affiliate for the Thursday night national telecast.  I watched TVS’s WFL premiere as a 13 yo and it opened with a crude animation of a stork descending on a stadium delivering an orange WFL football.  NFL Films actually aired a Lost Classics ep about the WFL that included, among other things, that animation, a few years ago.

ixnay
(who’s touched the real Liberty Bell a couple of times [visits] – pre, pre, PRE 9/11)

[Stanislav]

The Bell were infamous for grossly padding attendance figures (courtesy of ticket giveaways by the boxcarload) thus turning the WFL into the World Freebie League.

Actually, that practice was endemic throughout the league -- many teams gave away (or sold at ridiculous bargain basement prices, like $5 a pop) as much as 90% of their tickets in a futile effort to inflate their figures.