WFL Newspaper Archives

Los Angeles Times, October 2, 1973

HERE'S A NEW ONE ---WORLD FOOTBALL

The folks who bought you the American Basketball Association have a new one coming up for next year; the World Football League. No official announcement is expected until November, but the word is that there will be eight teams for 1974, with others planned.

Franchises already have been lined up, an informed source said Monday, for Los Angeles or Anaheim, New York, Honolulu, Toronto, Tampa, Tokyo and Boston. Recruiting for owners is underway in Chicago, Seattle, Oklahoma City, Milwaukee, North Carolina, Phoenix, Portland, Birmingham, Memphis, Vancouver and Indianapolis. In the future: Mexico City, London, and Osaka, Japan.

Heading the enterprise is Gary L. Davidson, Santa Ana attorney, who was in at the birth of the ABA and WHA.

The World Football League has high hopes: it would like to land Joe Namath of the New York Jets, and other stars. "A player of Joe's stature could clear a million a year in our league," the source said.

The league promises innovations: a ban on zone defense, two-point conversions; a point scale for field goals, geared to distance, with penalties for misses; territorial rights for franchises in the college draft.