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Good Seats Still Available

Sports & Recreation Podcasts

“Good Seats Still Available” is a curious little podcast devoted to the exploration of what used-to-be in professional sports. Each week, host Tim Hanlon interviews former players, owners, broadcasters, beat reporters, and surprisingly famous "super fans" of teams and leagues that have come and gone - in an attempt to unearth some of the most wild and woolly moments in (often forgotten) sports history.

Location:

United States

Description:

“Good Seats Still Available” is a curious little podcast devoted to the exploration of what used-to-be in professional sports. Each week, host Tim Hanlon interviews former players, owners, broadcasters, beat reporters, and surprisingly famous "super fans" of teams and leagues that have come and gone - in an attempt to unearth some of the most wild and woolly moments in (often forgotten) sports history.

Language:

English


Episodes

341: "Pro" Wrestling's Origin Story - With Jon Langmead

3/18/2024
We squint hard this week for a look into the story of American "professional" wrestling's formative years - with pop culture writer Jon Langmead (Ballyhoo! The Roughhousers, Con Artists, and Wildmen Who Invented Professional Wrestling). Langmead takes us inside the raucous period roughly between the mid-1870s to the early-1940s - where genuine competitive wrestlers and opportunistic amusement-minded promoters (both heavily influenced by the country's booming carnival circuit) together codified the now modern-day conventions that transformed a legitimate, physically demanding sport into melodramatic mass entertainment. Central to Langmead's narrative is the life and career of Jack Curley - a fledgling turn-of-the-century boxing promoter whose fortunes turned when he began touting wrestling matches in big US cities like Chicago and New York - where by the late-1910s, his monthly shows regularly sold out Madison Square Garden. Join us for a look back at the foundational years of "professional" wrestling, - before Vince McMahon and the WWE, and even prior to the "golden era" of the National Wrestling Alliance on early television - where colorful athletes like “Strangler” Ed Lewis, Frank Gotch, the “Masked Marvel,” Jim Londos, “Gorgeous George” Wagner, “Farmer” Martin Burns, and “Dynamite” Gus Sonnenberg ruled the day - and defined the "sport." + + + SUPPORT THE SHOW: Buy Us a Coffee https://ko-fi.com/goodseatsstillavailable SPONSOR THANKS: Newspapers.com (promo code: GSA20): https://newspapers.com BUY/READ EARLY & OFTEN: Ballyhoo! The Roughhousers, Con Artists, and Wildmen Who Invented Professional Wrestling(2024):https://amzn.to/49ZofGy FIND & FOLLOW: https://goodseatsstillavailable.com/ https://twitter.com/GoodSeatsStill https://www.instagram.com/goodseatsstillavailable/ https://www.threads.net/@goodseatsstillavailable https://www.facebook.com/GoodSeatsStillAvailable/ https://www.youtube.com/@goodseatsstillavailable

Duration:01:17:47

340: Baseball's "New York Game" - With Kevin Baker

3/11/2024
Harper's Contributing Editor and novelist/historian extraordinaire Kevin Baker ("The New York Game: Baseball and the Rise of a New City") brings his blended affection for (and evocative portrayals of) both "The Big Apple" and the "National Pastime" - to make a compelling case for New York City as the rightful center of the baseball universe. From Alan Moores' review in Booklist: "Baseball fans beyond Gotham’s gravitational pull might bristle at the notion that New York was the epicenter of the creation and growth of the game. But Baker’s raucous, revelatory, lovingly detailed account will win them over from the first pitch. Baker lays out the early history of the game in the city, then seamlessly weaves together the vibrant origin stories of the New York Yankees, New York Giants, Brooklyn Dodgers, and the city’s Cuban and African American teams, right up to the eve of Jackie Robinson’s 1945 signing with the Dodgers. "He vividly recreates the recklessly ambitious, breathtakingly corrupt, alcohol-fueled world of Tammany Hall politics—which were followed by the reforms of Fiorello La Guardia—that steered, and were sometimes even steered by, the game. Dozens of near-mythic and also too-human figures parade through the pages, from John McGraw, Christy Mathewson, Fred Merkle, Carl Hubbell, Mel Ott, Leo Durocher, Casey Stengel, Red Barber, Lou Gehrig, Joe DiMaggio, and Branch Rickey, to an array of crime bosses, team owners, and mayors. "Then there was Babe Ruth, whose gaudy statistics, irrepressible personality, and seismic impact on the game, the city, and the entire nation outshone even his legend, as Baker convincingly argues here. A spellbinding history of a game and the city where it found itself." SUPPORT THE SHOW: Buy Us a Coffee https://ko-fi.com/goodseatsstillavailable SPONSOR THANKS: Newspapers.com (promo code: GSA20): https://newspapers.com BUY/READ EARLY & OFTEN: The New York Game: Baseball and the Rise of a New City FIND & FOLLOW: https://goodseatsstillavailable.com/ https://twitter.com/GoodSeatsStill https://www.instagram.com/goodseatsstillavailable/ https://www.threads.net/@goodseatsstillavailable https://www.facebook.com/GoodSeatsStillAvailable/ https://www.youtube.com/@goodseatsstillavailable

Duration:01:06:43

339: Early-Day WNBA - With Marie Ferdinand-Harris

3/4/2024
It's a celebration of women's hoops this week, as we look back at the "early days" of the Women's National Basketball Association - including stops with the oft-forgotten Utah Starzz and San Antonio Silver Stars - with three-time league all-star Marie Ferdinand-Harris (Transformed: The Winning Side of Losing). A first-round pick in the WNBA's fifth-ever draft in 2001, Ferdinand was a dominant shooting guard at LSU prior to her 8th-overall selection by Utah - a formidable presence inside the paint and outside the arc, skills honed from leading title-winning teams at Edison High School, in the heart of Miami's historically poor "Little Haiti" neighborhood. After a stellar 11-year pro career (including turns with the league-original LA Sparks and Phoenix Mercury), Ferdinand-Harris is one of the unsung pioneers of the WNBA, part of a first generation of players that helped solidify the foundation for an organization whose success was not guaranteed at the time - but now is firmly rooted in the American pro sports infrastructure. + + + SUPPORT THE SHOW: Buy Us a Coffee https://www.buymeacoffee.com/goodseatsstillavailable Donate via Ko-fi https://ko-fi.com/goodseatsstillavailable SPONSOR THANKS: Royal Retros (promo code: SEATS): https://www.royalretros.com/?aff=2 BUY/READ EARLY & OFTEN: Transformed: The Winning Side of Losing GIVE UNTIL IT HURTS: Be Like CJ Foundation FIND & FOLLOW: https://goodseatsstillavailable.com/ https://twitter.com/GoodSeatsStill https://www.instagram.com/goodseatsstillavailable/https://www.threads.net/@goodseatsstillavailable https://www.facebook.com/GoodSeatsStillAvailable/ https://www.youtube.com/@goodseatsstillavailable

Duration:01:17:07

338: 50 Years of San Jose Earthquakes Soccer - With Gary Singh

2/26/2024
It's a "retcon" special this week, as we celebrate the 50th anniversary of one of the most colorful and persistent franchises in American pro soccer history - with a return visit from Episode 40 guest Gary Singh (The Unforgettable San Jose Earthquakes: Momentous Stories On & Off the Field). As one of four West Coast expansion teams (along with the Los Angeles Aztecs, Seattle Sounders and Vancouver Whitecaps) added for the North American Soccer League’s breakthrough 1974 season, the original San Jose Earthquakes were an immediate hit both on the field (finishing second in an all-new Western Division, led by league-leading scorer [and Episode 35 guest] Paul Child) - and in the stands, where they averaged 15,000+ fans a game to a less-than-modern Spartan Stadium, more than double the league average at the time. Though never regular championship contenders, the ‘Quakes cultivated a rabidly loyal fan base that became the envy of clubs across the league – until the NASL’s ultimate demise ten years later. Fragments of the club soldiered on semi-professionally in the following years, but the appellation (along with some of the previous cast) returned in earnest in 1999, when the management of San Jose’s struggling (and unpopularly named) Major League Soccer “Clash” sought to rekindle some of the original NASL team's magic; by 2001, the second iteration of the Earthquakes were contending for and winning MLS Cup and Supporters’ Shield titles. However, stymied by an inability to construct a soccer-specific stadium in the area, owner-operator Anschutz Entertainment Group pulled up stakes and relocated the club to Houston (Dynamo) for 2006 – taking further championships with them. Nonplussed San Jose fans revolted – and a new “expansion” franchise was quickly announced by MLS officials, with plenty of structural caveats that ensure today’s now-third incarnation of the ‘Quakes rightfully retains all of its accumulated heritage and rich legacy. + + + SPONSOR THANKS: Old School Shirts (promo code: GOODSEATS): https://oldschoolshirts.com/goodseats BUY/READ EARLY & OFTEN: The Unforgettable San Jose Earthquakes: Momentous Stories On & Off the Field(2024):The San Jose Earthquakes: A Seismic Soccer Legacy (2015): FIND & FOLLOW: https://goodseatsstillavailable.com/ https://twitter.com/GoodSeatsStill https://www.instagram.com/goodseatsstillavailable/ https://www.facebook.com/GoodSeatsStillAvailable/ https://www.youtube.com/@goodseatsstillavailable

Duration:01:31:59

337: The 1990-91 Minnesota North Stars - With Kevin Allenspach

2/19/2024
Veteran Minnesota sportswriter Kevin Allenspach (Mirage of Destiny: The Story of the 1990-91 Minnesota North Stars) takes to the ice with us this week, as we look back at one of the most improbable playoff runs in NHL history - one that came the closest to giving the self-professed "State of Hockey" its first Stanley Cup championship - a title that still eludes the region to this day. Throughout much of the 1990-91 season, the Minnesota North Stars were among the worst-performing clubs in the National Hockey League - and dead last at the box office. Rumors of the team's possible sale to new owners of the team were swirling, and the threat of relocation was real. Distractions notwithstanding, the North Stars gritted their way into the playoffs, winning only 27 of 80 regular-season games. And against all odds, they upset both the Presidents' Trophy-winning Chicago Blackhawks and the regular season's second-best St. Louis Blues in the first two rounds - followed by a dispatching of the defending Stanley Cup Champion Edmonton Oilers in the Campbell Conference Finals. Despite ultimately losing the Stanley Cup Finals to the Pittsburgh Penguins, the underdog North Stars managed to capture the imagination of Twin Cities hockey fans (not to mention a certain club public relations intern) during their unexpected postseason run - enough to spark renewed hope for the franchise's future. Allenspach, of course, tells us otherwise - culminating in the team's relocation to Dallas in 1993. + + + SPONSOR THANKS: Royal Retros (promo code: SEATS): https://www.royalretros.com/?aff=2 BUY/READ EARLY & OFTEN: Mirage of Destiny: The Story of the 1990-91 Minnesota North Stars (2024): FIND & FOLLOW: https://goodseatsstillavailable.com/ https://twitter.com/GoodSeatsStill https://www.instagram.com/goodseatsstillavailable/ https://www.facebook.com/GoodSeatsStillAvailable/ https://www.youtube.com/@goodseatsstillavailable

Duration:01:51:43

336: Lost Tales of the MISL - With Tim O'Bryhim

2/12/2024
We celebrate the launch of the new "MISL 1980s: The Story of Indoor Soccer" Substack series with its author and return (Episode 31) guest Tim O'Bryhim ("Make This Town Big: The Story of Roy Turner and the Wichita Wings" & "God Save the Wings"). O'Bryhim's long-form pieces promise to bring to light myriad stories from the legendary original Major Indoor Soccer League - a pioneering pro soccer circuit that remains surprisingly under-chronicled, despite its outsized influence on the game's history in the US, including its role in helping mainstream the art of entertainment-flavored presentation now commonplace in big-time sports. + + + SPONSOR THANKS: Old School Shirts (promo code: GOODSEATS): https://oldschoolshirts.com/goodseats SUBSCRIBE/BUY/READ/WATCH EARLY & OFTEN: MISL 1980s: The Story of Indoor Soccer (Substack; free subscription: https://misl1980s.substack.com/ Make This Town Big: The Story of Roy Turner and the Wichita Wings (2014): https://amzn.to/4bKaUDg God Save the Wings (2020): https://amzn.to/48bNTGb FIND & FOLLOW: Website: https://goodseatsstillavailable.com/Twitter: https://twitter.com/GoodSeatsStillInstagram (+ Threads): https://www.instagram.com/goodseatsstillavailable/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/GoodSeatsStillAvailable/YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@goodseatsstillavailable

Duration:01:12:34

335: On the Diamonds of Des Moines - With Steve Dunn

2/5/2024
Iowa baseball chronologist Steve Dunn ("'Pug,' 'Fireball,' and Company: 116 Years of Professional Baseball in Des Moines, Iowa") joins for a surprisingly rich journey into the history of professional baseball in the Hawkeye State's largest city - currently home to the Diamond Baseball Holdings-owned Triple-A affiliate of the National League's Chicago Cubs. Besides today's Iowa Cubs, the city of Des Moines has been home to minor league baseball in various forms since 1887 - featuring a long list of stars that have played or managed clubs there, including Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Bob Feller, Satchel Paige, Red Faber, Buck O'Neil, Ryne Sandberg, Tony LaRussa, Charlie Grimm, and Stan Hack. Dunn walks us through some of Des Moines baseball's most noteworthy ballparks (such as Western League Park, home of the first night game featuring a permanent lighting system on 5/2/1930); circuits (like the long-forgotten Three–I [Class B] League featuring the reborn 1959-61 Des Moines Demons); barnstormers (the Negro League "All Nations" club); and eyebrow-raising team names - from Midgets to Prohibitionists to Undertakers. + + + SPONSOR THANKS: Royal Retros https://www.royalretros.com/?aff=2 BUY/READ EARLY & OFTEN: 'Pug,' 'Fireball,' and Company: 116 Years of Professional Baseball in Des Moines, Iowa (2023): https://amzn.to/4bqMApS FIND & FOLLOW: https://goodseatsstillavailable.com/ https://twitter.com/GoodSeatsStill https://www.instagram.com/goodseatsstillavailable/ https://www.facebook.com/GoodSeatsStillAvailable/ https://www.youtube.com/@goodseatsstillavailable

Duration:01:20:21

334.5: The National Bowling League – With Dr. Jake Schmidt [ARCHIVE RE-RELEASE]

1/29/2024
[A dip into the archives for a fan favorite from 2019 - featuring a show-closing ode to the late, great 70s' TV game show "Celebrity Bowling"!] + + + We hit the lanes this week to delve into the fascinating story of the nation’s first and only attempt at a professional team bowling league – a seemingly anachronistic idea by today’s standards, but a concept that made total sense in the early 1960s when pro bowling was in ascendance and the sport was seemingly everywhere on television. Bowlers Journal columnist and historian J.R. “Dr. Jake” Schmidt (The Bowling Chronicles: Collected Writings of Dr. Jake) joins the podcast to lay out the curious backstory, short-lived season(s) and unwitting legacy of the National Bowling League (1960-62) – an ambitious, but altogether logical attempt to professionalize bowling in the style of America’s other major team sports, and capitalize on the big money purses beginning to fuel national TV competitions during the late 1950s. Amidst a bevy of popular made-for-TV competitions that featured various takes on head-to-head play – like NBC’s weekly Championship Bowling, and primetime’s Make That Spare (ABC) and Jackpot Bowling (NBC) – the coast-to-coast NBL hoped to offer bowling professionals a city-based team format, replete with purposely-designed television-friendly arenas and boisterous fans. Despite investment from deep-pocketed funders like AFL founder Lamar Hunt and oilman/Cotton Bowl creator J. Curtis Sanford (whose Dallas-based 72-lane Bronco Bowl set the standard for NBL facilities); a well-publicized draft (with then-Vice President Lyndon Johnson in attendance); and a novel scoring system that featured situational bonus points and wild-card substitutions, the NBL stumbled out of the gate devoid of the very thing it needed most to succeed – a national television contract. Outfoxed by the nascent Pro Bowlers Association – which was simultaneously pioneering a laddered individual vs. individual national tour format with a similarly fledgling ABC-TV – the NBL had to rely solely on individual gates while trying to convince other networks to take notice. Early crowds were sparse to virtually non-existent, and most pros found the money, light workload and broad television exposure of the PBA’s “Pro Bowlers’ Tour” to be the better path to ply their wares. It’s a tale of what might have been – and we “spare” no question in our pursuit of the story of this most intriguing of forgotten pro leagues! + + + SPONSOR THANKS: Royal Retros BUY/READ EARLY & OFTEN: The Bowling Chronicles: Collected Writings of Dr. Jake FIND & FOLLOW: https://goodseatsstillavailable.com/ https://twitter.com/GoodSeatsStill https://www.instagram.com/goodseatsstillavailable/ https://www.facebook.com/GoodSeatsStillAvailable/ https://www.youtube.com/@goodseatsstillavailable

Duration:01:35:21

334: Atlanta's "White Ice" - With Tom Aiello

1/22/2024
Valdosta State University history professor (and Episode 244 guest) Tom Aiello ("Dixieball: Race and Professional Basketball in the Deep South") returns after a two-year absence - for an enlightening look at the curious cultural history of the city of Atlanta's awkward relationship with professional hockey. In his new book "White Ice: Race and the Making of Atlanta Hockey," Aiello interestingly juxtaposes the National Hockey League's aggressive expansion in the late 1960s/early 1970s (including a new WHA-hastened Flames franchise in 1972), against the city's de facto status as the "capital of the Deep South" - and its population's rapidly changing racial and socio-economic contours. To wit: For its own part, Atlanta had been watching as White residents left the city for the suburbs over the course of the 1960s. As the turn of the decade approached, city leadership was searching for ways to mitigate white flight and bring residents of the surrounding suburbs back to the city center. So when a stereotypically White sport came to the Deep South in 1971 in the form of the Flames, ownership saw a new opportunity to appeal to White audiences. But the challenge would be selling a game that was foreign to most of Atlanta’s longtime sports fans. Against that backdrop, of course, the Flames (1972-80) lasted but only eight seasons - and its NHL successor Atlanta Thrashers (1999-2011) did not fare much better in the face of similar and arguably even more pronounced circumstances. And yet, the "dream" of another franchise lives on. Might Atlanta get a third chance to finally make pro hockey stick? What's changed (and hasn't) in the region's demographic landscape and economic calculus? Listen in and find out! + + + SPONSOR THANKS: Royal Retros BUY/READ EARLY & OFTEN: White Ice: Race and the Making of Atlanta Hockey (2024): https://amzn.to/3vFQw5z FIND & FOLLOW: https://goodseatsstillavailable.com/ https://twitter.com/GoodSeatsStill https://www.instagram.com/goodseatsstillavailable/ https://www.facebook.com/GoodSeatsStillAvailable/ https://www.youtube.com/@goodseatsstillavailable

Duration:01:25:29

333: "Soccer Tom" Mulroy

1/15/2024
We buckle up this week for a wild and revelatory ride across 50+ years of big-time soccer in the United States with one of the biggest unsung heroes of the American game - and unquestionably, one of its most prominent "keepers of the flame." The professional and personal life journey of "Soccer Tom" Mulroy ("90 Minutes with the King: How Soccer Saved My Life") virtually parallels the 1970s-to-1990s boom-bust-and-boom-again roller coaster of soccer's early modern history in the US - and today thrives in tandem with the sport's long-overdue cultural acceptance. In a pro career spanning five leagues and nearly a dozen franchises (including Good Seats bucket-list stops with the MISL Hartford Hellions, ASL Cleveland Cobras, NASL Miami Toros & 1986-87 AISA champion Louisville Thunder) Mulroy's on-field exploits mirrored the chaotic nature of a game still struggling to find its footing among North America's competitive sports landscape. After his playing days, Mulroy evolved into the sport's indefatigable go-to goodwill ambassador, bringing Pied Piper-like enthusiasm to the domestic masses yearning for soccer literacy in the wake of breakthrough milestones like World Cup '94, the launch of MLS, and the international success of both the US Women's & Men's National teams. To understand the life of Tommy Mulroy is to understand the growth of US soccer itself! + + + SPONSOR THANKS: Old School Shirts https://oldschoolshirts.com/goodseats BUY/READ EARLY & OFTEN: 90 Minutes with the King: How Soccer Saved My Life (2023): https://amzn.to/3U2lfnG FIND & FOLLOW: https://goodseatsstillavailable.com/ https://twitter.com/GoodSeatsStill https://www.instagram.com/goodseatsstillavailable/ https://www.facebook.com/GoodSeatsStillAvailable/ https://www.youtube.com/@goodseatsstillavailable

Duration:01:57:12

332: Super Series '76 - With Ed Gruver

1/8/2024
We turn back the clock 48 years ago this week for a revisit of one of the most consequential contests in the history of the National Hockey League - with sports historian Ed Gruver ("The Game That Saved the NHL: The Broad Street Bullies. the Soviet Red Machine, and Super Series '76"). The dust jacket of Gruver's new book sums it up thusly: "In late 1975 and early 1976, at the height of the Cold War, two of the Soviet Union’s long-dominant national hockey teams traveled to North America to play an eight-game series against the best teams in the National Hockey League. The culmination of the “Super Series” was reigning Soviet League champion HC CSKA Moscow’s face-off against the defending NHL champion Flyers in Philadelphia on January 11, 1976. Known as the “Red Army Club,” HC CSKA hadn’t lost a game in the series. Known as the “Broad Street Bullies,” the Flyers were determined to bring the Red Army team’s winning streak to an end with their trademark aggressive style of play. "Based largely on interviews, Ed Gruver’s book tells the story of this epic game and series as it lays out the stakes involved: nothing less than the credibility of the NHL. If the Red Army team had completed its series sweep by defeating the two-time Stanley Cup champion Flyers, the NHL would no longer have been able to claim primacy of place in professional-level hockey. The Stanley Cup, the most famous trophy in sports, would be devalued if the Flyers fell to the Soviets. Gruver also describes how the game and series affected the styles of both Russian and NHL teams. The Soviets adopted a more physical brand of hockey, while the NHL increasingly focused on passing and speed." + + + SPONSOR THANKS: Old School Shirts https://oldschoolshirts.com/goodseats BUY/READ EARLY & OFTEN: The Game That Saved the NHL: The Broad Street Bullies. the Soviet Red Machine, and Super Series '76(2024): https://amzn.to/48Mg6UT FIND & FOLLOW: https://goodseatsstillavailable.com/ https://twitter.com/GoodSeatsStill https://www.instagram.com/goodseatsstillavailable/ https://www.facebook.com/GoodSeatsStillAvailable/ https://www.youtube.com/@goodseatsstillavailable

Duration:01:13:33

331: The NASL's San Antonio Thunder (+ More!) - With Derek Currie

1/1/2024
It's the adventure-filled story of how a late-60s-era Scottish top-league footballer helped start the first-ever professional soccer circuit in the then-British colony of Hong Kong - punctuated by an unexpected off-season loan to one of the most forgotten franchises in North American Soccer League history. Derek Currie ("When 'Jesus' Came to Hong Kong: The Remarkable Story of the First European Football Star in Asia") joins us live and direct from his home in Bangkok,Thailand for an anecdote-rich romp through the international pro soccer scene of the 1970s/early 1980s - including his memorable Texas summer of 1976 wearing the "Stars and Stripes" for the NASL's oft-overlooked San Antonio Thunder! + + + SPONSOR THANKS: Old School Shirts https://oldschoolshirts.com/goodseats BUY/READ EARLY & OFTEN: When 'Jesus' Came to Hong Kong: The Remarkable Story of the First European Football Star in Asia (2023): https://amzn.to/3H0snJm FIND & FOLLOW: https://goodseatsstillavailable.com/ https://twitter.com/GoodSeatsStill https://www.instagram.com/goodseatsstillavailable/ https://www.facebook.com/GoodSeatsStillAvailable/ https://www.youtube.com/@goodseatsstillavailable

Duration:01:22:21

330: The 4th Annual(-ish) Year-End Holiday Roundtable Spectacular!

12/25/2023
We press the rewind button on a most interesting 2023, and peer ahead into the uncharted waters of 2024 with our fourth-annual(-ish) Holiday Roundtable Spectacular - featuring three of our favorite fellow defunct sports enthusiasts: Andy Crossley (Fun While It Lasted & Episode 2); Paul Reeths (StatsCrew.com, OurSportsCentral.com & Episode 46); and Steve Holroyd (Crossecheck, Philly Classics & Episodes 92, 109, 149, 188 & 248). Takes of varying temperatures fly as we review some of the most inspiring and curious events of the past year, debate who and what might be next to wobble into obscurity, and conjecture about future scenarios for the next generation of defunct and otherwise forgotten pro sports teams and leagues - including: USFL 2.0 + XFL 3.0 = TBD 2024Oakland A's to Las Vegas (maybe)Major League CricketMiLB ownership consolidationThe Savannah BananasPremier Lacrosse League: from tour to teamsProfessional Box Lacrosse Association (RIP) Women's pro volleyballMLS vs. US SoccerNBA, NHL & MLB expansion/relocation rumorsNWSL expansion & TV dealWomen's hockey 3.0: PWHL PLUS, we speculate on the dubious third reincarnation of the Arena Football League! + + + SPONSOR THANKS: Old School Shirts https://oldschoolshirts.com/goodseats BUY/READ EARLY & OFTEN: The Big Time: How the 1970s Transformed Sports in America (2023): https://amzn.to/3LYAQ2H FIND & FOLLOW: https://goodseatsstillavailable.com/ https://twitter.com/GoodSeatsStill https://www.instagram.com/goodseatsstillavailable/ https://www.facebook.com/GoodSeatsStillAvailable/ https://www.youtube.com/@goodseatsstillavailable

Duration:01:44:10

329: The 1963 AFL San Diego Chargers - With Dave Steidel

12/18/2023
After last week's ugly, team-record 63-21 drubbing by the Las Vegas Raiders, and the subsequent dismissal of its head coach and general manager - it's been a (yet another) rough season for the NFL's Los Angeles Chargers. While family owner/scion Dean Spanos tries (again) to plot a plan forward, we look nostalgically back to the franchise's early years in San Diego as one of the charter entries in the iconoclastic American Football League - an era that produced the club's (still) one-and-only championship in 1963. AFL history chronicler Dave Steidel ("The Uncrowned Champs: How the 1963 San Diego Chargers Would Have Won the Super Bowl") helps us zero in on the story behind that AFL title-winning season - with an in-depth revisit of iconic coach Sid Gilman's blockbuster squad, featuring revered Charger greats like Tobin Rote, John Hadl, Paul Lowe, Keith Lincoln, Chuck Allen, and future Pro Football Hall of Famers Lance Allworth and Ron Mix. Plus: we debate whether the '63 Chargers could have truly beaten the NFL champion Chicago Bears that season for a definitive (albeit mythical) pre-merger American pro football title. + + + SPONSOR THANKS: 417 Helmetshttps://417helmets.com/?wpam_id=3 BUY/READ EARLY & OFTEN: "The Uncrowned Champs: How the 1963 San Diego Chargers Would Have Won the Super Bowl""Remember the AFL: The Ultimate Fan's Guide to the American Football League" (2008)"AFL Trivia and Tales: The Ultimate American Football League Trivia Book" (2023) FIND & FOLLOW: https://goodseatsstillavailable.com/ https://twitter.com/GoodSeatsStill https://www.instagram.com/goodseatsstillavailable/ https://www.facebook.com/GoodSeatsStillAvailable/ https://www.youtube.com/@goodseatsstillavailable

Duration:01:31:52

328: Raycom Sports - With Founders Rick & Dee Ray

12/11/2023
We adjust our TV antenna rabbit ears back to the late 1970s for the origin story of one of the most influential firms in modern-day sports media - with Rick and Dee Ray, the founders of televised college sports juggernaut Raycom Sports. In their new George Hirthler-penned memoir "Unstoppable: A Story of Love, Faith and the Power Couple Who Ignited the College Sports Broadcasting Boom," the Rays rewind the videotape to a time when a new technology called "cable" was still in its infancy, and the American television landscape was largely defined by a web of powerful broadcast network-affiliated stations - save for a handful of scrappy alternative "independent" signals in each market. While pro sports filled plenty of prime/weekend network TV windows, and individual teams provided a steady slate of in-season games to local indie station audiences - regularly scheduled D-I college sports was virtually non-existent outside of limited national broadcasts featuring only big-name schools. It was against this backdrop that an entrepreneurially minded local station programmer and a never-say-no ad executive saw an opening for regularly scheduled regional broadcasts of Atlantic Coast Conference basketball that not only delighted rabid fans throughout the Southeast, but also laid the groundwork for a sports syndication force that would eventually rewrite the rules for college sports media - and beyond. + + + SPONSOR THANKS: Old School Shirts https://oldschoolshirts.com/goodseats BUY/READ EARLY & OFTEN: "Unstoppable: A Story of Love, Faith and the Power Couple Who Ignited the College Sports Broadcasting Boom" FIND & FOLLOW: https://goodseatsstillavailable.com/ https://twitter.com/GoodSeatsStill https://www.instagram.com/goodseatsstillavailable/ https://www.facebook.com/GoodSeatsStillAvailable/ https://www.youtube.com/@goodseatsstillavailable

Duration:01:50:10

327: Scottish Soccer Summer Dalliances - With Mark Poole

12/4/2023
The 1960s were a tumultuous, but crucial period in the development of professional soccer in the United States and Canada - with teams from Scotland, of all places, playing a particularly interesting role. The dividing line for the modern North American pro game, of course, was the breakthrough, near-live (two-hour-delayed) NBC-TV network telecast of the 1966 World Cup final between eventual champion England and West Germany - the first-ever national standalone broadcast of the sport. Prior to that watershed, it was sports entrepreneur Bill Cox's International Soccer League that imported full major European & South American teams to play in a senior-level competition in largely East Coast urban centers and first-generation immigrant communities. Among the ISL's regulars were three Scottish sides - including Kilmarnock FC, which played four seasons and made the 1960 final. Immediately after the World Cup, no fewer than three groups of eager sports owners sought to launch a full-fledged domestic North American league; by 1967, two competing circuits bowed - including a hastily-assembled United Soccer Association, featuring full-team ISL-like imports - but under noms de plume of North American cities. Front and center were Scottish stalwarts Aberdeen FC - masquerading as the District of Columbia's "Washington Whips." UK football writer Mark Poole ("99 Iconic Moments in Scottish Football: From the Famous to the Obscure, Scotland’s Glorious, Unusual and Cult Games, Players and Events") tells us the stories behind these two curious Scottish contributions to US pro soccer history. + + + SPONSOR THANKS: DraftKings Sportsbook https://myaccount.draftkings.com/login BUY/READ EARLY & OFTEN: "99 Iconic Moments in Scottish Football: From the Famous to the Obscure, Scotland’s Glorious, Unusual and Cult Games, Players and Events" FIND & FOLLOW: https://goodseatsstillavailable.com/ https://twitter.com/GoodSeatsStill https://www.instagram.com/goodseatsstillavailable/ https://www.facebook.com/GoodSeatsStillAvailable/ https://www.youtube.com/@goodseatsstillavailable

Duration:01:19:31

326.5: Lamar Hunt & the American Football League - With Michael MacCambridge [ARCHIVE RE-RELEASE]

11/27/2023
[By popular demand, an archive re-release of Episode 321 guest and "The Big Time: How the 1970s Transformed Sports in America" author Michael MacCambridge - from his first appearance on the show from March 2017!] Sports author/historian Michael MacCambridge ("Lamar Hunt: A Life in Sports") joins Tim Hanlon to discuss the legacy of Lamar Hunt – the most unlikely of sports executive pioneers – and the outsized role he played in modernizing 1960s pro football into the enduring American sports juggernaut it is today. MacCambridge recounts how a strong rebuff from the stodgy 1950s NFL establishment galvanized Hunt’s determination to disrupt the football status quo, how the AFL’s “Foolish Club” of owners persevered through staggering financial losses, how Kansas City mayor Harold Roe “Chief” Bartle wooed Hunt and his flailing Dallas Texans franchise to the City of Fountains, and the karmic irony of the AFL Chiefs’ victory over Max Winter’s NFL Minnesota Vikings in the final AFL-NFL Super Bowl (IV) in 1970. + + + SPONSOR THANKS: Royal Retros (promo code: SEATS): https://www.royalretros.com/?aff=2 BUY/READ EARLY & OFTEN: Lamar Hunt: A Life in Sports (2012): https://amzn.to/3T0FL7G FIND & FOLLOW: Website: https://goodseatsstillavailable.com/Twitter: https://twitter.com/GoodSeatsStillInstagram (+ Threads): https://www.instagram.com/goodseatsstillavailable/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/GoodSeatsStillAvailable/YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@goodseatsstillavailable

Duration:01:20:08

326: NFL/USFL Football "Survivor" Steve Wright

11/20/2023
11-year pro football offensive lineman and budding Renaissance man Steve Wright ("Aggressively Human: Discovering Humanity in the NFL, Reality TV, and Life") helps us check off a few new boxes in our obsessive quest for forgotten sports franchise completism. Before his post-career exploits as the 10th-place finisher in the 22nd season of the CBS reality competition series "Survivor" ("Survivor: Redemption Island"), and as the inventor of pioneering sideline cooling-mist tech firms Cloudburst and Mist & Cool, Wright blocked and tackled for some of the game's most exciting teams during the 80s and early 90s - including the Dallas Cowboys, the Baltimore and Indianapolis versions of the Colts, the Los Angeles incarnation of the Raiders, and the 1985 USFL Championship Game finalist Oakland Invaders. + + + SPONSOR THANKS: DraftKings Sportsbookhttps://myaccount.draftkings.com/login BUY/READ EARLY & OFTEN: "Aggressively Human: Discovering Humanity in the NFL, Reality TV, and Life" BUY/WATCH EARLY & OFTEN: Survivor: Redemption IslandSurvivor: Redemption Island FIND & FOLLOW: https://goodseatsstillavailable.com/ https://twitter.com/GoodSeatsStill https://www.instagram.com/goodseatsstillavailable/ https://www.facebook.com/GoodSeatsStillAvailable/ https://www.youtube.com/@goodseatsstillavailable

Duration:01:16:13

325: Pro Tennis' Polychromatic 1970s - With Joel Drucker

11/13/2023
Veteran Tennis.com writer, Racquet Magazine columnist & "Three - A Tennis Show" podcast host Joel Drucker ("Jimmy Connors Saved My Life") stops by to drop some serious knowledge on how the decade of the 1970s transformed the sport of professional tennis into the global juggernaut it is today - including pivotal turning points such as: The groundbreaking World Championship Tennis (WCT) and Virginia Slims Circuit tours that brought standardized scheduling, big-time media exposure and unprecedented prize money to both the men's and women's pro games for the first time' 1973's paradigm-shifting intergender "Battle of the Sexes" competition between inveterate hustler Bobby Riggs and female icon Billie Jean King - an international spectacle whose result both transcended tennis and changed the face of American sports; and World Team Tennis - the innovative, ahead-of-its-time rethink of how the pro game could be played - featuring city-domiciled, co-ed, team-oriented match play on colorful playing surfaces in front of raucous crowds in major indoor arenas from coast to coast. + + + SPONSOR THANKS: 417 Helmets (promo code: GOODSEATS): https://417helmets.com/?wpam_id=3 BUY/READ EARLY & OFTEN: Jimmy Connors Saved My Life: A Personal Biography (2004): https://amzn.to/46cdPQQ FIND & FOLLOW: Website: https://goodseatsstillavailable.com/Twitter: https://twitter.com/GoodSeatsStillInstagram (+ Threads): https://www.instagram.com/goodseatsstillavailable/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/GoodSeatsStillAvailable/YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@goodseatsstillavailable

Duration:01:38:11

324: Football's Enigmatic Coach George Allen - With Mike Richman

11/6/2023
Football biographer Mike Richman ("George Allen: A Football Life") joins us for a decades-long journey back into the old-school NFL (and USFL) exploits of one of pro football's most intense and enigmatic sideline characters. From the dust-jacket of "A Football Life": "George Allen was a fascinating and eccentric figure in the world of football coaching. His remarkable career spanned six decades, from the late 1940s until his sudden death in 1990 at the age of seventy-three. Although he never won a Super Bowl, he never had a losing season as an NFL head coach and was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2002. "In 'George Allen: A Football Life', Mike Richman captures the life and accomplishments of one of the most successful NFL coaches of all time and one of the greatest innovators in the game. A player’s coach, Allen was a tremendous motivator and game strategist, as well as a defensive mastermind, and is credited with making special teams a critical focus in an era in which they were an afterthought. He had a keen eye for talent and pulled off masterful trades, often for veteran players who were viewed to be past their prime, who then had great seasons and made his teams much better. "In addition to his coaching feats, Allen had an idiosyncratic and controversial personality. His life revolved around football 24/7. One of his quirks was to minimize chewing time by consuming soft foods, giving himself more time to prepare for games and study opponents. He lived and breathed football; he compared losing to death. Allen had contentious relationships with the owners of the two NFL teams for which he was the head coach, the Washington Redskins and Los Angeles Rams. Richman explores why he was fired by those teams and whether he was blackballed from coaching again in the NFL." + + + SPONSOR THANKS: 417 Helmets https://417helmets.com/?wpam_id=3 BUY/READ EARLY & OFTEN: George Allen: A Football Lifehttps://amzn.to/460ezbO FIND & FOLLOW: https://goodseatsstillavailable.com/ https://twitter.com/GoodSeatsStill https://www.instagram.com/goodseatsstillavailable/ https://www.facebook.com/GoodSeatsStillAvailable/ https://www.youtube.com/@goodseatsstillavailable

Duration:01:40:15