Memphis' Struggle With NFL Has A History Of Two Decades

MEMPHIS, Tenn. - After more than two decades of pro football blues, it's no wonder Memphis sports fans feel little enthusiasm about the NFL coming to town.

The Tennessee Oilers aren't stirring up much interest in their temporary home, which hardly should be surprising.

"The people of Memphis have been disappointed so many times for so many years they don't care anymore," said John Malmo, chairman of the Memphis Park Commission that operates the Liberty Bowl. "They just don't care, frankly, whether the NFL plays here or they don't play here."

And the Oilers haven't helped that situation much.

They are seen by many Memphians as high-handed and arrogant, taking a here-we-are-and-you-should-be-happy-to-have-us approach. Just this week, star running back Eddie George bowed out of a scheduled appearance in Memphis to go to Columbus, Ohio, where he won the 1995 Heisman Trophy at Ohio State.

"I think everything just got off on the wrong foot," said Avron Fogelman, chairman of the Memphis and Shelby County Sports Authority and a former part-owner of the Kansas City Royals.

The Oilers plan to play at the Liberty Bowl in Memphis for two years while a new stadium is built in Nashville, a three-hour drive away.

In their two regular-season games, the Oilers drew crowds of 30,171 and 17,737. The Liberty Bowl seats 62,360. A similarly small crowd is expected for Sunday's game against Cincinnati.

The crowds have made Memphis the butt of jokes and unflattering commentaries across the country. Fogelman was moved to write an opinion column in The Commercial Appeal last Sunday appealing to local fans to quit ripping the Oilers.

"Enough is enough; let's call a timeout on Oilers bashing," he wrote. "Any convention thinking of coming to Memphis has heard it. Any company wanting to move to Memphis has heard it. The entire sports world has heard it.

"Now it's time for the nation to hear that home crowds at Oilers games are increasing, and that Memphis is indeed a city of good abode."

Why is there such hostility toward the Oilers and the NFL in Memphis?

Since the early 1900s, Memphis has had a variety of professional teams, most of them minor league. The University of Memphis is the main college attraction.

The university's football team is mediocre. Basketball is its premier sport, but even it generally fails to fill the 20,000-seat Memphis Pyramid.

The city's search for an NFL franchise began in the late 1960s, when boosters formed a group called Mid-South Sports Action. By 1974, Memphis was among five cities being considered for two expansion franchises.

The teams went to Tampa and Seattle.

Memphis ended up with the Grizzlies/Southmen of the World Football League, which folded the following year.

Hopes for an NFL franchise stayed alive, but in 1983, Memphis settled once again for something less: the Showboats of the United States Football League. The Showboats lasted two seasons, then that league folded, too.

While the WFL and USFL were around, the Memphis teams drew some of the largest crowds for those leagues, often more than 30,000.

In the late 1980s and early '90s, NFL fever surfaced again.

Some of the city's best-known business leaders, including Federal Express founder Frederick Smith, cotton merchant William Dunavant and AutoZone chairman Pitt Hyde, got involved.

There was talk about expanding the Liberty Bowl or even building a new stadium, though that idea died quickly. The fans were on another roller coaster, with the local news media reporting each twist and turn in the pursuit of an NFL franchise.

Between 1986 and 1991, sports boosters put on four NFL exhibition games at the Liberty Bowl. Fans were told big crowds could convince the NFL that Memphis was ready for a team.

"It was supposed to show the league we were a National Football League city, and we did show them. We filled up the stadium for them at meaningless preseason games," said Pepper Rodgers, the Showboats' former coach and lead organizer of those NFL exhibitions. He is now Oilers vice president for Memphis operations.

Unrewarded efforts

By 1993, when the NFL was ready to expand again, Memphis was described as a front-runner. And the league put teams in Charlotte and Jacksonville. Memphis did not get a single vote from team owners.

"I believe Memphis would have supported a National Football League team if we had gotten one," Rodgers said.

The Canadian Football League came in for one lackluster season in 1995.

When Oilers owner Bud Adams decided to move his team from Houston to Nashville, Memphis fans were far from happy.

"One day they just walked into Nashville and they got a team," Rodgers said.

The Oilers should have known the kind of battle they would face in drawing fans from Memphis and the surrounding area. But the team has done little to soothe the hurt feelings caused by those years of NFL rejection, said Malmo, who runs one of the city's best-known advertising agencies.

The situation was not helped when the Oilers initially asked that taxpayers reimburse the team's travel costs from Nashville to Memphis. The Oilers backed off that request when it was met with outrage.

The Oilers acknowledge their marketing campaign has failed to generate much interest, and they promise to do better. They face an uphill fight.

"Nobody cares about it, and nobody has made anybody care about it," Malmo said.