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Looking back at the most significant defunct sports leagues in history
Stephen Dunn/Getty Images

Looking back at the most significant defunct sports leagues in history

When ever-unpredictable WWE head honcho Vince McMahon made the shocking announcement that he would be taking a second shot at the world of pro football, relaunching the XFL, it sent a shock through the world of entertainment. Scheduled to launch in 2020, the new league is supposedly a complete redo on the infamously outlandish product of the first XFL. The focus will be more on football and less on the type of gimmicks that made McMahon's first foray into the sport a fiasco, to say the least. 

With the XFL relaunch, it brings to mind the many failed and/or defunct professional sports leagues from the past. While some have legacies to be very proud of, there are just as many that faded into obscurity without much fight.

Here is a look at a blend of the best and most infamous and obscure pro sports leagues of all time.

 
1 of 16

American Basketball Association (ABA)

American Basketball Association (ABA)
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In the late 1960s and early '70s, the NBA was the top basketball league in the country, but it was the stuffier, more conservative option on the market. That was because the ABA was one of the most innovative and influential leagues of all time. With a fleet of eccentric and colorful characters, the league launched the careers of Hall of Famers Julius Erving, Rick Barry, George Gervin, Dan Issel and Moses Malone, among many others. Although the league closed its doors in 1976 to merge with the NBA, its legacy is evident to this day. Four ABA teams — the Spurs, Nuggets, Nets and Pacers — merged into the NBA, as well as the three-point line, which was originated in the now defunct league.

 
2 of 16

American Football League (AFL)

American Football League (AFL)
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Although the AFL moniker has been used multiple times throughout history, the most popular incarnation operated throughout the 1960s and came to exist due to the NFL’s resistance to expansion. Ultimately, the league rose to enough prominence to rival the NFL to such a level that the first two Super Bowls were competed as AFL vs. NFL super-spectacles. Although the AFL and NFL merged in 1970, the league lives on to this day as the AFC, thus keeping the conference vs. conference legacy of the Super Bowl alive.

 
3 of 16

All-American Girls Professional Baseball League (AAGPBL)

All-American Girls Professional Baseball League (AAGPBL)
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At the peak of the national pastime’s grasp on American society, it could not be contained to purely the ranks of men. The All-American Girls Professional Baseball League featured 15 teams at various times over the course of its 11-year history. The most famous of its ranks of course are the Rockford Peaches, who claimed four championships during the league’s existence and were famously chronicled in the 1992 film "A League of Their Own," starring Geena Davis, Tom Hanks, Madonna and Rosie O’Donnell.

 
4 of 16

Arena Football League

Arena Football League
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Known for its fast pace, shortened field and hard-hitting confined style of play, the Arena Football League was an exhilarating take on the gridiron. The original incarnation of the league ran from 1987-2008, although a successor league has grown from its place since 2010. League founder Jim Foster was inspired by the growing popularity of indoor soccer at the time and marketed the league as an alternative to the NFL game. Most famously, the league also launched the career of eventual NFL MVP and Hall of Famer Kurt Warner, who started his career as a member of the Iowa Barnstormers.

 
5 of 16

Coloured Hockey League

Coloured Hockey League
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Segregation in pro sports ran rampant in the early half of the 20th century, and Canada was no exception to the habits of the times. Much in the style of the Negro Baseball Leagues in America, the little-known Coloured Hockey League provided an avenue for over 400 African-Canadian hockey players to play professionally. Running from 1895 into the 1930s, the league is credited with introducing the slap shot, which Eddie Martin began to employ in 1906.

 
6 of 16

Major Indoor Soccer League (MISL)

Major Indoor Soccer League (MISL)
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The decision to move soccer indoors proved to be a smashing success in the United States. The MISL rose to become the top professional soccer league in the country throughout the 1980s. The league attracted talent from around the world to its ranks, which counted over 20 teams at different points of its existence. Yugoslav-American striker Steve Zungul put up 1,123 points in 10 years in the league to finish as the top point producer in league history before it closed its doors for good in 1992. Other iterations popped up in the 2000s, with the last version officially ending in 2014.

 
7 of 16

National Basketball League (NBL)

National Basketball League (NBL)
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Before the NBA came to exist in its modern form, it was two separate entities: the Basketball Association of America and the National Basketball League. The NBL stood as the greater of the two entities, in part due to the presence of game’s first true star, the Minneapolis Lakers’ George Mikan. The NBL also stood apart as the first basketball league to offer membership to African-Americans, which it did five years before Jackie Robinson integrated Major League Baseball.

 
8 of 16

Negro League Baseball

Negro League Baseball
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Stemming from exclusion of African-Americans from the top professional baseball leagues of the late 1800s, what would come to be known as the Negro Leagues is a reference to the many professional leagues established to give the talented black ballplayers of the time a place to display their skills on an appropriate stage. The golden ages of the Negro League circuit came in 1920s and '30s, when stars such as Satchel Paige, Josh Gibson, Cool Papa Bell and Oscar Charleston made their impact not only in the ranks of their own league, but also against all-star teams of Major League Baseball members. The Negro Leagues teams often bested their better-known professional peers. The legacy of the Negro League era continues to this day via the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum in Kansas City.

 
9 of 16

North American Soccer League (NASL)

North American Soccer League (NASL)
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Starting in 1968, the NASL remains the longest-running professional soccer league hosted in the United States. At the peak of its popularity in late '70s, attendance for its matches could see upward of 40,000 people turn out to take in games. This was aided by the presence of a handful of worldwide superstars among its ranks, including arguably the most popular player in history, Pelé. The league ultimately suffered from expanding too rapidly and outside interests looking to capitalize on the league’s success, causing financial woes that saw the league disbanded by 1984.

 
10 of 16

NFL Europe

NFL Europe
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The NFL has always had its eye toward expanding beyond the confines of the United States. Its first big venture to do so came in the form of NFL Europe, which began play in 1989. Although a number of NFL-sponsored European feeder league teams proceeded it, the league officially became NFL Europe in 1998 in a branding campaign that represented an all-in effort to provide a training ground for fringe NFL talents and also test non-traditional markets. Ultimately, the NFL pulled the plug on the league following World Bowl XV in 2007 to little fanfare.

 
11 of 16

Professional Slow Pitch Softball League (ASPSL)

Professional Slow Pitch Softball League (ASPSL)
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Make fun of those weekend community park warriors if you want to, but in the late '70s men’s softball had a flash of professional shine of its own. The league lasted for four years, crowning the Detroit Caesars as its champion twice. Although competitive men’s softball continues to be a nationwide entity to this day, this fleeting experiment represented its only true ascension to the professional ranks.

 
12 of 16

United States Football League (USFL)

United States Football League (USFL)
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Although the USFL lasted only three years, its legacy lives on in much larger fashion. It remains the biggest threat thus far to the NFL’s reign atop the sport and swayed several of the biggest college stars of the time to its ranks. Future Hall of Famers Jim Kelly, Steve Young and Reggie White made their pro debuts in the league, while Heisman Trophy winner Herschel Walker was MVP of the 1985 season. Ultimately, the USFL overshot its coverage before its fourth season could take place, a year in which it aimed to play a head-to-head slate with the NFL in the hopes of forcing a similar merger as the AFL/NFL in 1970. However, after a complicated antitrust suit levied against the NFL produced little as a result, the USFL never made it to its ambitious fourth year.

 
13 of 16

Women’s United Soccer Association (WUSA)

Women’s United Soccer Association (WUSA)
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With women’s soccer enjoying a major spike in popularity following the victory of the U.S. Women’s National Team at the 1999 World Cup, the WUSA opened a year later as the first professional women’s soccer league in the world. Boasting many of the stars of the USWNT, including Mia Hamm and Julie Foudy, the league was welcomed with multiple television networks invested in it. However, attendance did not sustain the league long term, and it folded by 2003.

 
14 of 16

World Hockey Association (WHA)

World Hockey Association (WHA)
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The NHL has had competition pop up in the sport, and the WHA levied the most substantial shot to knock it from its perch. In the same fashion and at the same time that the ABA was deploying the tactic in opposition of the NBA, the league took aim at trying to fill in the space where the NHL had not yet established a presence. The WHA proved to be an attractive option to many NHL talents who desired a level of contractual freedom that had not been offered in the top league. Headliners such as Bobby Hull and Gordie Howe jumped to the league, while young stars in the making like Wayne Gretzky and Mark Messier got their starts in the league. When the WHA finally folded in 1979, four teams were absorbed into the NHL: the Edmonton Oilers, Winnipeg Jets, Quebec Nordiques and Hartford Whalers.

 
15 of 16

World Championship Wrestling (WCW)

World Championship Wrestling (WCW)
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Growing out of the roots of the National Wrestling Alliance, Ted Turner’s World Championship Wrestling eventually flowered from being an ambitious secondary option in the pro wrestling world to being the biggest promotion in world by the late '90s. Armed with WWF alumni Hulk Hogan, Macho Man Randy Savage, Kevin Nash and Scott Hall, along with WCW staples Ric Flair, Sting and Goldberg, WCW threatened Vince McMahon’s grip on the world of pro wrestling nearly to a breaking point. However, bad management and free and loose spending ultimately doomed the promotion, which McMahon purchased and absorbed in 2001.

 
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XFL

XFL
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With the next incarnation of the XFL set to open its doors in 2020, it is a perfect time to look back at the spectacle that was the original version of this ambitious outtake on pro football. With players who sported inspired nicknames in lieu of their actual names across their backs and cheerleaders who pushed boundaries, the XFL was a one-of-a-kind experience. After the initial novelty of the league quickly wore off, it became a financial and ratings disaster, creating losses of $135 million for both NBC and the WWE, leading it to be called off after a single season.

Matt Whitener is St. Louis-based writer, radio host and 12-6 curveball enthusiast. He has been covering Major League Baseball since 2010, and dabbles in WWE, NBA and other odd jobs as well. Follow Matt on Twitter at @CheapSeatFan.

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