5 Lesser-Known Pro Sports Leagues Whose Legacies Last to This Day

Not every former professional sports league has managed to live on today.  In fact, the vast majority of pro sports leagues never lasted too long.

However, that doesn't mean they didn't have a lasting impact on professional sports.  In fact, some of the greatest innovations and rule changes in modern pro sports resulted from experiments in these long-forgotten leagues.  These five in particular had a long-lasting impact on their respective games.

First, the Ground Rules

Chief Bender

Beyond the obvious legacy impact, two other criteria were used in this list:

1.  The league must have had top-level talent; no defunct minor leagues are included.  Each league in this article is recognized as an equal by the current pro leagues in some fashion.

2.  The league must be completely defunct; none of its former members can be part of leagues that currently exist.  This is in order to keep this list focused on lesser-known leagues and avoid talking about those that ended as a result of mergers.

Pacific Coast Hockey Association (1912-1924)

Seattle Metropolitans - 1917 Stanley Cup Champs

Arguably the first professional sports league to be based out west, the PCHA was a professional hockey league that competed with the NHA (the forerunner to the NHL) for the Stanley Cup championship.  

Lasting Impact

The PCHL brought the Stanley Cup to the United States, as the Portland Rosebuds became the first American franchise to play for the hallowed trophy while the Seattle Metropolitans became the first to actually win it.  Seattle was also involved in the 1919 series that was hit by the Spanish Influenza, marking the only time in American professional sports that a championship was cancelled due to pandemic. 

Federal League (1914-1915)

Eddie Plank

The last direct competitor to MLB, the Federal League originally began as a minor league in 1912 but took a serious leap forward when they started raiding the AL and NL for talent.  Among the players who made the jump to the Federal League were Hall of Famers Chief Bender, Mordecai "Three Finger" Brown, Bill McKechnie, Eddie Plank, Edd Roush, and Joe Tinker.  It's been argued that the course of baseball history was changed when these players jumped ship.  

Lasting Impact

During the league's two-year run, they filed an antitrust lawsuit against the AL and NL, which was first tried (and intentionally languished) by future MLB commissioner Kennesaw Mountain Landis and eventually led to MLB being awarded an antitrust exemption in 1922.  The Federal League also gave baseball the Friendly Confines, as Wrigley Field was first built for the Federal League's Chicago Whales in 1914.  

American Basketball League (1961-63)

Connie Hawkins

Not to be confused with the first two incarnations of the league, the third version of the ABL was designed to be a true coast-to-coast (and then some) competitor to the NBA.  It is the first professional league to put a team in Honolulu, with the Hawaii Chiefs drawing very well but eventually moving to Long Beach because of travel concerns.  The league was also the first home of Connie Hawkins, the troubled-but-talented big man who was black-balled by the NBA for most of the 1960s due to a college scandal.

Lasting Impact

Two things in particular define the ABL's legacy.  The first is that they introduced the three-point shot to professional basketball, an innovation that would later be used in the ABA.  The league also introduced the pro sports world to George Steinbrenner, as the longtime Yankees Boss owned the Cleveland Pipers for their entire history, winning the championship in 1961.  

World Football League (1974-75)

Paul Warfield, Larry Csonka, and Jim Kiick

Another attempted NFL rival, the woefully-misnamed World Football League lasted for two seasons and never actually had any teams from outside the United States.  The league also struggled to keep teams afloat in a number of markets, with Detroit and Jacksonville folding before the end of the first season while New York and Houston both moving in the middle of the year.  However, two WFL alumni (Larry Csonka and Paul Warfield) eventually wound up in the Hall of Fame.  Like baseball's Federal League, the course of NFL history was changed when Csonka (and several other Miami Dolphins players) decided to switch leagues.

Lasting Impact

Many WFL franchises were former minor league teams, and the demise of the WFL essentially ended minor league football in this country.  The league is also considered a pioneer in nicknaming, as a number of teams ("Fire", "Sun", "Bell", "Storm", "Steamer", "Thunder", "Express") were in the singular tense as opposed to plural.  

United States Football League (1983-85)

Marcus Dupree

Most people are pretty familiar with the ill-fated USFL, but it certainly meets the qualifications of the article.  The USFL was quite popular in its day and, like the fourth AFL before it, was able to lure top-tier college talent to its ranks.  Four former USFLers (Jim Kelly, Steve Young, Reggie White, and Gary Zimmerman) are in the Hall of Fame and are generally considered among the greatest at their respective positions.  The USFL was also home to a pair of legendary running backs:  Herschel Walker, arguably the best runner in SEC history; and Marcus Dupree, considered by many to be the greatest football recruit of all-time.  

Lasting Impact

The USFL is the first modern pro sports league in the United States to utilize a salary cap, a feature that was later adopted (in some form or another) in every professional sport.  Instant replay challenges also got their start in the USFL, and the league was also the first pro football league to utilize the two-point conversion.