SPORTS
THE PHOENIX EAGLES?
Did you know Arizona was almost home to another bird gang? As the USFL’s Arizona Wranglers- turned-Outlaws struggled to garner local support for their team in 1984, talks were in the works to relocate an existing NFL team to Phoenix. The options? The St. Louis Cardinals or the Philadelphia Eagles. That year, owner Leonard Tose flirted with the idea of selling his share of the Eagles to a real estate developer who wanted to move the team to Phoenix. Tose had good reason to sell. He had accumulated crippling debt and selling his 25% share would earn him roughly $40 million to, hopefully, pay those bills. However, when the news broke in the Arizona Republic and the Philadelphia Inquirer , Eagles fans lost their “midnight green” minds. “There was the disbelief stage, then the panic stage, then the anger stage.
Philadelphia went through all three stages in like the first day,” longtime Philadelphia sports columnist Ray Didinger told the Los Angeles Times in 2023. Fortunately for Philadelphians, Tose eventually abandoned the plan and a savior came in the form of luxury car dealer Norman Braman. He bought the Eagles for $65 million in 1985, allowing the team to permanently stay in Philly. In 1994, Braman sold the franchise to Boston businessman Jeffrey Lurie, the current owner, for $195 million, equivalent to more than $400 million today.
Phoenix only had to wait a couple more years for its team. In 1987, Cardinals owner Bill Bidwell moved his team from the Gateway to the West to the Valley of the Sun. If things had gone a little differently, we might have the NFC’s No. 2 seed this year and MVP runner-up Saquon Barkley at running back. Instead, it’s another year hoping Kyler Murray leads the team to a postseason campaign in 2025 — but if not, don’t worry. With the Buckeye Bird Gang, there’ll be plenty of solidarity to go around.
Above: D’Metrid James, 49, hosts a livestream of the Buckeye Bird Gang’s inaugural Arizona Cardinals watch party at Tailgaters Sports Grill Dec. 1, 2024. Left: Sophie Garcia (left) and Nevaeh James wear Cardinals gear on gameday.
home to teams from smaller leagues, like the now-defunct United States Football League. The other option for football fans? Find a different team to back. But that’s something the fourth generation of James’ family doesn’t have to worry about. “Our whole family are fans, season ticketholders, all that stuff. Our kids have no choice,” he quipped. One such choiceless kid, his 12-year-old daughter Neveah, attended the watch party with her best friend, Sophie Garcia. Both Buckeye girls were decked out in Cardinals gear. Neveah James said the shift from watching the game at home with her football-loving family to a more community-based setting was a welcome change. “My whole family is out here and out of the house. I think it’s really cool because I haven’t been to [a watch party] but I’ve been wanting to go to one,” she said. Uniting fans in Buckeye An NFL team in the West Valley, not in downtown Phoenix like the NBA’s Suns, is significant — only 10 of the league’s 32 franchises play in a suburb outside their namesake city. But State Farm Stadium is still a good 30-minute drive from Buckeye on gamedays, meaning tailgating there can be an ordeal. Hence why James wanted to replicate the experience in Buckeye. And that’s precisely the experience Mike Denning and Rebecca Stidham had Dec. 1.
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“We have an opportunity to keep the fans in Buckeye on gameday,” James said. For example, the inaugural watch party at Tailgaters featured free wings (chicken, not cardinal) for attendees, whether they were Cards fans or not. And even though the season is over — the Cards were eliminated from playoff contention following their Dec. 22 upset loss to the Carolina Panthers — James said he hopes Buckeye Bird Gang continues to grow so the group can partner with more businesses “to make an event where Cardinal fan families can just come and have something to do.” “Let’s have one big tailgate as Cardinal fans in Buckeye,” he said.
The pair of Cards fans showed up to the watch party at Tailgaters with their daughter Victoria to connect with other fans. “We’re far from the stadium, so we can’t always tailgate over there,” Denning said. While the turnout for the first watch party was on the modest side — about a dozen fans came for wings and a 23-22 nailbiter loss to the Minnesota Vikings — it was still an opportunity to connect with others, Stidham said. “We’re big Cardinals fans and we wanted to see how many others are out here,” she said. “It’s always nice to get a bunch of fans together.” Luring fans out to congregate in a large group and patronize local businesses is also part of the goal, according to James. He said most tailgaters not headed to the stadium are likely just watching at home.
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Buckeye Bird Gang
InBuckeye.com | Winter 2025
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