The End
Due to a dispute over partnership arrangements, two major investors withdrew $175,000 that they'd deposited with the league. (In a Sports Illustrated story on the death of the WFL, a Winds official referred to the investors as "Bob and Rich from California. I don't know their last names, but one's an Arab and the other's a Greek.")
The investors' withdrawal dropped the Winds below league capitalization requirements. Puliano asked for time to find more investors. The WFL owners instead voted 10-1 to expel Chicago from the league, with only the Winds themselves voting to continue. A team folding in mid-season was not unusual for the WFL (the Jacksonville Sharks and Detroit Wheels had died 14 games into a 20-game regular season in 1974), so the league was prepared. The Winds' game against the Southern California Sun was canceled. Since there were 11 teams, one team had a bye each week; with Chicago out, the bye team simply took the Winds' place in the schedule. Meanwhile, John Gilliam was selected by the Philadelphia Bell in a dispersal draft, but returned to the NFL Minnesota Vikings instead, much to the WFL's chagrin. Even this arrangement didn't last too long, as the entire WFL collapsed at the end of October 1975.
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