Memphis Sounds - Aftermath

Aftermath

The team's elimination by the Colonels would be the last meaningful game that the franchise would play. Although the 1974-75 season saw the highest attendance figures during the team's stay in Memphis, both Wilson and Hayes were having financial troubles that required them to sell their shares. After the 1974-75 season the ABA franchise was sold to a group of businessmen in Baltimore, Maryland who used it to create a team that was first briefly known as the Baltimore Hustlers and then the Baltimore Claws. However, the team had serious financial problems and collapsed before the season started, playing only three exhibition games in its brief history.

Not long after the Claws folded, the San Diego Sails and then the Utah Stars folded early in the 1975-76 regular season, abruptly shrinking the league from ten teams to seven. The failure of those franchises was a factor behind the ABA-NBA merger in the summer after the 1975-76 season ended.

When the ABA became defunct and the copyrights on its properties were allowed to lapse, a minor league baseball team in Nashville — the Nashville Sounds — adopted the Memphis Sounds' color scheme and logo. As of the 2007 season, the name is still in use, but the use of the color scheme and styled logo was discontinued after the 1998 season.

In 2001 professional basketball returned to Memphis with the NBA's Memphis Grizzlies, itself a relocated franchise (they were originally in Vancouver). The Grizzlies played their home games at The Pyramid from 2001 until 2004, before moving to FedEx Forum for the 2004-05 season, and have called it home since then.