The club played Indoor soccer at Reunion Arena for one season (1980–81), and hosted the two-day 1975 Regionals at Fair Park Coliseum.

The following season when the USA merged with the NPSL, owners Lamar Hunt and Bill McNutt had to build a new team from scratch.

During the first 6 months as coach, Kap traveled throughout Europe to form the new Dallas Tornado, hiring young players from England to Turkey.

[1] The tour gave the new Dallas Tornado team an international face at a time when American soccer was relatively unknown; the effort resulted in a record of 10 wins, nine draws and 26 defeats.

The first half was called the International Cup, a double round robin tournament in which the remaining NASL clubs were represented by teams imported from the United Kingdom.

Fortunes improved for the club as they won the NASL championship in 1971, defeating the Atlanta Chiefs 2–0 in the final game of a three-game series, Mike Renshaw scoring the winning goal.

[4] On June 15, 1975, the Tornado played the New York Cosmos in Pelé's NASL debut, a match broadcast nationally on CBS.

[citation needed] The Dallas Morning News estimated Hunt and McNutt's cumulative financial loss over 15 years at a minimum of $20 million.

[4] After the 1981 season Hunt and McNutt decided to merge their team with the Tampa Bay Rowdies franchise, while retaining a minority stake in the Florida club.

[7] In the winter of 1975, the NASL organized a two-tiered, 16 team indoor tournament with four regional winners meeting in a "final-four" style championship.

In January 1979 the Tornado joined the Tulsa Roughnecks, Ft. Lauderdale Strikers and host Tampa Bay Rowdies for the two-day Budweiser Invitational.