The Southmen's home opener against the Detroit Wheels drew 30,122 fans, including Elvis Presley, a professed football fanatic.

Even before the Miami Trio arrived, the 1974 Southmen found two durable running backs in J. J. Jennings and John Harvey, and they finished with the league's best record at 17–3.

In 1975, Larry Csonka, Jim Kiick, and Paul Warfield finally came to Memphis (now officially dubbed the Grizzlies), but even they couldn't save the league, which folded during the middle of its second season.

Over 40,000 deposits for season tickets were collected in this effort, which included a December 1975 telethon dubbed the "NFL-a-Thon" on Memphis television station WMC-TV Channel 5.

It was not settled until 1984, by which time Bassett owned the Tampa Bay Bandits of the United States Football League and the case was rendered moot.

Long after Presley's death in 1977, his estate was involved in an attempt to bring the NFL to Memphis; the Memphis Hound Dogs proposal ultimately lost (professional football would eventually come to the city in 1995 in the form of the Canadian Football League's Mad Dogs, which Presley's estate had no involvement with; the team folded after that single season).

The NFL's Tennessee Oilers (newly relocated from Houston) played their 1997 season in Memphis before making their permanent home in Nashville.