As World War II ended and leisure activities across the U.S. increased, the time seemed right to add a professional basketball team to Buffalo’s burgeoning sports scene. At least a couple of entrepreneurs thought so. The choice of a name for the new team was anything but original, as the Buffalo sports scene was rife with “Bisons.”  Minor league baseball had been around since before the turn of the century, with stars like Jim “Pud” Galvin, Billy Kelly and Ollie Carnegie lighting up Offermann Stadium. The American Hockey League Bisons drew excellent crowds to Memorial Auditorium—the “Aud”—and won Calder Cup championships in 1943, 1944 and 1946. Then, early in 1946, a new football league called the All-America Football Conference was formed. Buffalo had a team that began play in September—and of course it was called the Bisons. 

So why not add another Buffalo Bisons professional team – this time in the sport of basketball? When the National Basketball League (NBL) was looking to expand, Leo Ferris, who ran a small advertising company in the Walbridge Building on Court Street in downtown Buffalo, got the idea of bringing a team to the Queen City. Initially formed in 1935 as the Midwest Basketball Conference, the league was created by three major American corporations—General  Electric, Firestone and Goodyear—and was mostly comprised of teams from cities surrounding the Great Lakes. In 1937, the name was changed to the National Basketball League. 

Initially, it was an informal league with scheduling left to the discretion of the individual teams and the number of games played per team varied. By 1946, the NBL was competing with a newly formed professional league known as the Basketball Association of America (BAA). Thus, it looked to become more organized and to add five additional franchises to its existing roster of eight, making a 12-team circuit. 

The NBL considered Buffalo a good market based on the success of college basketball in the region and the Bisons hockey team that was drawing well in the newly built Memorial Auditorium. An initial NBL team (1937-38) had not drawn well at the Broadway Auditorium, lasting only nine games and finishing with a 3-6 record before folding. But with the new arena, the league was optimistic about the success of a Buffalo franchise.

Ferris and his business partner in the advertising company, Ben Kerner, worked together on the franchise and became co-owners. The 1924 Walbridge Building served as the headquarters from which the two men conceived of the idea, created plans, held meetings and made telephone calls that led to Buffalo obtaining the NBL team. Ferris also brought in the Erie County American Legion, to assist in funding the operations of the franchise, as well as a few other investors.

Growing up in Elmira, NY, where he was a high school basketball star, Leo Ferris had enjoyed the sport from an early age. He came to Buffalo as a 20-year-old, working for the Jacobs family in their concession business, Sportservice. Following service in the U.S. military during World War II, Ferris branched out and started his own advertising company with Kerner. The two men had a passion for basketball and were excited to think that Buffalo could have its own team. They applied for a franchise in the name of the Erie County American Legion, which was granted on April 23, 1946. The entry fee for the franchise was $1,500, plus an additional $5,000 as a performance bond.

At the press conference announcing the formation of the team, NBL president Leo F. Fischer said that the Legion request had been conditionally approved two months ago, but certification was delayed pending arrangements for playing dates with Memorial Auditorium. “The dates have been obtained and we are happy to grant the franchise,” Fischer said. Buffalo became the ninth team in the NBL, joining the Chicago American Gears, Fort Wayne Zollner Pistons, Indianapolis Kautskys, Oshkosh All-Stars, Rochester Royals, Sheboygan Redskins, Syracuse Nationals and the Youngstown Bears. Three additional teams were added after the Bisons to round out the 12-team roster for the 1946-47 season—the Anderson Duffey Packers, Detroit Gems and the Toledo Jeeps.

Memorial Auditorium, which boasted a 12,280-seat capacity, had been built as part of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal, under the banner of the Works Progress Administration, opening on October 14, 1940. College basketball had tremendous success drawing sellout crowds to the Aud as the “Little Three” of Canisius, Niagara and St. Bonaventure were quite popular. It was hoped the new NBL team could draw upon many of those fans for support.

Once the franchise was officially granted, County Legion commander George A. Stieringer named Ferris the team’s general manager. Immediately going to work, he and Kerner decided to name the team the Bisons, so as to not deviate from Buffalo’s other professional franchises, and hired Nat Hickey as head coach. Hickey was a veteran player and coach, having played 25 seasons with various early professional teams and coached for two, and was somewhat of a barnstorming legend. He had also played 15 years of minor league baseball as an outfielder and managed for two, during which he was Hall of Famer Stan Musial’s first minor league manager. Hickey had a high profile in basketball circles and Ferris thought that hiring him might also help to attract ticket sales.

Ferris had one more move up his sleeve before pre-season training began. On October 21, he signed New York Rens superstar William “Pop” Gates. The 6-foot, 3-inch Gates was considered one of the game’s best shotmakers. He led Harlem’s Benjamin Franklin High School to the New York City basketball championship in 1938 and joined the Rens later that year. Gates made the jump from high school to the pros long before LeBron James and led the Rens to the inaugural World Championship of Professional Basketball in March 1939 and the Washington Bears to the championship in 1943. He is the only player to have participated in all ten World Championship events (1939-1948) and was one of only four Black players (the other three were “Dolly” King, Rochester Royals; Willie King, Detroit Gems; Bill Farrow; Youngstown Bears) to play in the NBL in 1946-1947. His debut came five months before Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier in Major League Baseball. 

Hickey brought his team together for the first time on October 21 at the Elmira Armory, Ferris having arranged for preseason training to be in his home city. Both men expressed optimism following the first workout of the 15 players on the preseason roster. The Bisons had an open practice for fans to see the team on October 23 and then played their first-ever game, an exhibition contest, on October 26 at the armory against the Binghamton Triplets. Buffalo won 32-20, despite the fact that the Triplets had been practicing for more than three weeks and Hickey’s team had less than a week together. On October 28, Hickey released three players to get down to the 12-player league limit. Bob Daugherty was one of the players released, so Gates was the only Black player to make the Bisons’ opening day squad. 

An opening night crowd of 4,182 was on hand when the newly christened Bisons hosted the equally new Syracuse Nationals at Memorial Auditorium on November 9. The Buffalo starting lineup featured Otten at center, Gates and Waxman at guards and the Rader twins as the forwards, with Hassett the first man off the bench. Syracuse jumped out to a 10-8 first quarter lead, but the Bisons led at halftime, 23-22. Buffalo took a 37-30 lead in the third quarter as Mel Thurston came off the bench to contribute “six lofty long shots that never touched the rim,” and the team coasted home in the final quarter for a 50-39 triumph. Thurston and Otten led the Bisons with 15 points each while Johnny Gee was the leader for the Nationals with 17. “Well whaddya know? We finally have a team that wins its opening game,” was the sentiment of the joyful crowd as it left the arena, as reported by the Buffalo Evening News.

Following their fifth straight exhibition win, a 51-27 besting of the Akron Goodyears, the Bisons took on the 1945-46 Eastern Division champion Rochester Royals at the Edgerton Park Arena. Buffalo was no match for the Royals, losing in a romp, 78-57. This started a downhill spiral as the team lost its next four league games, including a 54-44 rematch with Rochester at Memorial Auditorium in front of the second largest crowd the Bisons drew that season, dropping them to a 3-6 record. Buffalo ended its five-game losing streak, however, with a heart-pounding, 52-50 overtime win over the Anderson Duffy Packers at the Aud. It was a hard-fought game, literally. At the end of the first half, police and arena officials broke up fights among the teams’ players that began with a scuffle between the Bisons’ Howie Rader and the Packers’ Ed Lewinski. 

In what would turn out to be the last home game for the Bisons, though nobody knew it at the time, Buffalo lost to the Sheboygan Redskins, 50-38, on December 16 in front of a Memorial Auditorium crowd of less than 1,000.  The following day, with a 4-7 record and crowds well below expectations, general manager Ferris announced that the team had “suffered a financial loss” and was offering shares in the franchise for sale, with free tickets for the investment. “We’ve drawn only 15,000 in our last six home games,” he said. Looking to increase attendance, he announced, “We’re offering 30 of our 100 shares for sale at $1,000 apiece and with each share goes 1,000 tax free tickets to our next two home games, Dec 25 and 28.” Ferris further indicated that if fan support did not improve, the franchise might be moved to a Midwestern city. The shares were offered to individuals, civic organizations and business concerns, and Ferris hoped that some civic groups would invest so that the Bisons might become “something like a civic organization.”

He did not give much time for a response to the offer. The following day, word leaked that Ferris was in Moline, IL, discussing with sports leaders from that city a possible transfer of the franchise. “We are interested in moving the club to a basketball interested community where a good solid set-up can be arranged,” Ferris said. “The Buffalo club, fourth in the eastern division of the league with four wins in eleven games, has lost $25,000 in six home games,” he added. 

Ferris made a similar offer to Moline that he had made in Buffalo. He was looking to sell 40 percent of the shares in the team and if that happened the Bisons would move to Moline. “Moline is the first city we visited, and from everything we have seen here, we believe that this is the best locality for the team,” Ferris told city officials. He then met with 15 Moline and Davenport (IA) business leaders to discuss financial arrangements needed to move the franchise. Meanwhile, on December 19, the Bisons lost to the Packers, 61-46, at the Anderson High School Wigwam in Anderson, IN, and three days later lost an exhibition game to the Dayton Mets in Ohio, 57-47. 

On December 23, while Ferris was forming a new corporation, Tri-City Sports, Inc., to move the Buffalo franchise to Moline, the Bisons were defeating the Jeeps on the court in Toledo, 43-39, behind 17 points from Otten. The following day, Christmas Eve, Ferris officially announced the team would be moving to Moline after a bloc of six men bought stock in the Bisons. All the remaining home games in Buffalo were cancelled as NBL commissioner Ward “Piggy” Lambert approved the transfer on December 26.

The Bisons played one final exhibition game as Buffalo, losing on the road to the Baltimore Bullets on December 26 by a 59-44 score. Gates was the Bisons’ leading scorer with 11 points. Buffalo finished their season in the Queen City with a 5-8 NBL record, though they were 8-2 in exhibition games. Don Otten led the team in scoring while in Buffalo, with a 10.9 points per game average, while Gates was second at 8.8.

Now the Tri-City Blackhawks, representing the cities of Moline and Rock Island, IL, plus Davenport, IA, the team played their first game in Moline on January 4, 1947. The Blackhawks finished the 1946-47 season with a 19-25 NBL record and a fifth-place finish in the six-team eastern division. Gates finished the season with the Blackhawks but was not re-signed by Tri-City for the 1947-48 season after being involved in a fight in a game against the Nationals. Founding partner Ben Kerner bought out Ferris’ interest in the franchise after the move to Moline.

Tri-City joined the National Basketball Association (NBA) in 1949 as part of the merger between the NBL and the BAA. Kerner hired Red Auerbach to coach the Blackhawks in 1949, but the future Hall of Famer quit after 57 games over a dispute with the owner. Following the 1951 season, Kerner moved the team again, this time to Milwaukee where they became the Hawks. A move to St. Louis followed the 1955 season. The Hawks would appear in four NBA championships while in St. Louis—winning the championship in 1958, but losing three times to the Boston Celtics in 1957, 1960 and 1961. Those losses stung for Kerner, as Auerbach was the Celtics’ coach and two of his best players—Bob Cousy and Bill Russell—were draft picks that Kerner had traded away. In 1968, he sold the team to Thomas Cousins and former Georgia governor Carl Sanders, who promptly moved the team to Atlanta. The Atlanta Hawks remain part of the NBA today.

Lack of support had doomed the team in Buffalo, as they averaged less than 2,800 fans per game. The city would not have another chance at an NBA franchise until the Braves in 1970. Pop Gates and Don Otten were the only two Bisons players that had sustained success at the professional level. After being released by the Blackhawks, Gates rejoined the Rens and later played for the Harlem Globetrotters. But his being signed for Buffalo by Ferris helped lead to the racial integration of professional basketball. “When Leo Ferris came to me, it was like a godsend,” Gates said years later. “It was a real highlight of my career to be accepted by the NBL as one of only two blacks in the league.” Gates was enshrined in the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 1989.

Don Otten stayed with Tri-City and was named the NBL’s Most Valuable Player during the 1948-49 season. He continued with the Blackhawks when they joined the NBA in 1949 and then played for four different teams through the 1952-53 season. In 1949, he and his brother Mac (another BGSU star) became the first brothers to play for the same team in an NBA game. And, on November 24, 1949, he broke the NBA record for personal fouls with eight in a single game. He was allowed to remain in the game because the team was down to only five players and league rules allowed those final five players to stay on the court. It’s a unique record, likely to never be broken.

Nat Hickey put himself into a few games while coaching the Bisons at age 44, and two years later he played some additional games for the Providence Steamrollers. This made him the oldest player to ever play in an NBA game, a distinction he still holds.

After selling his interest in the Bisons, Ferris returned to New York State, becoming vice president of the NBL and then general manager of the Syracuse Nats. Leading the reorganization of the Nats, he signed superstar Dolph Schayes away from the BAA’s New York Knicks in 1948, a major coup for the NBL. He also signed Al Cervi and Billy Gabor and those three laid the foundation for Syracuse’s NBA championship team in 1955.

Tensions between the two leagues continued but in the spring of 1949, Ferris began meeting with executives from the BAA about a possible merger. That same year, he convinced four of the five top players from the University of Kentucky’s national championship team to join the NBL and, in a startling development, gave them part-ownership rights in a new team, the Indianapolis Olympians. This was the last straw in the fight between the two leagues and later that year, six teams from the NBL joined 11 teams from the BAA to form the National Basketball Association, with play to begin that fall.

While with the Nats, Ferris teamed up with Syracuse owner Danny Biasone to develop a 24-second shot clock. Something of a math whizz, he devised that the clock time should be 24 seconds by dividing the number of seconds in a 48-minute game (2,880) by the average number of shots taken in a game (120) to get to the magic number. The NBA was initially reluctant to implement the new rule, but scoring jumped by almost 15 points per game when it did during the 1954-55 season. The modern, high scoring professional game came into being almost overnight. Ferris remained in the league for only one more season before starting a very successful career in real estate. He died on June 1, 1993, of Huntington’s disease.

Though the Buffalo life of the basketball Bisons lasted less than one season, the franchise, along with Ferris’ leadership, had a significant impact on professional hoops. Leo Ferris signed Pop Gates to the Bison roster, one of the earliest Black players to play in the league, which helped spur the racial integration of pro basketball. Ferris was also instrumental in the merger of the NBL and the BAA, forming what is today’s NBA. And he forever changed the game with the implementation of the 24-second clock, transforming basketball from a game of stalling tactics to a high-scoring, entertaining affair displaying incredible athleticism that today is among the most popular sports in the world. In addition, the Buffalo Bisons, today’s Atlanta Hawks, was a charter franchise of the NBA that is still thriving, some 77 years later.