I Had No Idea About This Game-Changing Basketball Win Led By Women Until I Watched Soul Power

Though I’m not old enough to have direct memories of the American Basketball Association, I’ve been fascinated with it since I was a kid in the 1980s. I thought I knew the whole history of the short-lived league, but a new docuseries called Soul Power: The Legend of the American Basketball Association, which you can watch now with a Prime subscription, taught me something new. A team run completely by women won the ABA title in 1975. Nothing like that had ever happened. The docuseries is about much more than this, though, as the story of Ellie Brown and her team of women also stands out.

An All-Female Board Of Governors

In 1973, the Kentucky Colonels, one of the ABA’s founding teams, were on the verge of moving from Louisville to Cincinnati. Lexington, KY entrepreneur and politician John Y. Brown Jr., who was responsible for building Kentucky Fried Chicken into the brand we know today, stepped in to take ownership of the team and keep them in his state. He appointed his wife, Ellie, to chair the team, and she put together a board that included ten other women.

Of course, the team, the league and the press were skeptical. Brown and her cohorts were derided in the press. As you can imagine, in 1973, the world really wasn’t ready for a female owner and chairman of a team in a men’s sport. The press was degrading towards Brown, but she didn’t get discouraged. She simply pushed ahead with her plans to keep the Colonels winning and working towards a championship. It’s also admirable that the ABA stood behind them, despite the unfair hostility towards Eliie Brown.

Female ownership of sports teams was nothing new, but what set the Colonels apart, as the docuseries highlights, is that the team was completely run by women. That had never happened before. This fact jumped out to me because as a supporter of the MLS side St. Louis City SC, I’m proud that the ownership is made up almost entirely of women as well. What sets the Colonels apart from City, at least thus far, is that in the second year of the ladies running the team, the Colonels won the ABA championship. It’s an inspiring story told remarkably well in this great sports documentary, and it’s a feat that has been matched but is still incredibly rare.

Female Ownership Of Sports Teams Goes Back More Than A Century

Speaking of St. Louis sports teams, the first female owner of a Major League Baseball team (and possibly of a pro team in general) was Helene Hathaway Britton, who inherited the St. Louis Cardinals from her father and uncle in 1911. Of course, though she was determined to maintain ownership of the team, she faced immense pressure to sell, including simply because she was a woman. This was the early 20th century, after all. She eventually sold in 1917.

The first woman (that I could confirm) to win a championship while running a team was Marguerite Norris, who was President of the Detroit Red Wings in the 1950s. She has her name engraved on the Stanley Cup for the Red Wings' championship in 1955. She, too, was soon forced to give up her position after facing chauvinism from the NHL and even members of her family. It's the same kind of chauvinism that Ellie Brown overcame 20 years later in the ABA.

Women Owners Have Also Won Championships

In the years since the Colonels won in 1975, female ownership has become more common. Virginia McCaskey was the owner of the Chicago Bears when they won the Super Bowl in 1985. Jeannie Buss has won a championship as the owner of the Lakers. Just last week, Jody Allen, who oversees her brother Paul Allen’s estate that owns Seattle’s NFL team, won her second Super Bowl in charge of the Seahawks. There are plenty more, but I won’t list them all here.

There is one team that comes closest to the feat the Colonels pulled off. The Seattle Storm of the WNBA has a primarily female ownership group led by Lisa Brummel, Ginny Gilder, Dawn Trudeau, and former Storm star Sue Bird. The team has won multiple titles since the women took over. Still, that 1975 Colonels team, led by Ellie Young, remains unique because it happened in the 1970s, making them true pioneers. That’s not taking anything away from the Storm, who are also groundbreaking, even though we’re half a century removed. There should be far fewer unicorns like the Storm and the Colonels. Male chauvinism is still far too common in sports today.

The Rest Of Soul Power Is Fantastic As Well

The ABA was groundbreaking in many ways, not just with the Colonels and their Grrl Power (as it were), but in regards to how the game of basketball is played (it was the first league with the three-point line, for example), and how it handled race and giving promenance to its Black players, something that the NBA had a very poor record of at the time. It opened all kinds of doors for Black athletes, and without the ABA, there is no way the NBA as we know it would exist on the level it is today.

Soul Power takes the viewer through the whole decade or so-long history of the league and deftly highlights just how important each innovation was. It also shows just how lasting the impact the league had despite existing for such a short period of time. There is no other defunct league in North American sports history that has had an impact like the ABA in the 1970s.

Many Of The Leagues Biggest Stars Are Interviewed, Giving A Full Picture Of The ABA

The series, which is produced and narrated by Common, features interviews from a bunch of former ABA stars, including probably the two most famous, Rick Barry and Julius Erving. It was the latter who first got me interested in the league, because he was at the height of his NBA fame with the 76ers, right as I was getting into sports as a little kid, and he amazed me. Ellie Young is also featured prominently throughout.

The other reason I am fascinated by the ABA is that I come from St. Louis, and our team, The Spirits, had a short, but incredible history. ESPN brilliantly told their story in their 30 for 30 series called Free Spirits in 2013, another documentary I recommend (available with a Hulu subscription). I hope more documentaries are made about the league, because it seems like the stories are endless.