How They Became tells the stories behind the identities of iconic sports franchises. The owners, players, cities, controversies and moments that turned a team into something bigger than its record.
From the Raiders becoming the rebellious outsiders of professional football to the Mets becoming New York’s lovable other team, each series digs into how a franchise became the one we know today.
In 1969 the New York Mets did the unthinkable. Just seven years after losing a record 120 games in their inaugural season they became World Series champions, completing one of the most improbable turnarounds in sports history.
But the miracle was only the beginning. The Mets would defy the odds again in 1973. Only a few years later a bitter conflict between their biggest star, Tom Seaver, and team management threatened to tear the franchise apart.
In Part 2 of the Mets' story we explore how a team once famous for losing shocked the baseball world, how “Ya Gotta Believe” became a rallying cry for generations of fans and how the controversial trade of Tom Seaver brought the franchise crashing back to earth.
23 Oct 2026
The Mets (part 1): An absence filled
In 1957, New York lost two of its most beloved baseball teams when the Brooklyn Dodgers and New York Giants headed west. Five years later a new franchise emerged to fill the void.
The Mets were spectacularly bad from the beginning. They lost a record 120 games in their inaugural season. Yet somehow New York fell in love with them.
In Part 1 of the Mets' story, we explore how a city’s baseball heartbreak gave birth to a new franchise, how losing became part of its identity and how a remarkable stroke of luck brought Tom Seaver to Queens setting the stage for something extraordinary.
15 Oct 2026
The Raiders (part 4): Does the Autumn Wind still blow?
In 1995 the Raiders returned to Oakland, albeit a very different from the one that left.
In the final chapter of our four-part series, we explore the rise of the Black Hole, the arrival of Jon Gruden, the infamous Tuck Rule Game and a Super Bowl showdown that pits the Raiders against their former coach.
As the team struggles to recapture its glory, Al Davis faces a difficult reality: the instincts that once made him a football visionary are no longer producing the same results.
Then comes the end of an era, another painful departure from Oakland and a new beginning in Las Vegas.
Can the Raiders rediscover what made them great without becoming prisoners of their past?
This is the final episode in our series of how the Raiders became The Raiders.
8 Oct 2026
The Raiders (part 3): From Oakland to Hollywood
Al Davis had built the Raiders into one of football's most successful and recognizable franchises. But was the identity he'd created inseparable from Oakland or could he take it somewhere else?
In Part 3, Davis fights the NFL for the right to move the Raiders to Los Angeles. There another Super Bowl victory, Bo Jackson and the rise of West Coast hip-hop transform the silver and black into something bigger than football.
But as the Raiders' cultural influence grows their success on the field begins to fade.
This is the story of how the Raiders became The Raiders.
1 Oct 2026
The Raiders (part 2): Team of the Decades
The Raiders had survived. Now they were becoming one of the most recognizable teams in American sports.
In Part 2, John Madden takes over a roster filled with characters like Ken Stabler and Jack Tatum. The Raiders build a culture around silver and black, NFL Films turns that culture into mythology and a bitter rivalry with the Pittsburgh Steelers stands between Oakland and its first Super Bowl.
And then Al Davis starts a fight to take the team somewhere else.
This is the story of how the Raiders became The Raiders.
23 Sept 2026
The Raiders (part 1): The Rebel League
Before the silver and black, the Super Bowls and the Autumn Wind the Raiders were one of the worst teams in a new football league fighting for survival.
In Part 1 of the story of the Raiders we go back to 1960s Oakland: a city being transformed, a franchise that almost didn’t make it and the arrival of a young coach named Al Davis.
It’s the story of how a struggling expansion team found an identity and how a rebel football league helped change the NFL forever.
This is How They Became: the stories of how iconic sports franchises became what we know today.
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Spotify
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