Would a spring/summer league work?

[SunDancer]

With the NHL lockout, and MLB and NBA always dropping the ball whenever they seem to make a minor step foward, could a new pro football league work?

It seems that if a league would learn from the miskates of the USFL (overspending and allowing the Trumpster in), and the XFL trying to mix wresting and football's entertainment together, do you think it would be successful?

[nilodor]

I've always thought a minor league NFL could work, however not in the spring/summer. I think it could work like NFL Europe where NFL teams could allocate players to the minors. Have say 12 teams in kind smaller cities play on Tuesday's and Thursdays or something like that depending on when high school games are. Also allow teams to call up players during the season or something like that, this way it would allow rookies to cut there teeth against better competition without throwing them to the wolves.

To answer your question I would say yes but only another football league because the other major leagues would all be running in that timeframe. Even though recent history had these leagues fail I think the interest was there, just the management wasn't.

[digamma]

Arena football has pretty decent success in the spring/summer.

[CHEMICAL SOLDIER]

Wasn't NBC planning on an NFL alternate around 1998-99 after losing the NFL. I can remember USA today having the team logos and such and a lot of buzz here in Vegas about the prospects of a team here. I guess the plan was scraped for the XFL.

[Yossarian]

Cool idea. Some kind of summer league where they can send low draft picks / decent undrafted guys to get experience.

You could even set it up abroad and try to expand the influence of the NFL world wide,

Mibbe have a few teams in Germany or something? since with all the US armymen stationed there after the war has meant Germany has quite a following of football.

Heck you could even give it some wacky name like NFL Europe or something...

[Yossarian]

in all honesy (and without the sarcy wankdom) if NFL wants another summer league it has to be at the expense of NFL Europe because the player base would be the same.

NFL Europe has become NFL Germany because the other teams weren't profitable (despite actually waaaaay increasing the fanbase for the sport abroad). If NFL Germany isn't financially viable in 2 years, I think they'll just move it stateside and rebrand it. It WORKS as a farm league and a place for kids to get experience but if they want profit and aint getting it abroad, its a heck of a lot cheaper to set it up in America.