Cuban (Mark) Considering alternative Pro Football League
 

From ESPN

hxxp://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/news/story?id=2887465&campaign=rss&source=ESPNHeadlines

Quote:

Mavs' owner Cuban says pro football demand is greater than supply Associated Press Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban is part of a group considering formation of a football league that would compete with the NFL for players drafted lower than the second round. The league, still very much in the preliminary stage, would play its games on Friday nights. The NFL does not play then because of the potential conflict with high school football. "It's a pretty simple concept," Cuban said in an e-mail to The Associated Press. "We think there is more demand for pro football than supply." The proposal was first disclosed by The New York Times on its Web site, which said it was the idea of Bill Hambrecht, a Wall Street investor who was a minority partner in the Oakland Invaders of the USFL, which played in the spring from 1983-85. Sharon Smith, a spokeswoman for Hambrecht and Company, had no comment and said Hambrecht was traveling and unavailable to talk about the idea. NFL spokesman Greg Aiello said he was aware of the proposed league, but had no further comment. There have been numerous leagues that have tried to compete with the NFL and a few that actually played games, starting with the AFL, which began in 1960 and fully merged with the NFL a decade later. It included such current franchises as New England, Oakland, Kansas City, San Diego, Buffalo, the New York Jets and Denver. More recently came the World Football League in the early 1970s, which raided the NFL for such stars as Larry Csonka. Then came the USFL, which played in the spring before folding after receiving only $3 in an antitrust "victory" over the NFL. The USFL featured such future Hall of Famers as Jim Kelly, Reggie White and Steve Young, but lost millions of dollars trying to compete for players. It also had internal struggles among a majority of owners who wanted to stay in the spring, and the best known among them, Donald Trump, who wanted to move to the fall and try to force a merger with the NFL. The most recent pro football league was the XFL, founded by the World Wrestling Federation and televised by NBC. The XFL lasted just three months in the spring of 2001 and was best known for a player named Rod Smart, called "He Hate Me," who later played as a return man and backup running back in the NFL. So far, the proposed new league is in its infancy and Cuban is the only potential owner for what the founders hope will be an eight-team league. Cuban said in his e-mail he believes the salary cap makes it easier to compete financially with the NFL because of the salary imbalance that leaves lower-level players with lower salaries. That would allow the new league to fill its rosters with players taken lower than the second round, as well as late NFL cuts and free agents who escape the NFL draft. Many such players, including Tom Brady, a sixth-round pick of New England, have become NFL stars. "That's not to say it will be easy. It won't," Cuban wrote. "We still have to cover quite a bit of ground and have a lot of milestones to hit. That said, if we can get the right owners I obviously think we can make this work." Copyright 2007 by The Associated Press

The proverbial "Will it work?"

I think that it has some logic behind it, but certainly this kind of stuff has to have been thought of before. There are other things that factor in that must make it more challenging. Or is this some sort of attempt at a lower level, or feeder football league to not directly compete but eventually sell to the NFL for profit?

I'm very skeptical. Any professional football league is going to be a lesser league in comparison to the NFL. Even if they stick with the "lower-tier" player concept, they'll have a higher player turnover rate than the NFL as players that prove themselves in the CubanFL will jump to the NFL when they have the chance, both for better money and the honor of playing in the highest level of competition.

And if the CubanFL does try to compete with the NFL in terms of salary, they'll die just like the USFL did - the NFL has the best markets (with the exception of L.A.) and thus can generate a lot more revenue.

If Cuban and the rest of these guys are happy being at best a AAA-level league to the NFL's Major League level, then they might have a shot at surviving a while, and maybe even eventually selling out to the NFL if college football is ever reformed and the NFL loses their free "minor-league" system. But I have serious doubts that will happen...

I can think of tons of other sports that are a better idea.

I think the best plan is to go back to the original USFL idea of playing in the spring. They were doing great until they got big heads and decided to take on the NFL directly.

Agreed. Though if they were ok with the AAA idea, and allow players to leave (get called up) and come back, that might work too. I've always thought the NFL should have some kind of farm system. What they really should do is not have an age minimium (or like 18+) to allow kids to develop outside of the NCAA.

Agreed. I really really do hope they challenge the NCAA rather than going after the NFL. That'd be smarter anyway, especially for players who don't have the grades for first-tier schools. And with an owner like Cuban on board, I think it could work.

The NCAA gestapo needs to go down and go down hard.

Football and baseball should follow the European soccer method of relegation and promotion. Have a conference league in local towns that under the right circumstance, could play bigger teams in a tourny.

Naaaa.

I think baseball and even basketball, sure. And of course, MLS. But not football in its current form.

Baseball really is the one sport prime for that sort of system. Just wouldn't work in the others, and lets face it ... it just aint going to happen anyway.

I'd have thought the NCAA is too well established and has too many friends in high places to be really threatened, but it would be funny to watch them shit kittens for a couple of months worrying about it. Get paid or go to college, what do you think most inner city kids are going to do? It might even make things a bit better for the average "student" athlete if Cuban does threaten to do it.

I think there is definitely a niche for a North American based minor league to the NFL in the spring, although that doesn't seem to be what Cuban is suggesting. NFL Germany is a joke and personnel directors around the league hate having to send players over to Europe with it's quirks. A North American league might actually develop into a true developmental league instead of the place to send undrafted free agents who don't stand a snowball's chance in hell of actually making your roster. That would be a really cool addition to the NFL IMO. There are enough medium-big markets left and pro football is popular enough I think it would be a huge hit.

I don't get how relegation would work in the States?

These towns would need to build 50,000 seat stadiums for minor league teams that have no chance of ever selling out.

People need to finally get it in their heads its not a viable option financially and the average sports fan in the States is not like the avid soccer fan internationally.

I think a rival league to the NFL would work only if the following conditions were met:

1. Deep pockets -- Dedicated owners who know they're going to bleed red for the first three to five years of a league's existance.

2. Non NFL markets -- While most leagues feel the need to have teams in NFL markets like New York and Chicago to attract TV contracts, a new league would probably need to concentrate on placing teams in non-NFL markets that have traditional supported teams in other leagues (i.e. Birmingham and Orlando come to mind).

3. Good players -- The XFL and NFLe have shown that there isn't a lot of interest outside of hardcore fans for minor league football. If nothing else, the USFL could tout its success in acing the NFL out of the Heisman Trophy winner in each of its three years of operation (Herschel Walker, Mike Rozier and Doug Flutie). Whether it be high profile college players or NFL free agents, I think a new league needs to score both to achieve any kind of credibility.

4. Innovative Football -- The XFL generated a lot of initial interest because it hyped itself as an alternative to the "No Fun League." Fans quickly found out the XFL was even less fun than the NFL. A new league needs to find ways to play innovative ball on both sides of the LOS. The 60s AFL quickly distinguished itself with its wide-open, aerial attacks, spearheaded by offensive geniuses like Sid Gillman. The WFL added rule twists to differentiate itself from the NFL, some of which were later adopted by the NFL to bolster excitement. A new league will need elements of both to distinguish itself from the NFL.

5. 10-12 teams -- better than the eight Cuban mentioned. Gives the league a wider market.

This could work, as long as they mix up the rules a little bit. I'm thinking along the lines of weapons and motorbikes.

It would probably be smart to focus (mostly, not exclusively) on players that come from colleges near your market. I could easily see that giving attendences a boost and help build up interest in the league.

;)

Towns need to stop subsidizing billionaires with new stadiums and arenas. That's the bottom line. If they did and all of them took a hard line stance on it the same way they like passing meaningless resolutions about climate control or telling the President to end the war, then maybe these owners would realize that this is America and that monopolies -- yes, even for our sports -- are bullshit.

But when even the colleges are nothing more than glorified shells of their former selves, it's hard to expect much out of the big timers.

Sign me up for season tix immediately!

I didnt see any go-go-relegation posts in this thread. I said there's no chance it would happen and *IF* it were to happen in any sport, said Baseball has the infrastructure/type of game to do it.

And I think Senator was maybe joking entirely.

But really, if they can get what... 10K+ at fucking high school games in Texas, you telling me they couldnt get 25K regularly for another football league? Shit, put 16 teams in Texas and just have the league be regional.

+1

Here's a more detailed article from the NY Times.

It could work. It's kind of a shame that there's no text sim available to test it out, though. Perhaps this is Jim's next project?

While I agree that football is in big demand these days, having another league during the fall would be overload, IMO. I already pay for my college and pro football-watching habits for the other 8 months of the year, so there's simply no way I could add a Friday league to it as well. It would be too much at one time. And I'm not even including high school, since that doesn't interest me (and won't until my kids are old enough to be involved in football game-related activities).

And with the NFL increasingly adding Thursday and Saturday games to their schedule, and expanding or highlighting the Sunday/Monday night schedule, and with some level of college seemingly playing 5 or 6 days a week once the season gets into full swing...there's enough football during the fall that I thinnk this league would not do well. I know I wouldn't be interested in it.

Um...that article is dated for Sunday...next Sunday!

Pretty much hit everything on the head. This league has no shot if it plays during the fall.

NFL Eurpoe and the AFL already exist.

CubanFL would have to provide something different from the NFL and different from the other alternative football leagues.

NFL Europe might as well not exist, IMO. Not only is it barely televised, but no one in the US can attend games. And the AFL is a different game altogether. Basically, an NFL-type game could survive in the spring/summer, as it would be the only true US-based "real" football league operating at that time. I could see a season that ended in July doing well, since all you'd have going on then would be baseball and gearing up for the NFL exhibition season.

But the problem is, they want to compete with the NFL, not be an off-season league where their guys go to the NFL when their season ends. So in a way, I understand the need to play during the fall to establish a separate league identity/brand, I just don't think it would work.

the problem is in America we've become so ingrained with the Big Four leagues that anything other than those leagues are considered "2nd best". just wouldn't work. if Cuban is content to have a small niche league that has less of a following than pro bowling then it could work on some small level. but we're not interested in lesser leagues in America.

Isn't that the what is known as the NHL?

Co Sign

If Cuban wants to start an alternate league for a sport that badly needs competition, he should look to his own backyard. Get an NBA league that looks like the 1980's version of the sport, and the NBA will be forced to change back to the way basketball should be played.

No way in hell another football league works IMHO. I think even if they were to have a spring league it would fail. I just don't think we have a big market for another football league.

The XFL actually ended up averaging about 25k a game, and really only failed after one year because NBC was promised a lot more in terms of TV ratings. A spring minor league football league could absolutely work, as long as its style ended up closer to ABA/AFL than XFL.

Heh. I noticed. Must be for one of its Sunday supplements.

As long as they incorporate rouges, I'm in!

When the World Football League was first started, the idea was to eventually have franchises in many major cities around the world. The NFL must see this eventually happening, since the rumor is that they (the NFL) will soon go to a 17 game season with one game played outside of the U.S. by every team.

There is also another 'spring' league that was supposed to start this year and was pushed back to 2008. This league sounds interesting in that it is being done in conjunction with Division 1 colleges, will rent the school's fields for games, and hopes to become the 'AAA' league in that way others have talked about. Google 'new pro football league' to get more info on it.

More is always better in my view, the NFL has become stodgy, predictable and boring in many ways.

What is he thinking? Going head-to-head on Fridays with high-school football with a new league during the fall? Who is going to watch? Who is going to be part of this new fan base?

The XFL failed because it was all style, no substance. All I can remember about it is a jersey with "he hate me" on the back, those inane scrambles instead of coin tosses and a bunch of announcers pretending this was "real" while the NFL wasn't.

You can't market a negative, unless you're running for office.

The XFL also failed because the "style" they marketed was closely associated with pro wrestling, which automatically made it a joke and illegitimate to many real sports fans. Take away McMahon, the ridiculous TV projections that made NBC look stupid for getting involved, and some of the over-the-top stuff, and that league could have worked.

I think the XFL failed because the games were boring as hell.

They should have realised it was time to shut the XFL down after the guy was injured before the first game during their stupid alternate to the coin flip.

For the most part, I think this statement is wrong.

Why does a football video gamer want more football games? Because the more that are out there, the more innovation occurs, right? But how many of those games is the gamer going to pick each year? Most of us grab one and play it. When I want my hockey fix, I play NHL2K7. When Mizzou wants his, he fires up NHL 07.

I see the same thing happening in football. I invest a ton of time into the NFL. Even the offseason eats up time with the draft and free agency. By the time the NFL season ends, I'm moving on to other sports and/or free time on the weekends. (instead of watching football on Sunday and Monday nights, I actually get out more)

I think more in this case would be overkill. I really don't think another football league will be able to survive. Yeah, there will be some diehards that follow it closely. I don't think it'd be enough for the league to get a tv contract so the owners get something back from their investment though. I think the thing would fail miserably.

Been wrong before. . .

What was their coin flip alternative?

Two guys raced for a ball at midfield. The guy who got the ball's team got to receive the opening kickoff.

They placed the ball on the 50 yard line and had one player from each team line up 10 or so yards away one each side. They blew the whistle and they both went after the ball treating it like a fumble. The player that ended up with the ball got to choose whether to kick or receiver.

Yes, it was just as bad as it sounds and even worse when one of the first 2 to do it was knocked out of the game before it started.

Ya, they completely blew it by instituting alternative rules that actually lead to a lower-scoring, more boring game, but the interest was there at the beginning. They got huge ratings off the bat, huge crowds, and people loved the merchandise. The product sucked, but not because of lack of talent.

And if there's one thing that Solecismic knows, folks, it's marketing.

What kind of crazy, messed up, alternate reality universe do I live in?

First, In my world there is this thing called Arena Football. I wonder why Arena Football was not even mentioned in the article?

Second, here in CA, there is minor league football system in place. Hell, if you do a search for minor league football on google, it looks like there are hundreds of leagues out there. It mainly consists of guys in there 20s and 30s who have regular full time jobs, but they play just because they love the game.


I still do not understand why nobody here even mentioned Arena football?

Arena Football League = AFL

The AFL has clearly found it's niche, and can be entertaining, but it's not exactly "football". It deserves a mention in this discussion, but there's a big difference between the AFL and an outdoor spring league.

This idea would have a lot more potential if the Cuban behind it was Castro.

boom goes the dynamite

I don't think this is the AFL that the article is referring to.

There have been numerous leagues that have tried to compete with the NFL and a few that actually played games, starting with the AFL, which began in 1960 and fully merged with the NFL a decade later. It included such current franchises as New England, Oakland, Kansas City, San Diego, Buffalo, the New York Jets and Denver.

EDIT: Yes, I do see now that the Arena Football had been mentioned in this thread.

I agree, I was just pointing out that arena football has been mentioned in this thread, as the AFL.

I did.