(01-30-2018 04:51 PM)arkstfan Wrote:  

(01-30-2018 03:41 PM)_C2_ Wrote:  

(01-30-2018 08:37 AM)arkstfan Wrote:  

(01-30-2018 03:14 AM)_C2_ Wrote:  I just hate it. I can't stand it. Why be the latest to start a failed spring league? And why do it for a second time?

He should be working with the NFL or with college football if anything.

Because the USFL was working until a couple owners broke the informal salary cap and then wanted to go to the Fall in hopes of forcing a merger.

Call it a developmental league and you automatically cut the fan potential.

Yeah and if I start a Mom and Pop shop, having failed before and start again, should I expect to compete with Wal-Mart?

I admire his ambition but football has already reached a critical mass. If people don't watch the NFL, they'll watch college football and if they don't watch that, they'll watch high school or their kid's peewee league. They may even play it themselves.

It's not my money, he can do what he wants but its the definition of insanity.

Your analogy isn't quite on mark.

USFL was working in the spring. They were selling tickets and drawing a decent TV audience. Couple owners broke the cap and weren't making money in line with their spending. Teams like Memphis, Birmingham and Jacksonville were doing just fine.

The move to fall was the bailout plan of the overspenders.

WLAF had only 7 US teams and the silliness of sending teams off to Europe to play. Two of the teams in the US were solvent enough to buy in to the CFL. The CFL teams in the US did OK until college football and the NFL started then the crowds disappeared but even at the end San Antonio and Baltimore (relocating to Houston because the Browns were moving to Baltimore) were still viable and in the end the CFL pulled the plug and then awarded the new Montreal franchise to Baltimore's owner.

Not like they have been complete busts.

They were doing fine because of the novelty. Even the original XFL was a solid novelty that drew viewers in, unlike the UFL for example, which is already virtually forgotten. Had the USFL lasted a few more years, at best a few teams would have been absorbed into the NFL, which has had at least 26 teams for decades. Is that what the XFL is going for?

If they're trying to supplant the NFL, it's not gonna happen unless the league craters and dies somehow. Even if they take advantage of all the NFL's weaknesses, they have a limited ceiling . Part of it is that people only have so much time for so many activities and part of it is that people have decades of built in loyalties. No matter what annoys Oakland fans about the NFL or that they lost their team, how many are gonna become Oakland Extreme fans? It takes decades to build fan loyalty.