(04-28-2014 01:22 PM)Native Georgian Wrote:  

(04-28-2014 01:00 PM)Niner National Wrote:  Why go make like $30,000 in the D-League when you can go to college and get paid/get benefits and perks and be a star? Throw in the chance to be a star on campus and smash as much tail as you want. You don't get that in the D-League.

How do you know that?

And where did the $30k salary figure come from?

I would guess the $30K is based upon the salaries in the UFL. And be honest, as much of a football nut as many of us claim to be, how many of us legitimately follow the UFL, CFL and FCS football?

An NFL D-League would be about as successful as the NBA D-League has been to date.

NFL Europe, XFL, USFL all worked to a certain degree. Trouble is they keep thinking television is the mythical answer for those leagues. Which lead to its downfall. Spring time football could work in the United States with the NFL backing. One of the big troubles with NFL Europe IMO was fans in the states had no team to root for per say. The league dispersed all of the talent around thus if say the Chiefs had one player here, another player there, it made it hard to develop a following. Bring that here to the US in those next tier of markets like Omaha, Salt Lake City, Hartford, Norfolk etc, combined with some sort of NFL affiliation and it could work. 8 team league, 10 game schedule with championship game on either Memorial Day or NFL draft weekend. Each team gets 4 NFL teams as affiliates to feed the roster while also allowing them the opportunity to sign some local players to sell tickets. If they would look at a model where 20k to 30k attendance is great, it could succeed.

Columbus - Cincinnati, Cleveland, Detroit, Pittsburgh
Hartford - Buffalo, New England, New York, New York
Norfolk - Baltimore, Carolina, Philadelphia, Washington
Orlando - Atlanta, Jacksonville, Miami, Tampa Bay

Omaha - Chicago, Indianapolis, Kansas City, St. Louis
Sacramento - Oakland, San Diego, San Francisco, Seattle
San Antonio - Dallas, Houston, New Orleans, Tennessee
Salt Lake City - Arizona, Denver, Green Bay, Minnesota

(04-28-2014 02:18 PM)MissouriStateBears Wrote:  Sacramento - Oakland, San Diego, San Francisco, Seattle

Las Vegas, if/when they get that new stadium built.

(04-28-2014 02:25 PM)Native Georgian Wrote:  

(04-28-2014 02:18 PM)MissouriStateBears Wrote:  Sacramento - Oakland, San Diego, San Francisco, Seattle

Las Vegas, if/when they get that new stadium built.

Vegas would make more sense. Probably put Arizona there and Seattle in Salt Lake then.

(04-28-2014 01:22 PM)Native Georgian Wrote:  

(04-28-2014 01:00 PM)Niner National Wrote:  Why go make like $30,000 in the D-League when you can go to college and get paid/get benefits and perks and be a star? Throw in the chance to be a star on campus and smash as much tail as you want. You don't get that in the D-League.

How do you know that?

And where did the $30k salary figure come from?

Just made it up. That's about what NBA D-League guys make. Doubt the NFL would pay much more than that if at all, especially since they have a lot more people to pay than a basketball team would.

Also, I say that because if you go around a college campus asking some of the women on campus who the stars of their basketball/football programs are, many of them will know. Ask them who are the stars of D-League or Arena League teams and they're not going to have a clue.

College has value beyond money. It's an opportunity to **** around, have fun, and get laid with minimal effort.

(04-28-2014 02:44 PM)Niner National Wrote:  [$30k is] about what NBA D-League guys make. Doubt the NFL would pay much more than that if at all, especially since they have a lot more people to pay than a basketball team would.

Fair enough. I have no idea how the NBA's d-league works, or what the salary structure is like.

Quote:if you go around a college campus asking some of the women on campus who the stars of their basketball/football programs are, many of them will know. Ask them who are the stars of D-League or Arena League teams and they're not going to have a clue.

Of course they know who the star players are for their college teams: they're college students! Get off-campus a mile or two and ask non-college females in the 20-30 age bracket for the name of any player who didn't win the Heisman. I bet you'll get a lot of blank stares. And some of the Heisman winners fade quickly to obscurity, too.

Quote:College has value beyond money. It's an opportunity to **** around, have fun, and get laid with minimal effort.

You don't really think that will effect the NFL's ability to put a D-league together (if it wants to), do you?

Nothing in this article even suggests that a D-league would be filled with non-college attending 18-21 year olds. Does anyone really believe that? This would be your farm system to develop QB's and non-skill position players.

The symbiotic relationship that currently exists between college and the NFL is part and parcel of the reason for the success of both. The NFL is a smart league and will not make the same mistakes as the NBA and MLB (because it is not run by the players or 2-4 large market owners).

Just don't put a DL team in Louisville. We've had enough Minor league franchises. None will succeed. Our next Franchise should be Major. Either MLB or NBA would work out best. NFL already has 4 Teams within 250 mile radius so unless say St.Louis Rams moved here I doubt NFL would be interested.

(04-29-2014 09:29 AM)LSUtah Wrote:  Nothing in this article even suggests that a D-league would be filled with non-college attending 18-21 year olds. Does anyone really believe that?

20-24 would be the probable age-bracket.

Quote:The NFL is a smart league and will not make the same mistakes as the NBA and MLB (because it is not run by the players or 2-4 large market owners).

What mistakes are those?

The NFL knows that a developmental league is a good thing.

World League/NFL Europe did a good job producing talent.

The problem is getting it to produce sufficent benefit to justify cost.

It does not need to be a "farm" system. Simply having an 8 to 16 team league and asking each of the 32 to place X number of players in and then an NFL management team signing the remaining talent is good enough with the management of each team taking players out of that pool (basically what MLS does) would work.

You don't need a huge schedule, 10 to 12 games is probably enough though you might go 14.

The CFL minimum salary is $30,000 so you can probably get away with paying less to most players because players would rather be NFL affiliated and managed.

Start play the first week of March and finish mid-June so selected players can report to NFL camps in July.

Typical player would be a later cut from the NFL the year before brought into camp for D league in February or late January. Play and if you perform well head back to an NFL camp in July.

First thing you do as commissioner is let it be known no city without a developmental team will be considered for expansion or relocation.

Could be good for some colleges as well. It would make sense if you have a team in a major market with an NFL team to try to lease a local college stadium rather than a huge NFL stadium. Playing in 25,000 to 40,000 seats would create a better environment.

Well, you currently have 9 teams in the CLF you could add a team in London and that's your 10 team NFL farm system. I don't think adding a farm system in the US works. For starters, you got college football and the days of the USFL have changed with expansion teams for MLB, NFL, NBA, NHL etc to fill a market void.

(04-29-2014 10:19 AM)Native Georgian Wrote:  [quote='LSUtah' pid='10710905' dateline='1398781772']

Quote:The NFL is a smart league and will not make the same mistakes as the NBA and MLB (because it is not run by the players or 2-4 large market owners).

What mistakes are those?

Making the college game irrelevant to the mass audience. Two hands building a product together is far more effective than one. Look no further than the value of the draft and the combine to the NFL...no way they kill that cash cow.

(04-29-2014 12:38 PM)LSUtah Wrote:  

(04-29-2014 10:19 AM)Native Georgian Wrote:  

(04-29-2014 09:29 AM)LSUtah Wrote:  The NFL is a smart league and will not make the same mistakes as the NBA and MLB (because it is not run by the players or 2-4 large market owners).

What mistakes are those?

Making the college game irrelevant to the mass audience. Two hands building a product together is far more effective than one.

MLB didn't "make" college baseball irrelevant to the mass audience. Professional baseball became socially entrenched in the late 1800s pretty much throughout the entire country -- majors and minors alike. College baseball was always an afterthought, and actually now I would say it's popularity is at an all-time high.

Quote: Look no further than the value of the draft and the combine to the NFL...no way they kill that cash cow.

I don't know what the monetary value of the draft and the combine is to the NFL, but I don't see how the existence of a developmental-league would necessarily make that value go away.

There are plenty of athletes out there to make the D-league viable and keep CFB very, very strong. As a PSU fan, if you had a D-league team with 5-10 former Lions on it in the area, we'd all root for them to succeed. That's a natural draw to the D-league team. I can think right now of 5-10 players who bounced around NFL practice squads and occasionally made rosters in the past 5 years.

So, you have a large group of Jadeveon Clowney/Johnny Manziel type youngsters...and then you have a large group of former college players who weren't superstars (NFL quality) but who were strong CFB players and want to play a few more years (maybe cap the D-league at 26 years of age?)...I think that's a very large and viable league.

(04-29-2014 01:42 PM)Native Georgian Wrote:  MLB didn't "make" college baseball irrelevant to the mass audience. Professional baseball became socially entrenched in the late 1800s pretty much throughout the entire country -- majors and minors alike. College baseball was always an afterthought, and actually now I would say it's popularity is at an all-time high.

That's right. College baseball is not only more popular now than it was 20 or 50 years ago, but it has better players and a higher caliber of play than it did back then. Minor league baseball goes back to the 1880s.

(04-29-2014 03:31 PM)Wedge Wrote:  

(04-29-2014 01:42 PM)Native Georgian Wrote:  MLB didn't "make" college baseball irrelevant to the mass audience. Professional baseball became socially entrenched in the late 1800s pretty much throughout the entire country -- majors and minors alike. College baseball was always an afterthought, and actually now I would say it's popularity is at an all-time high.

That's right. College baseball is not only more popular now than it was 20 or 50 years ago, but it has better players and a higher caliber of play than it did back then. Minor league baseball goes back to the 1880s.

And the modern farm system of the parent club providing the players is only about 60 years old.