Rules
1. Keep the rules the same as the NFL. The casual football fan [/u]thinks in multiples of 7, keep the scoring the same.
2. F safety, have kick offs. The "onsides" kick in the AAF was god-awful

Markets
Texas and Florida
Texas and Florida
Texas and Florida
That is where the demand is

An 8 team league is a good start. San Antonio and Orlando work

San Antonio
Houston
Dallas
Orlando
Miami
New York market team
Los Angeles market team
Chicago or possibly an Ohio based team

Most of the teams in the AAF had terrible fan participation. Atlanta and Memphis were surprising. The western teams were awful. Putting a team in Salt Lake was really a stretch

Channels
Pick one main channel to showcase games! It should not be confusing as to where to find the games. TNT?

The one thing I would change is changing the quarters to 12 minutes.

Investors
Whatever you do, DON'T invite Tom Dundon to ownership.

Avoid NFL towns, and look for cities that are big enough with few pro sports options. Avoid MLS and Baseball cities less than 2m. Look for places that have stadiums not being used regularly to get on the cheap, with a local push for the economic benefit.

East
St. Louis has a dome.
Syracuse has a dome, 600k pop.
Orlando works.
Birmingham should work and has a brand new stadium coming.
Memphis could work.
Mobile is possible, Mobile bowl and 500k pop

West:
San Antonio has a dome.
Oklahoma
El Paso
San Diego
Sacremento
Shreveport is possible, Independence bowl and 500k pop


Schedule Memphis, Oklahoma, and Sacramento on the road for the first couple weeks of each season to avoid weather conflicts.

Expect 12-15k averages to start for a few seasons.

13 week regular seasons 12 games, one week buy between weeks 4-8. First game is roughly the first Saturday of March, Regular season ends Memorial day. With three double headers Saturday, Sunday, and Monday with a flex schedule to put the crucial match ups Sunday late afternoon and night.

Play your division home and away for 10 games play two opposing division one home one away to cut down travel costs and heighten the play offs.

Top two from each division make play offs. One week break after regular season. 1E vs 2W and 1W vs 2E. High seed hosts. Finishes up before July 4th.

Prioritize draft by having regional allocations for order of selection. I.e. if they attended college in California or at a PAC school, MWC, etc they go in the western draft.

If they are from Texas school they go in the southern plains draft.

Oklahoma, Louisiana, Big XII kids go in the central draft.

Draft order is 1-12 decided by geography. Sacremento and San Diego are first on the west and last in the northern. Alternating with your travel partner who gets first pick each region. Then the ability to trade players for up to two weeks after the draft. It will allow for teams to keep a regional focus but allow flexibility. Teams may trade picks for the next year along with players but not those in their home region draft. If a player is drafted but declines their rights are still held by that team for one more year and are also transferable.

(04-07-2019 02:02 PM)Foreverandever Wrote:  Avoid NFL towns, and look for cities that are big enough with few pro sports options. Avoid MLS and Baseball cities less than 2m. Look for places that have stadiums not being used regularly to get on the cheap, with a local push for the economic benefit.

East
St. Louis has a dome.
Syracuse has a dome, 600k pop.
Orlando works.
Birmingham should work and has a brand new stadium coming.
Memphis could work.
Mobile is possible, Mobile bowl and 500k pop

West:
San Antonio has a dome.
Oklahoma
El Paso
San Diego
Sacremento
Shreveport is possible, Independence bowl and 500k pop


Schedule Memphis, Oklahoma, and Sacramento on the road for the first couple weeks of each season to avoid weather conflicts.

Expect 12-15k averages to start for a few seasons.

13 week regular seasons 12 games, one week buy between weeks 4-8. First game is roughly the first Saturday of March, Regular season ends Memorial day. With three double headers Saturday, Sunday, and Monday with a flex schedule to put the crucial match ups Sunday late afternoon and night.

Play your division home and away for 10 games play two opposing division one home one away to cut down travel costs and heighten the play offs.

Top two from each division make play offs. One week break after regular season. 1E vs 2W and 1W vs 2E. High seed hosts. Finishes up before July 4th.

Prioritize draft by having regional allocations for order of selection. I.e. if they attended college in California or at a PAC school, MWC, etc they go in the western draft.

If they are from Texas school they go in the southern plains draft.

Oklahoma, Louisiana, Big XII kids go in the central draft.

Draft order is 1-12 decided by geography. Sacremento and San Diego are first on the west and last in the northern. Alternating with your travel partner who gets first pick each region. Then the ability to trade players for up to two weeks after the draft. It will allow for teams to keep a regional focus but allow flexibility. Teams may trade picks for the next year along with players but not those in their home region draft. If a player is drafted but declines their rights are still held by that team for one more year and are also transferable.

And there's your financial doom. Crowds that size would be the continuation of the downward spiral of spring football attendance post-USFL. Plus, while attendance lowers, cost of running a football team increases.

AAF was getting similar numbers but tickets were deeply discounted near the end of the season in which they were basically $10/each. BOGOs and Buy 2 Get 2 for $20 were some teams offers in the last two weeks. They cannot survive with an average ticket less than $25 and the mode value no less than $30. The cost of insurance is too great.

(04-07-2019 02:51 PM)Renandpat Wrote:  

(04-07-2019 02:02 PM)Foreverandever Wrote:  Avoid NFL towns, and look for cities that are big enough with few pro sports options. Avoid MLS and Baseball cities less than 2m. Look for places that have stadiums not being used regularly to get on the cheap, with a local push for the economic benefit.

East
St. Louis has a dome.
Syracuse has a dome, 600k pop.
Orlando works.
Birmingham should work and has a brand new stadium coming.
Memphis could work.
Mobile is possible, Mobile bowl and 500k pop

West:
San Antonio has a dome.
Oklahoma
El Paso
San Diego
Sacremento
Shreveport is possible, Independence bowl and 500k pop


Schedule Memphis, Oklahoma, and Sacramento on the road for the first couple weeks of each season to avoid weather conflicts.

Expect 12-15k averages to start for a few seasons.

13 week regular seasons 12 games, one week buy between weeks 4-8. First game is roughly the first Saturday of March, Regular season ends Memorial day. With three double headers Saturday, Sunday, and Monday with a flex schedule to put the crucial match ups Sunday late afternoon and night.

Play your division home and away for 10 games play two opposing division one home one away to cut down travel costs and heighten the play offs.

Top two from each division make play offs. One week break after regular season. 1E vs 2W and 1W vs 2E. High seed hosts. Finishes up before July 4th.

Prioritize draft by having regional allocations for order of selection. I.e. if they attended college in California or at a PAC school, MWC, etc they go in the western draft.

If they are from Texas school they go in the southern plains draft.

Oklahoma, Louisiana, Big XII kids go in the central draft.

Draft order is 1-12 decided by geography. Sacremento and San Diego are first on the west and last in the northern. Alternating with your travel partner who gets first pick each region. Then the ability to trade players for up to two weeks after the draft. It will allow for teams to keep a regional focus but allow flexibility. Teams may trade picks for the next year along with players but not those in their home region draft. If a player is drafted but declines their rights are still held by that team for one more year and are also transferable.

And there's your financial doom. Crowds that size would be the continuation of the downward spiral of spring football attendance post-USFL. Plus, while attendance lowers, cost of running a football team increases.

AAF was getting similar numbers but tickets were deeply discounted near the end of the season in which they were basically $10/each. BOGOs and Buy 2 Get 2 for $20 were some teams offers in the last two weeks. They cannot survive with an average ticket less than $25 and the mode value no less than $30. The cost of insurance is too great.

Like any new business you must expect to lose money initially investing. One thing I think gives the xfl an advantage is previous failure. I doubt Vince expects anything like a profit for at least 4-5 years.

It isn't basketball where you can get by on the seat of your pants for a while. It requires legitimate long term investment that will probably take a decade to actually break even. It's a lot of players, equipment, and logistics. So far it's mostly been leagues about flash and public relations.

I've got a kooky idea.

What if Spring football utilized a circuit rather than attempting to base teams in several cities?

A lot of sports that would have trouble attracting large crowds in multiple markets every week just tour around and put on their show in front of decent crowds that come out to see a special event.

What if you had maybe 12 teams? The league could travel to a different city every weekend and maybe play 6 games over the course of 3 days? Friday, Saturday, Sunday...

Turn the whole thing into a carnival atmosphere with other side attractions rather than hoping enough people show up just for the games. Local vendors would love it and that would help attract attention.

For a circuit, you'd need big time stars recently out of college or perhaps high profile and/or controversial coaches and public figures, such as Trump owning a team a la the USFL. Short of that, it won't work. The USFL could have pulled that off but no one except maybe the XFL since.

Honestly, that'd work WAY better for a minor league challenging the NBA or NHL. Imagine Lebron, Steph or any major star of the last 30 years, like Jordan, playing everywhere instead of just in one market and a few select cities. It'd be a big, big deal pretty much everywhere and tickets would be hard to come by in the right sized venue.

That also makes me curious as to why no one ever seriously tried to challenge the NBA after the ABA.

I would copy the NBA model.
Have each team as affiliates for four NFL teams .
AAA minor league football made up of practice squad developing QBs .
Use the same rules as NFL teams.
Florida teams Florida NFL affiliates and close NFL teams.
Columbus = Browns, Bengals , Lions Colts
That kind of thing

The ideal spring league would be an 8 team league with teams in the largest non-NFL markets as well as cities in regions with a history of supporting football and have available stadiums.

Orlando
St Louis
San Diego
San Antonio
Columbus
Birmingham
Memphis
Louisville

Wait until March to start so that it's not too cold for fans to come out to enjoy in person.
Get a tv contract that puts all 4 games each week on basic cable but also offer streaming options for cord cutters. Have territorial considerations for player allocation. Let the team with the highest home attendance host the title game.