Chris Leak prays this league gets started quickly
May 31, 2007 David Carr has Post-Concussion Syndrome, Non-NFL football, Teams that aren't the Texans
Frequent DGDB&D commenter stacy emailed this story about Mark Cuban starting his own AFL/WFL/USFL/XFL/whatever. Apparently, Cuban has decided that there is far more demand for professional football than there is supply, stating
We think there is more demand for pro football than supply.
See? Told ya.
Anyway, part of the plan for this league is to lure practice squad guys and third stringers from the NFL by paying them slightly more. I’m only slightly exaggerating.
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.
Now, correct me if I am wrong, but wouldn’t that make the as-yet-unnamed league similar to a minor league? I mean, how in the world is this league going to “compete” for the attention of football fans any more than the Buffalo Bison compete with the Cleveland Indians?
Oh… they are going to play on Friday. I get it; they are going to put subpar football up against high school football. I suppose this plan is better than trying to play on Saturday, Sunday, or Monday. Still, I hope they don’t plan on putting any teams in Texas, Florida, New Jersey, and anywhere else there is a big high school football culture. I can’t imagine too many people are going to stay home to watch minor league football instead of seeing Junior lead the Fightin’ Alma Maters to victory over the Othertown Hated Rivals. Maybe that’s just me, though.
The bottom line is this: Unless this league can pull a USFL and lure some bona fide stars, I don’t see how it will rank even above the Arena League in terms of drawing fans. At least with Arena Football, you have high scoring short-attention span theater during real football’s offseason. With this league, you will see David Carr throwing to Devard Darling while Ahmad Carroll defends.1 Yee. Haw. Maybe Art Shell could find a third life coaching one of these teams. And I’m sure He Hate Me would be interested in some kind of special teams role.
SO… I suppose this is typical Cuban. He’s really just a more personable Donald Trump crossed with George Steinbrenner. At the end of the day, he likes to hear himself speak. This time, though, maybe he should stick to basketball. Or computer nerderation. Or at least something that isn’t a guaranteed flop. Because he has European basketball players taking enough flops for all of us.
We now return you to your reguarly scheduled Texans-centric blog, already in progress.
1 Or, more likely, Teddy Lehman would blow past Robert Gallery and sack Carr. Also, I get some kind of bonus points for the Devard Darling reference.
(click arrow to reply)
May 31st, 2007 at 3:28 pm
MLB needs to just take one for sports fans everywhere and let Cuban buy the Cubs. Stop this silly idea in its tracks. Give the hyperbolic Cubbie fans a never ending supply of blog fodder and let Cuban play in a sport that lets it’s* owners spend literally however they want. And just watch the fun when Cuban proposes to tear down Wrigley and replace it with some bluetooth enabled HD compatible superstadium.
Seriously, the league has a minute chance of success if it realizes its role — that of a minor league. Sadly, the only thing minor league about Cuban is his corny shucksterism.
I agree that most of the cities mentioned are in High School Football friendly places like Florida and Texas, but I think there are enough sports fans in San Antonio or Orlando that would go to see the city’s team play. As far as I know, attendance hasn’t suffered in other major matro areas with pro competition infringing on high school turf.
The same fans would still watch Dallas or Miami on Sunday afternoon, so the NFL really has nothing to lose. There are enough football players and fans to go around.
* This may or may not be an apostrophe intended to guarantee a response.
(click arrow to reply)
May 31st, 2007 at 3:38 pm
Man, Screw Otherton. Otherton sucks and their cheerleaders are ugly whores.
Go Alma Maters!
(click arrow to reply)
June 1st, 2007 at 10:14 am
Dan,
I had a similar response from one of my friends about this post. Here’s the thing, as I see it. Even if they are not losing fans to high school football games, they are going to lose fans to something. You put a team in San Antonio? What happens when the Spurs are playing on Friday night? Stuff like that. This is even more true if he tries to price it competitively with NFL football–are you really going to drop $40/ticket to go see minor league football on a Friday night? And what of television? ESPN is not going to carry them most likely for a number of reasons, so they will be on Versus or something like that. We saw how well the XFL drew television audiences.
Then, strange as it may sound, you have the idea of football overkill. When you can watch an NFL game on Thursday, college football all day on Saturday, pro football all day on Sunday, and another pro game Monday night, are you really going to even try to work minor league football into a Friday night schedule?
Now, I will grant you that there is a sliver of a chance this works. With the right publicity and some kind of visible player like Herschel Walker was in the USFL, and a little luck in how the first games play out–MAYBE it sticks around. I just think Cuban should focus this money and energy into developing a better basketball fan base in the US instead of trying to build up the popularity of a competing sport.
Also, I hear the girls from Othertown swallow.