History of a Fictional Football League (1989 – 44th Victory Bowl)

[Veras 668]

California Atoms

 

Owner:  The Walt Disney Company is the only corporate owner in the USFA or AFA.  Gaining control of a franchise was the brainchild of CEO Neal Rose (37), who had pursued a strategy of diversification and expansion during his time in control of the company.  This is @NeoPrankster’s 1980 expansion council character.

 

Stadium:  Anaheim Field – a baseball stadium that is home to the California Stars.  Built in 1982, it seats 68,550 for football and has a natural grass playing surface.  Sharing the stadium with a baseball team during baseball season means that the dirt from the diamond will be exposed virtually all season.

 

Notable Players:  The Atoms biggest signing was Texas Stallions DT Ron Brown.  Like many of his teammates, he was seeking higher pay in the USFA, and as a UCLA graduate California had the first crack at signing him.  Unfortunately, much like Steve Parker in Birmingham, Brown is still under contract with the Stallions through 1988, and will not be able to play this year.

 

Logo and Colors:  The team’s logos and colors were taken from the Disney movie Gus, in which a struggling professional football team signs a Yugoslavian mule as a kicker.  The Atoms are one of only two teams in the league to have white and one other color in their color scheme.

 

 

Uniforms:  The uniforms were also taken from Gus, and are perhaps the most unusual in the league, thanks to the lightning pattern around the numbers of the jersey front and back.  They will wear red as their primary and white as their secondary (though realistically speaking, by late spring this will be reversed).

 

 

And here is where the league stands now.  I suspect that most of you probably noticed, but this grid is arranged by division.  Brooklyn, Buffalo, Indiana, and Louisville are in the Eastern Division; Birmingham, Carolina, Florida, and Tennessee are in the Central; and California, Oklahoma, San Jose, and Utah are in the West.

 

[neo_prankster 713]

20 minutes ago, Veras said:

California Atoms

 

Owner:  The Walt Disney Company is the only corporate owner in the USFA or AFA.  Gaining control of a franchise was the brainchild of CEO Neal Rose (47), who had pursued a strategy of diversification and expansion during his time in control of the company.  This is @NeoPrankster’s 1980 expansion council character.

 

Stadium:  Anaheim Field – a baseball stadium that is home to the California Stars.  Built in 1982, it seats 68,550 for football and has a natural grass playing surface.  Sharing the stadium with a baseball team during baseball season means that the dirt from the diamond will be exposed virtually all season.

 

Notable Players:  The Atoms biggest signing was Texas Stallions DT Ron Brown.  Like many of his teammates, he was seeking higher pay in the USFA, and as a UCLA graduate California had the first crack at signing him.  Unfortunately, much like Steve Parker in Birmingham, Brown is still under contract with the Stallions through 1988, and will not be able to play this year.

 

Logo and Colors:  The team’s logos and colors were taken from the Disney movie Gus, in which a struggling professional football team signs a Yugoslavian mule as a kicker.  The Atoms are one of only two teams in the league to have white and one other color in their color scheme.

 

 

Uniforms:  The uniforms were also taken from Gus, and are perhaps the most unusual in the league, thanks to the lightning pattern around the numbers of the jersey front and back.  They will wear red as their primary and white as their secondary (though realistically speaking, by late spring this will be reversed).

 

 

And here is where the league stands now.  I suspect that most of you probably noticed, but this grid is arranged by division.  Brooklyn, Buffalo, Indiana, and Louisville are in the Eastern Division; Birmingham, Carolina, Florida, and Tennessee are in the Central; and California, Oklahoma, San Jose, and Utah are in the West.

 

 

Good to see my Neal Rose character resurface. One nitpick I would have is that I hinted that Neal was born in 1951, so by 1988 he turns 37. Sitting on the Disney board with Rose are Roy E Disney and Frank Wells.

 

Other than that, the Atoms' logos and uniforms are fantastic.

[Veras 668]

Well, I can't really take credit for the designs here.  I recreated them in Illustrator, but that's all I did.

 

The age thing was a typo.  I'll take care of it now.

[BellaSpurs 238]

Those...jerseys.... eek

[Veras 668]

1 minute ago, BellaSpurs said:

Those...jerseys.... eek

[BellaSpurs 238]

God and the nineties havent even started

 

Oh, and i also love that updated hammers helmet, disapointed it isnt real.

Great work as usual

[nick_crenshaw82 17]

I think it would be cool if Veras made merch out of his AFA teams.

[KittSmith_95 708]

The new helmet for the Hammers looks much better! Then again, I love zany helmet designs when they can done, and this is one that feels like it could stick for quite some time if not throughout the USFA's entire existance. The Atoms also look nice & I love the circle around the numbers, it's a very sleek touch. Can\'t wait to see he Cyborgs. 

[Veras 668]

7 hours ago, BellaSpurs said:

God and the nineties havent even started

 

Oh, and i also love that updated hammers helmet, disapointed it isnt real.

Great work as usual

The USFA is meant to kick off the 1990s looks, sort of like the Charlotte Hornets and Orlando Magic did in the NBA. 

 

Also, the movie was released in 1976, so how’s that for a weird look?

 

6 hours ago, nick_crenshaw82 said:

I think it would be cool if Veras made merch out of his AFA teams.

There actually is a shop, I just haven’t really done anything with it because it’s too time consuming for no real reward to keep all of the logos up. That being said, if anybody has specific request for logos that you would like to see (even if you don’t intend to buy anything) just let me know.

 

www.cafepress.com/americanfootballassociationshop

 

Intrrestingly, a couple purchases have been made. Some body in Texas bought two AFA stickers in June 2015, and someone in Maryland got an Angels long-sleeve T in October 2016.

 

fun fact- I almost changed the name of the league after the sticker sold. I have no idea who the buyer was, but nobody mentioned having made a purchase here, so I’m inclined to think that it wasn’t somebody who knows what the AFA is. Which led me to realize that there is an anti-gay hate group called the AFA, whose president said that legalizing gay marriage was worse than slavery and 9/11.

 

I went so far as to pick a new name and design a new logo. If you’d like to see them, you’ll just have to go back a few pages - after a few small changes, they were both given to the new upstart league that I’ve been revealing.

[Cardsblues02 344]

Veras, I’m sure you are very busy and have many more important things to do (AFA related and real life), but would you make me a Washington  Wasps sig featuring the team’s championships? 

[officerpain138 34]

The update to Birmingham is gorgeous! That helmet is outstanding! 

I like the Atoms but it’s not my favorite. I’m looking forward to Brooklyn. And the Cyborgs! I’m curious if they will be inspired by “The Terminator”. 

[DNAsports 804]

Definitely looking forward to Buffalo and Indiana 

[Magic Dynasty 645]

So, a crazy anti-gay group is what led to the USFA? 

 

...Wow. That's all I can say.

[mkg74 112]

Atoms look good. One of those simple teams u need to balance out a league.  Looking forward to the Cyborgs!!

[Veras 668]

Carolina Cyborgs

 

Owner:  Denis Laurent (72) is a French immigrant and owner of a manufacturing firm that specializes in electronic components for radios, televisions, and (increasingly) computers.  He has lived in France, Quebec, San Francisco, and Charlotte, and has business interests throughout all three countries.

 

Stadium:  American Legion Memorial Stadium.  The stadium is publicly-owned, and with a seating capacity of just 17,000, is by far the league’s smallest.  The USFA is pressing Charlotte to become the first municipality to build a new stadium for a USFA team, but city leaders are reluctant to commit so many resources to a league that may or may not be successful.  The field is natural grass.

 

Notable Players: Laurent believes that most people overestimate the talent difference between the Canadian Football Federation and the AFA, so rather than attempting to bring in second-rate players from the AFA, the Cyborgs instead focused on signing top-tier players from Canada.  This includes the CFF’s 1987 Rookie of the Year, Lucien Desjardins, who was the first French-Canadian quarterback ever to win the award.

 

Their biggest AFA acquisition was California WR Mark Sweeney, who as a rookie played a significant role in the team’s trip to the Victory Bowl in 1974.  He has struggled with injuries, but remains a dangerous option when healthy, and at just 25 years old, has a long career ahead of him.

 

Logo and Colors:  The Cyborgs color scheme consists of red, navy, and grey.  The logo is a gear in the shape of a C around a red circle that is meant to resemble a light indicating that the power is on.

 

 

Uniforms:  The uniforms are fairly conservative, and wouldn’t really stand out in the AFA.  Their only unusual feature is the cog stripe pattern on the sleeves and socks.  Their primary is red, and their secondary is grey.  They do not have a summer alternate since the grey jersey is relatively light, but still dark enough to be worn against teams wearing white.

 

 

Here is the league right now:

 

[Veras 668]

On 11/13/2017 at 7:45 AM, Cardsblues02 said:

Veras, I’m sure you are very busy and have many more important things to do (AFA related and real life), but would you make me a Washington  Wasps sig featuring the team’s championships? 

No problem.  I haven't even updated my own sig yet for this offseason, so I'll do the Wasps once the USFA teams are all up.

 

On 11/13/2017 at 7:12 PM, officerpain138 said:

And the Cyborgs! I’m curious if they will be inspired by “The Terminator”. 

It's posted now, so you can see for yourself, but I was actually thinking of the DC character, not Terminator.

 

On 11/13/2017 at 8:48 PM, Magic Dynasty said:

So, a crazy anti-gay group is what led to the USFA? 

 

...Wow. That's all I can say.

There is a crazy anti-gay group that shares the initials "AFA," and I had planned on renaming the AFA as USFA.  I ended up not going through with it, and once I started thinking about launching a rival league, I already had the name and logo ready.

[hawkfan89 771]

Cyborgs look good, I especially like the gear pattern. Loving the USFA so far!

[MrRockyTop16 44]

Those Cyborg's uniforms are the best thing I've seen all day.

[KittSmith_95 708]

Simple look with a great logo. 10/10 on the Cyborgs. 

[mr.negative15 378]

I really like this look. 

 

Maybe it's silly but if something is on, isn't the light green?

I'm sure it wouldn't look as good with a green uniform anyways (I'm picturing the Portland Thunder bright green uniform in my mind, lol)......though that might be fun to see  

 

I didn't say it before because it seemed like a waste to post for something that has been said by someone else but I love how the Atoms have such a simple colour scheme and, for the most part, uniform but managed to make it super modern with the bolts around the numbers. Did these Atoms sign a mule too?