Sykotyk

20 minutes ago, Cujo said:

 

Where the heck else is he suppose to place expansion teams? Canada and the Northeast US only have so many major cities.

 

To add, Canada stole from the US last time a team relocated.

Stole? Where else was Atlanta going? The other prime growing cities were covered. Atlanta, Nashville, Phoenix,...

Where would they go? SLC? San Antonio? Houston? Kansas City?

Sure, Seattle was always a possibility, but the arena and getting in there were never going to happen without a lot of planning. Atlanta was a much more last minute relocation.

NHL went to Columbus instead of Cleveland or Cincy, which effectively eliminated both of those options. Indianapolis is much more basketball-centric and probably struggles to get a third team there. Baltimore is never happening. Charlotte isn't happening with Raleigh. San Jose takes the rest of the SF Bay area. San Diego is a no due to venue options.  LV was a pipedream at the time, long term yes, but not at the time.  Kansas City is MAYBE a market suited to host a team with the Sprint Center (now T-Mobile Center) but KC isn't exactly a market able to handle a third team when they have arguably the two most expensive leagues to support (NFL and MLB).

Memphis? Nah. They just got NBA and are lucky to support that. Milwaukee? Admirals have had a long standing tradition there, but what venue was going to take in an NHL team and make it valuable?

By the time Atlanta failed (and Arizona failing), there wasn't much of an option for new markets. Las Vegas and Seattle were definitely possibilities with a new venue. LV especially. But at the time only one market really had a strong view of getting the revenue needed to not contract them. It's why NHL is letting Arizona slum it in a 4500 seat arena.  They don't have a choice. And the sweet $650 million expansion fee for Seattle was better suited for the league than letting Arizona walk.

The only markets NHL has been successful in the south are markets where other sporting options were limited. TB started when it was just the Bucs. Raleigh had college sports. San Jose was the up-and-coming southern sprawl of the bay area. Anaheim was suburban hell where fans of the Kings weren't driving that far when they had the new Ducks at home.

Really the biggest relocation/expansion team early on was the Avalanche. Who barely moved to town to an old stadium the same year the new Rockies a few years old opened Coors Field. There already was Broncos and Nuggets, but it was much more a 'hockey town' and winning the Stanley Cup their first year definitely helped solidify a fan base.

Meanwhile, Winnipeg was in prime uncontested real estate. Far enough from other markets they didn't see flack from nearby cities. Edmonton and Calgary were too far for the Canada markets to care, and Minnesota probably has very little sway nor care much if they were to lose some North Dakota support.

They went to the only major city that really wanted a team. If another Winnipeg existed today Arizona might have a new home already. But they're insistent on keeping teams in the south even though they struggle for support without winning much more than northern cities would.

On 5/8/2023 at 7:25 PM, BBTV said:

"All games are free agents" - I wonder how that will work, considering the package was sold as AFC=CBS, NFC=FOX, select games on Thursday and SNF (NBC.) Seems to be a pretty dramatic shift to the model that would require a lot of sign off.  Maybe there's some kind of draft?  They'd need to do it well in advance to plan the travel for the production crews.

 

I like not having to think, and I like that the pregame shows tend to focus on the package they cover.  Will get used to it, just like anything, but I like the stability and reliability of knowing that non-prime-time games are usually on FOX unless they're playing an AFC team in Phila, in which case CBS.

 

Word on the street is that the Eagles may be tapped for the Black Friday game for some reason, which could be great... or could be awful.  

When it comes to the 1pm timeslot, the big driver for both Fox and CBS will be which local markets NEED the game more for viewership (both home and away team numbers).

Imagine there's a Browns @ Colts game. WJW (fox) and WOIO (CBS) are both the local stations in Cleveland that want that game. But over in Indianapolis, it's between WTTV (CBS4) and WXIN (FOX59).

Tribune Media owns  WJW, WTTV, and WXIN. Gray Television owns WOIO. Indy is a wash regardless which network gets it, but you gotta believe WOIO is SCREAMING at CBS to get that game on their network instead of letting Tribune get it on their stations in both markets.

The only matter CBS and Fox has is which one might draw better outside their local markets. But you gotta believe there isn't a huge difference unless it's a disparity in total number of games each has and matchup wise there's a better one out there (say 6 for one network and only 4 for the other).  But they've got to keep their local affiliates happy.

18 hours ago, Cujo said:

 

So you're suggesting Bettman rigged a 30 year Cup run for the US?

Who said rigged? It's just what he wanted. His southern strategy has been a thing since TB and FLA started, and the relocation of the Jets and Whalers.

Well, this is what Bettman wanted. The only way it could've been better is if Arizona was hosting in their matchbox rink.

Sure, Seattle isn't 'southern', but they're expansion. If Dallas wins game 7... every team remaining would be south of Kentucky....

1 hour ago, MJWalker45 said:

They did this last year and still had low numbers because fans were expected to be there for close to 8 hours depending on start times for games. And it looks like Memphis, Birmingham, and Michigan are the only teams that have actually decent numbers, though Memphis didn't have them today as the away team at their home stadium.

New Orleans v. Memphis was at Birmingham.

2 hours ago, MJWalker45 said:

Just using that dark silver helmet and a Texas flag stripe like Maryland has used for spring practice is the better way to go than this year's helmets. 

I hope they revisit the Houston (and Arlington) helmets for next season.

That flag helmet just looks bad. Like they forgot to paint one half.

1 hour ago, GDAWG said:

 

I had forgotten that Maddox was in the NFL for a few years after XFL 1.0 and had been replaced by Big Ben in the middle of the 2004 season.  

He only lost the starting job because of injury.  Sure, Ben was drafted to be the future starter. But they didn't expect him to have to go in Week 2. And that's why their offense was so unbelievably vanilla. Hand off to Bettis again and again and again.  He only averaged 21 pass attempts per game, 187 yards per game. His SB winning season in 2005, he averaged 22 pass attempts per game, 198 yards per game.

3 hours ago, Cujo said:

With the XFL season over, giving the USFL a look today. Maybe 50 fans in the stands today, so artificial crowd noise is piped in on every play. But still not cranked up enough to drown out the drones. The constant buzzing is maddening.

The drones are really my biggest complaint about a USFL broadcast. If not for them, I actually favor their production of games over the XFL. But not with the drones buzzing around.

Also, agreed about the crowd noise. They do have the crowds miked up, so they're using that I think as their barometer to how much and when crowd noise is added. So it just makes anything inaudible as a low roar.  Since I doubt they have someone manually changing things for each play.

But they messed up their scheduling. These games need to be true doubleheaders on one ticket where you'll see some carry-over from one game to the next. People aren't going to buy single game tickets for a team that doesn't actually represent their city. Yesterday should've been 2 Detroit games and today the two Birmingham games. I know maybe Mothers day they figured just shove the games out there and not worry about crowds. But, it does look bad when there's a stadium shot and it's just a few dozen people

1 hour ago, MJWalker45 said:

That's just silly, it isn't. It was just a way to get the Arlington name onto the helmet instead of Dallas. 

I agree. But then it should've been an Arlington themed logo. 

13 minutes ago, Ted Cunningham said:

Were there copyright/trademark issues with using the previous logos? Or was everything changed to "refresh" them? I honestly can't remember if that question was asked/answered.

They bought the entire league. Everything. If there were issues with rights, they'd never be able to get away with things like DC, Houston,  St. Louis, etc using the same names or reusing the Guardians or Vipers logos.

It was mostly a refresh with a new 'cutting edge' look where Vince with XFL 2.0 was going more for a 'patriotic hometown feel' to the names/logos after the brash Degeneration X style of XFL 1.0.

Just now, Ferdinand Cesarano said:

A letter logo is almost always better than a graphic logo, and football differs from a dearth of letter logos. So the change to the Renegades' helmet from last season was an upgrade. (And the same goes for the Defenders, who also brought in a letter-based helmet logo for this season.)

 

The Renegades' former helmet logo is better suited to be a sleeve logo.  

You really trying to say the D\R logo is an upgrade?

20 minutes ago, VDizzle12 said:

Still can't get over the Arlington Renegades logo being a D. It drove me insane all season. 

 

An enjoyable season overall though. Hopefully they made enough money to keep it going next year. 

It really bums me out that they scrapped that perfect helmet/primary logo they had in 2020 for this. And it doesn't even look right for a team named Arlington Renegades.  Dallas Renegades, sure....

9 minutes ago, 4_tattoos said:

DC United had a home game that started at 7:30 tonight, that wouldn't have been doable tonight if those were the rules in place.

And there's no way that the XFL was going to reserve dates for all 8 host venues. Plus, there's the problem with weather. Having a dome meant great game conditions no matter what (and I take it SA had bad weather today).  To get it on ABC, meant preplanning the date and time. It would've sucked if DC earned the right to host and Arlington had to host it because the date was unavailable at Audi Field.

2 hours ago, MJWalker45 said:

Teams are going with the game logo from the jackets on the jerseys instead of the horizontal logo and it looks better in my opinion. 

 

I'd say this game is 60% Renegades fans, and 80% anti-DC. DC's the home team based on record, but the Arlington, as well as Houston fans, are making more noise. Being up 17 points helps.

I think a lot of Roughnecks fans had bought ahead of time and decided they weren't going to let their tickets go unused.

3 hours ago, the admiral said:

I think the days of searching high and low for a place to move your team are over. The stakes are too high now. Again, I think Sacramento and the Maloofs are a good blueprint for the way things are: when you burn your home market and a market you're trying to move to, the league is going to step in and start guiding things back to the status quo before anyone can do any further damage to prospective markets. The Maloofs actually had three whacks at it -- Anaheim, Virginia Beach, and Seattle -- before the NBA intervened and just made sure the team stayed in place. 

 

I think Warriors ownership's table will be ready before Fisher can start sniffing around Portland or Salt Lake City.

Especially baseball. It's no longer the 'low cost' sporting option. You need people with money to attend 81 games a year. You need to cultivate a fanbase that will make local television and merchandising to be profitable.

MLB doesn't have a lot of markets. if they want more teams they're going to have to cannibalize LA and NYC area. A team in NJ maybe? A team in Ontario/Riverside/San Bernardino? Where else can currently support an MLB team that isn't currently being crowded out by the other four leagues (yes, including MLS).

I just don't see it. Plus, MLB is not aimed at young people. It's not the young person's cheap game.

31 minutes ago, the admiral said:

The culture at Turner and Time Warner had never been "well, let's just churn out some acceptable crap," though with Discovery, that may be changing. I think ESPN has been happy to coast on being ESPN for a very long time. To be honest, I don't think they ever quite got the NBA down.

ESPN pays so much for rights fees for all the properties they air they can't do anything more than the bare minimum. And they rehash the same thing five different ways because they can't risk putting something against their own big name property they're paying for. All 22, in Spanish, Through a Dirty Fish Tank, in Black and White... Just turn to the ESPN the Ocho for that.

1 hour ago, kmccarthy27 said:

DC is not allowed because of the agreement they made with the DC United to use the stadium. 

Not the original Defenders though. 

2 hours ago, Glover said:

I absolutely did not expect we would make it to the ECF after we were limping to the finish line to end the regular season. But I’ll take it! 
 

Still don’t expect to win the Cup this year, but I’m glad I get to watch another series of stressful playoff hockey. Nothing more exciting! 

Honestly, with Florida up 3-1 and Hurricanes winning the likelihood of Carolina-Florida in the ECF feels like a Bettman fever dream.

Just now, GDAWG said:

Anyone think that the new New York City FC Stadium will host high school football?   Is it MetLife Stadium that hosts high school football games in the New York metro area?  

MetLife does, but only NJSIAA championships (they also play at Rutgers).

NYC used to hold their city title at Yankee Stadium but stopped during covid and played their last titles at Abraham Lincoln HS in Coney Island.

3 hours ago, 4_tattoos said:

I'm going to be honest, I see more complaints about newer stadiums looking the same outside this forum than in it

It isn't really that 'they're all the same' it's that when one new popular idea comes up everyone wants to mimic it until the next new fad.

MLS 2.0 level stadiums like HDC, DSGP, Toyota Stadium, Rio Tinto, etc were simple bowls with one large concourse at the top of the seating (mostly) that may or may not have some type of roof or awning structure. Mostly for aesthetics than functional.

MLS 3.0 saw the newer SSS that tended to fully enclosed, rounded corners/roof/etc like KC up through Minnesota. Even Orlando was fully surrounding the field, doubledeck, etc.  They looked 'major league' even if they seemed smaller.

This newest level of MLS stadium went block with major roof features that cover the stands and contain the environment. Columbus, Nashville, St. Louis, this new venue.

It's the fad.

2 hours ago, DCarp1231 said:

Well, the XFL Championship end zones are generic lifeless trash

 

 

Have you watched any of the games? This is possibly the nicest endzones all season. DC uses a plain blank endzone at Audi Field and Arlington's field is green endzones with the wordmark, nothing more. Same template here and used elsewhere.

1 hour ago, WSU151 said:

Lol 

 

 

I just want to know what type of person assumed a team was named the 69ers....

42 minutes ago, DCarp1231 said:

Anything “Red-“ would be a back door into formerly-known-as territory.

 

Redhawks

Redhogs

Redyellowgreenlights

 

They’d intentionally be risking a Freudian avalanche of the former name.

 

It’s a “Well, close enough. Might as well just..” situation.

Hate to break it to you, but any name change was going to see the wrong name be used from time to time. We're still hearing "San Diego Chargers" and how many years has it been?

23 minutes ago, SCL said:

Not to mention the Guardians, which has gone incredibly well when compared with the Commander 

As a Cleveland sports fan, I wasn't thrilled by Guardians (especially with an XFL team just using that name), but it fit. It's a little clunky but it's still the same number of syllables and rolls off your tongue fairly well. Image wise, the team still 'looks' similar. Just that baseball G logo is god awful.

if they weren't going with a major change and going with Spiders, Guardians at least feels Clevelandy.

22 minutes ago, ssj_homeslice said:

I think had Snyder been amenable to the change much earlier on this would have been a viable option, but the longer he waited the more clear it was that renaming the team with "-skins" was a half measure and the whole slate had to be wiped clean. At least that is my read of how the situation unfolded. 

Yeah, I agree there that his insistence on not changing the name led to the desire for a fullscale rebrand. But, that would've been like Cleveland losing the red/white/blue colors in a rebrand.

Everything about the Washington name change was done so haphazardly. So many college teams went from (Commanders) to Redhawks, Orangemen to Orange... etc, that it seemed like such an easy thing to change up to that point. But by digging in their heels they couldn't then just go 'oopsy, my bad' and go with a minor tweak.

But with Snyder gone... I think giving the fans the 'Skins' name they still love would go a long way to ingratiating themselves into the fanbase and staying true to the desire to no longer be a native themed team.