Sykotyk

At this point, just rip the bandaid off. Sell the naming right and go the G-League route. NSFL will not resonate with people the way either USFL or XFL did. The NSFL is at "The Spring League" level of clout. If they want to avoid either name in a merger... just go all the way and at least make some money off it.

No. This one is okay. Bringing back a fan favorite that got ripped out with the AFL's failed NBC venture with the move to Indiana is a right move. No need for new logos or colors. Just go with what most people remember. After all the failed replacements such as the Conquest and Empire. it's good to see the Albany Firebirds return to Albany and the AFL. Even a mild reproduction.

I like it but I also don't like it. Could've been better. But could've been a lot worse

I get they want a merger. But both the USFL and XFL names have name recognition. Seems ridiculous to move away from both of them.

But if you're pairing down your teams to get to a manageable 10-12-14, Orlando is an easy solution. Out of the USFL, the obvious ones are the secondary markets and Pittsburgh. But you don't want to leave Canton necessarily. So, that's still 4 teams. Out of the XFL, the Las Vegas and Orlando teams make the most sense. If you're combing the leagues. Having NJ actually be in New Jersey makes sense. Condensing the two Houston teams into one (regardless of the identity chosen) makes the most sense. Seattle may be a west coast outlier, but they had good crowds, and it's the only currently presence out west at all. So, depending on the total number of teams, Orlando is on the chopping block. 14 teams: Houston and Las Vegas, move the non-USFL host teams to a host site. 12 teams: Houston, Las Vegas, PHI or NJ, and Orlando 10 teams: Houston, Las Vegas, Philadelphia, New Orleans, Orlando, and New Jersey 8 teams: Las Vegas, San Antonio, Houston, and Orlando from the XFL; New Jersey, New Orleans, Philadelphia and Pittsburgh from the USFL. Either way. Someone is getting cut. And honestly, it makes sense for Orlando. They've been burned. Scorched markets don't rebound. Same reason San Antonio didn't bounce back after the Commanders. You can't just plop a new team in a market and think the same fans are showing back up again. Many leave, and don't come back. At least immediately. And the Guardians thing was a mistake. No real identity to Orlando, were clearly just a rehash of another team from another market with different colors. Let the market cool.

This was my idea from another forum: East (hub in Canton) Ohio (plays in Canton) Michigan (plays in Detroit) New Jersey (plays at MetLife) DC (plays in DC) Central (hub in Birmingham) Birmingham Memphis (plays in Memphis) St. Louis (plays in STL) Seattle (plays in Seattle) South (hub in Arlington) Arlington (plays in Arlington) San Antonio (plays in Alamo dome) Houston (plays at Rice this year) New Orleans (plays at Tulane) My logic being, the USFL may have a TV partner built in, but lacks the resources to put in roots into the other 5 cities that aren't playing at home. Meanwhile, XFL can use this as a chance to cut the dead weight of Las Vegas and Orlando. The problem isn't that these aren't viable markets, it's just you can't keep churning through markets again and again and again with new teams and expect fans to just keep coming back. We saw that with San Antonio. But at least with them in the mix, they'd be travel partners with Arlington and Houston. Throw in New Orleans, and you have road fans that help upsell tickets. A bigger issue is going to be ticket prices. USFL went for cheap, while XFL made their money off tickets. Big difference between Canton prices just trying to draw anyone, while XFL teams were going for much much more than that. I think the logic here, in my thoughts You keep the 6 main XFL markets, and the 4 'host' markets of the USFL (relabeling Canton as Ohio and increasing the Ohio/Michigan rivalry angle). You pick New Jersey over Philly, and bite the bullet and put them at MetLife, which is probably the only place a team can go in that area. Even if the venue is a flop, you need that market. And you need to get rid of the travel-only teams. But, you take the XFL route of hubbing all the team in Arlington and do it in three places instead. Canton is cheap. Arlington is already hosting. And Birmingham has been a fine, inexpensive host city for USFL for two years. Every team travels out from their 'host' city for their games. Yes, you're giving up the Florida and California markets. Yes, you're sacrificing either NJ or Philly. Yes, you're getting rid of the PIttsburgh name. But you weren't going into Acrisure anyways and there's no other venue anywhere closer that can host as well as Canton. Not Youngstown. Not Morgantown. Not happening. But at least call them Canton 'SOMETHINGS' or "Ohio SOMETHINGS". Let's look at the three 'divisions' I created. First, you have DC and NJ as big rivals. You have Ohio and Michigan as big rivals. Those are built in. DC/Philly would work just the same. The 'South' would be the three Texas teams and New Orleans. Hubbed out of Arlington. Easy driving distance for the San Antonio and Houston games. Easy short trip to New Orleans by plane. Huge potential for road fans from Houston to New Orleans, and the three Texas teams among themselves. The Central is only odd because of Seattle. Seattle seemed to fit well into the XFL. But, without rocking the boat on relocation and setting up shop in less than four-five months, you're going with pre-existing cities. So, they'll get bundled into the St. Louis, Memphis, and Birmingham hub. Yes, the travel for Seattle home games would suck. But the hub in Birmingham would make road games for Seattle so much easier to Memphis and St. Louis. Both potentially being motor coaches and not flight. Which would greatly cut down expenses. Anything under 8 hours SHOULD be motor coach than flight. Get there the day before. Home team can do some local promotions. Practice in the evening. Play game the next day, and travel out. Try to line-up home games back to back, and keep a team 'at home' for the week. Also, to increase local publicity. But keeping the hub system going, in general. The St. Louis/Memphis rivalry would be great. As would the existing Memphis/Birmingham spring football rivalry. And St. Louis-Birmingham should be great, too. The big issue would be start time. if Fox wants games to start in April, then the XFL teams would have to adjust to a later start. Unless Fox and ESPN/ABC wants to 'handoff' the broadcasts the way NASCAR did for years between Fox and NBC, or Sunday Night Football did years ago between TNT and ESPN. My thought would be to start the games the weekend before the Super Bowl. With 12 teams, play 4 games the Week before the Super Bowl (assuming the NFL still schedules the single off week). And two games the week of the Super Bowl (played on Saturday as a warm-up for fans). And then full weeks of games going forward from there. Maybe another bye for all 12 teams (spread it over 2 weekends when viewership will be the least, such as March Madness and maybe Mother's Day weekend). Either do Top 4 or Top 6 make the playoffs. Three division champs, and 3 best wildcards. Top two champs get a bye. And an extra week to sell tickets for their games. Quarterfinals, Semifinals, and the championship game at a neutral site pre-selected. In advance.

Have to imagine in a merger, DC stays as the Defenders. The real question would be Orlando (if they stay) or Houston. I would think the Gamblers name would get the nod over the Roughnecks. Much better name, look, logo, colors, etc.

I'm glad they're finally ditching the War of the Worlds logo

Had to be September 11th. The past few years they did this for Week 1. I'm guessing with the NY teams hosting SNF and MNF, they didn't want overlap and instead have the whole country watching the Jets game. But the contract probably covers an extra game and so they moved it back a weekend.

Rocket City Trash Brahmas

Bengals may pay him. But the Browns own him.

One of these is not like the others. One of these does not belong.... Technically... technically... Acrisure is shared between the Steelers and Pitt. It's part of the deal to build the stadium. And the plans Pitt had in place when they tore down Pitt Stadium to move to Three Rivers until Heinz was finished so they could build their Petersen Events Center basketball cathedral. If you've ever been there, these are the gates to the stadium. In the stadium, the Panthers and Steelers both have their own lockers. Other than the 'great hall' thing where the Lombardi trophies are stored, everything else about the stadium can be switched between Steelers and Panthers for game days. Similar to MetLife with Giants and Jets. In fact, during the college season, it's why one endzone says PITTSBURGH and the other is the / / / / / / endzone. They just paint the outline of PITTSBURGH black or blue depending on who is hosting. After the Panthers season is done, is when the STEELERS name gets added to the one endzone. And usually prior to that, there is no 50 yard line logo or its minimal since it's harder to paint over.

Florida State uniforms remind me of this HS game in New Mexico (ignore mismatching helmets)

Is there a reason to deride the nickname? Does anyone get all upset about Jimbo being a nickname to put it in sarcasm quotes?

Honestly think that was the push to get them away from the block numbers.

It's like the old blue away uniforms in baseball.

From my understanding of it, no. Not at all. They don't own the skyline. Even if they're part of that skyline, their building isn't the point of the skyline usage (it could be, but that'd be incredibly hard to prove). Sort of that whole 'if you're in public, you don't have a reasonable expectation of privacy' from photographers/paparazzi, etc. Someone taking a crowd shot doesn't need consent waivers. Someone zooming in just to take a photo of you, too, doesn't need your consent if it's an view of you that doesn't require any sort of 'improper' means to get (ladder, hidden camera, drone over private property, etc). Basically, if you can see it with the human eye, you can photograph it and it's legal in a public setting. What the Space Needle is arguing would be similar to if the photographer was not just selling images of a celebrity but pretending to be affiliated WITH the celebrity. Imagine if "Scarlett Johansson Photography Studio" was selling photos of her. There'd be the impression they're related or endorsed. Even if their primary business were being paparazzi taking and selling nothing but photos of Scarlett Johannson in public for tabloids. Using her name/image/likeness to promote their identity would be crossing the line. Same as a team using a famous building that's trademarked would be crossing the line. Part of the whole? Sure. Just that part? No.

https://twitter.com/dctf/status/1697249186528522391?t=EIxOMvj7cr4RxsKuZGWCjQ&s=19

Interesting. I wonder if there's variations in high school from state to state.

Also, the numbers were a way for fans, in a day before massive high-def replay boards and high-def TVs at home, to quickly determine who was where on the field. You didn't need to know WHO was #38, but when you saw that # you knew "Fullback or Running Back" on offense, etc. either from the stands or from your little, fuzzy 25" rear projection TV that had missing corners. Today, no matter whether you're at a stadium or at home, you get so much info about every single player that if anyone does anything their name and photo pop up, or you see an insanely upclose, HD shot of their face in real time. You don't need to pythagorean theorize your way into knowing who or what they were. But primarily, the numbering system has gotten too convoluted. 1-19 used to just be QB/P/K, where now it includes WRs. 70-79 and 90-99 used to be linemen and linebackers, but then 50-59 is also linebackers, but not linemen. But 60-69 can be. But 30-39 was mostly fullbacks while 20-29 was mostly halfbacks. And DBs. Safeties got 40-49 and sometimes 20-39. Receivers were 80-89, except tight ends, who many times were also in the 40s. Numbers that used to be consistent became anything but consistent. Overlap, also just ruins it. And with the trend going for more numbers for more players, it's easier to just let anyone wear whatever they want. As for QB/P/K being 1-19, I always assumed it was they were the smallest guys usually with less bulky padding so the smaller numbers fit better on them. And for anyone arguing about other sports, NBA uses all numbers. While college still uses the 0-5, 10-15, 20-25, 30-35, 40-45, and 50-55 designation so refs can hand signal which players were called for a foul (or has that changed?)

Yeah. I was afraid that NYCFC was going to be another NYRB. But they've seemed to really put a lot of effort into it, and make NYCFC its own thing, and not just a cheap shoestring budget operation.

How much do the parent NHL clubs contribute to player salaries and any sort of contractual obligations? In baseball, there's a huge chunk of player pay and oversight that is covered by the parent club while the minor league teams mostly worry about the day-to-day operations of selling tickets and managing the logistics of the organization.

NYRB definitely gave up years ago and are just using the team as a very weak advertising vehicle and not too interested in running a successful club. Especially with NYCFC in the mix. They really should've pivoted to being New Jersey's team, the way the Devils have always been, and work on the support that way. They realy do feel like Chivas USA. A team that doesn't really represent their home market trying to rep another area that doesn't care much about them and already has a team to support. Sure NYCFC came after NYRB where LAG came before CDCUSA... it still is pretty close. And both are doomed to failure.

Problem is the schools big enough to have both teams probably have the finances for two sets of uniforms.