Red Comet

About the only way I can see a league like this possibly lasting beyond a few years is if having to pay players makes fielding a football team uneconomical for the vast majority of colleges and thus you now have a glut of 18-21 year olds who need refinement of their skills but are too small, weak and slow to play in the NFL. Even that is a yuge long shot.

Because part of me wants a league like this to take off even though I know damn well it won't.

I'd like to see who else is investing into the Neo-Neo XFL before I can say anything about longterm success. The Rock is very charismatic but does he have the resources to run a league at massive losses for a few years? Time will tell. But, I can safely say that if he does have financial backers and it still fails? Well, that tells me that TRUE ALTERNATIVE FOOTBALL LEAGUES will never work and nothing will ever make them work short of the NFL declining massively in popularity like horse racing.

Hockey is already an afterthought as far as ESPN is concerned. It's some Canadian sport (nevermind the sport they cover the most was invented by a Canadian) so why should they care? I'm more surprised they wrote the article in the first place.

Regarding the most likely potential owner of a Houston NHL team, Mr. Fertitta does think he'll make even more money once the pandemic fully subsides (my guess is fully subsides would be considered when most of the US population is vaccinated against COVID) as he does own a lot of restaurant chains. Time will tell of course. https://www.cnbc.com/2020/09/15/tilman-fertitta-restaurants-can-be-more-profitable-after-coronavirus-.html

They willingly downgraded from Atlanta to Winnipeg. They'll keep a team in a big but underperforming market until they cannot anymore. Also, they're already moving Arizona to the same division as the Stars. Might as well move them to the same state as them too. Also, Houston has a LOT of Fortune 500 companies that would buy up the suites.

They'll move the Yotes to Houston before that happens. Also, you'd need to find three other teams that are in just as rough shape as the Yotes and that doesn't seem to be the case right now. https://www.sportsnet.ca/hockey/nhl/rockets-owner-hasnt-given-dream-houston-nhl-team/

I could see this potentially being the Wild's ECHL franchise as they already have an AHL franchise in Des Moines. Which would leave the Allen Americans open for new affiliation. The Stars currently have their ECHL team in Boise. Maybe the Stars can have the Americans while the Kraken has the Steelheads?

Okay, so the $99/year package isn't just for unlimited articles. That is the minimum these assclowns are requiring in order to comment on their articles. What, is Twitter bending over backwards because you can't handle a few trolls not good enough? I'm glad Deadspin fired these hacks. And this goes for anyone who charges $99/year to comment. If you hate comments that much, at least disable them so you can show the world how hypersensitive to criticism you are. It isn't about "triggering the SJWs, owning the SJWs" because its more about narcissism than politics. Let's see how they run the show when it comes time to pay their employees.

Not to downplay it, but 2% of the US population would be 9,000,000 dead. The only age group where it so far has a fatality rate north of 10% are people 80 or older. That's not to downplay anything at all, I'm saying it would be a hell of a jump from 150,000 to 9,000,000 and if the virus had that kind of leap in lethality while still remaining as transmissible, then we're now actually living in a pandemic movie not just perpetually stuck in the first 15 minutes of one.

Just because you may win a war doesn't mean there isn't still an insurgency to stamp out. Besides that point, everyone wants to believe they're the underdog no matter what the circumstances are. As I said, let's see how they do. If they can get blood out of a stone, I'd like to know how they did it.

Actually, focusing on culture over sports would probably be a boon to them at the current moment due to not having a lot of sports. I'll consider giving them money if they write another article about all the weird things people go the ER for. Getting money via subscribers also gives them more editorial independence too. Don't need to adhere to advertiser standards if you don't need advertising after all.

As I said, let's see how they're doing in a year or two. If they fail, they could legit blame it on Xinnie the Flu instead of it more likely being that the people in charge make a six year old look like Warren Buffet when it comes to handling finances.

You know I recall in this thread saying something about people from Deadspin going out and proving that there is still an interest in sports coverage with a progressive take. Looks like they've gone out and done it. Let's see how Deadspin and Defector are doing a year from now. Would be interesting to see it unfold. Tbf, Outkick would probably be a better comparison considering they are the right-wing counterpart to Defector.

Cincinnati isn't southern enough. Then again, West Virginia is in the Big XII while Mizzou is in the SEC. :censored:, maybe Cincinnati and North Carolina do get poached. Its been that kind of year.

Isn't Baldsilly bankrupt? Who else is going to want to move a hockey team to Canada's version of Shreveport?

And with that, a high-profile coach in basketball or football going to an HCBU can trigger similar movements of talent both in players and coaches. Getting an opportunity to be in charge will be enticing for a lot of black coaches who put in years of assistant coaching experience once other schools try to get higher-profile talent too.

If this becomes a trend to other HCBUs, I can see TV contracts skyrocketing for SWAC and MEAC too. HCBUs potentially becoming a force in football again was not something I saw coming.

Actually, until about 100 years ago, a lot of college campuses were away from easy access to urban areas. This idea of being a refuge for education is a part of why even to this day college campuses can sometimes feel like another world. Transportation technology and infrastructure advancing put it an end to that scenario. The South is only starting to have that change due to the explosion of people moving there and building up the economy and infrastructure there. Pretty much all of SEC country aside from Vanderbilt and Kentucky is a good distance away major urban areas.

If the MEAC collapses, I could see SWAC change their name to something like the Heritage or Freedom Conference as it would be the only conference left dominated by HBCUs.

It's our culture and potato salad is great IMO.

Hey, that's fine by me. Not everyone has to be the avatar of high culture. Gloppy deli food OTOH? Them's fightin' words.

See, the difference is that Sunday Night Football is for good teams so the issue doesn't come up as much. Monday Night Football, OTOH......

Thing is, right now, there isn't mass transit that would allow a downtown stadium to be functional aside from a 2 mile streetcar and a bus system. There's limited parking for downtown as well so a downtown stadium would be a disaster. Kansas City has a lot of highways so a stadium with a large parking lot is what makes sense right now. Same with Orange County vis a vis the Angels Stadium. Lease runs out in 2031 for both Kauffman and Arrowhead. They are talking about expanding the streetcar to Westport (a bar district that's 5 miles or so south from Union Station where the southern terminus is for the streetcar) plus they're still building capacity for parking. John Sherman has been pressing for a downtown stadium so maybe the infrastructure will be there by the time the lease is up. I don't think Arrowhead would be torn down, though. The Chiefs (and the people running the Truman Sports Complex) would probably turn the footprint that was Kauffman into a spot reserved for tailgaters only. Maybe they keep the fountains for those early games in the season. At that point, the question would be if 22 co-owners of the Royals and John Sherman are going to pay for this stadium themselves and if not, whether there is the political will among the people to approve of taxpayer funding for a stadium.

Arrowhead Stadium and Kauffman Stadium are still among the best stadiums in the league despite also being some of the oldest. Renovate, Don't Annihilate is the best path.