WideRight

OK, we only have 14 votes in, but this one is pretty obvious (9 votes to 4) so I am going to put my vote in for the team in the lead. I had a feeling, plus I kinda wanted this one to win as well. Boston Brings the Luck of the Irish to the AAFL with the Clovers Joining the League!! The Boston Clovers are the 9th club to take part in the spring football league, with a definite Celtics vibe as they reveal their Kelly green, black and white uniforms. The design features a 4-leafed clover logo and celtic know patterns throughout. Predominantly green, with limited use of black as a piping color, the Clovers will stand out in a league that does not have another green-dominant club. You will absolutely want to be there on opening day, St. Patrick's Day in 2029 as the Clovers bring the green to Harvard Stadium. (In case you were wondering, i did initially have the Celtic knot pattern in much heavier use, but it was way too much, so I toned it down to only portions of the sleeve and pant stripe. Trust me, it got busy really fast.) With both a Northeastern team added and a Top 12 market, where does the 2nd year spring league go for its final club. Well, we are going to shake things up and create a head to head battle for franchise #10. We are going to start with a pool of 7 NFL cities for contender #1. With 24 hours to vote, we will pick the NFC City representative. We will follow that up with a 2nd 24-hour poll for the non-NFL city representative, and then on Thursday we will vote only between those two cities to pick Team #10. So, here we go, 24 hours to pick ourTeam 10 NFL City finalist from these 7nominees: NEW YORK/NEW JERSEY LOS ANGELES CHICAGO DALLAS ATLANTA MIAMI DETROIT Cast your votes and make your case. One of these 6 cities will battle a non-NFL city for the right to join the league for their 2nd season. We will match them up against one of the 6 remaining non-NFL cities that are in the Top 35 markets (as required by the league's TV partners).

Well, here we are. A final vote of 8 apiece for NY/NJ and Chicago was not enough to take the title. Welcome Boston to the AAFL as the league's 9th franchise. The new Boston franchise will play its games at Harvard Stadium (unless demand pushes them to BC to sell more tickets). They will join Washington, Orlando, St. Louis, and New Orleans in the Eastern Conference, and they will be known as... Well, that's up to you. We have four potential identities for the Boston franchise. Once again the vote will be 2 days unless one identity can take a 4 vote lead after 15 are cast. And here are your nominees... BOSTON MARINERS Some of you may remember this basic design, a teal helmet now with black and gold highlights (originally navy blue and orange). The logo depicts Neptune's trident held in the arm of what? A squid? A kraken? Who knows? Anyway, it is all about the seafaring tradition of the Cape, the city, and towns like Gloucester along the coast. BOSTON PILGRIMS It all begins with the Pilgrims. You cannot get more New England than the puritans who landed ashore just south of Boston at Plymouth Roch (allegedly). This design in an austere black, dark grey, white, and athletic gold depicts an early colonist in traditional garb, but that is not a turkey he is holding, it's a pigskin. BOSTON ROVERS A mix of nautical and Boston Irish themes with this one. The clipper ship crashes through the waves, its sails forming the R in Rovers, a reference to the ship made famous in the traditional Irish song, the Irish Rover, a ship carrying immigrants to the new world. In this version, the ship is depicted in deep green and sky blue, creating a unique color combination for New England sports. The colors evoke another famed Boston team, the Bruins, while the logo reminds us of the city's long history. BOSTON CLOVERS We are doubling down on Boston's Irish heritage and pride with a full on wearing of the green. The Boston Clovers use the symbol of a 4-leafed clover, designed in the form of a Celtic know and depicted in Kelly green and white, to link Irish traditions with the pride and good fortune of Bostonians. With black as a supporting color, and a strip of Celtic knots used as a helmet stripe, this design not only links with the city's rich history, but with its famed Boston Celtics basketball club. So, there you have it. Four very different themes, four very different designs. Two potential green jerseys, one black, one teal (or maybe black as well). The choice is yours, will it be colonial history, the sea, Celtic pride, or a mix of two themes in one ship? Voting is now open. Let's see what Boston brings to the AAFL in year two.

Taking a quick peek and I see that Boston is now one vote away from joining the AAFL. Will they get that vote or will NY or Chicago gain on them over the next 2 1/4 hours?

Not a lot of votes overnight, but enough to flip the current leader: 8 Boston 7 Chicago 6 NY/NJ 4 Miami Poll is open until 5pm (or until I can look at it after work, but I won't count votes after 5pm MT).

They are. In this league they are shooting for stadiums ideally between 20k-30k but will move up to a larger stadium if there is demand. The goal is to get the cheapest leases possible and have the best shot of stadiums that look mostly full. So, for Boston, they would start at Harvard (BU is now too small) and would move to BC if the demand proved adequate to consistently need more than 30,000 seats. St. Louis already did this, starting in the 26k soccer stadium but then moving games to the Dome because demand was high. Unlike the USFL/XFL, there is a real interest in having full stadiums on TV to give it an air of legitimacy (and smaller stadiums are cheaper to lease.)

21 votes so far and... 6 Chicago and NY/NJ 5 Boston 4 Miami That is the race right now. Far too close to call. Though I have to say that while I think both Chicago and NY/NJ make sense based on the current 8 teams in place, I have a hard time justifying a Miami team with Orlando already in the league and several other regions of the country not having franchises. If Miami wins the vote, i will use them, but I think IRL they would be out of the running at least in this round due to the Orlando franchise.

14 votes in and we have a race on our hands. 5 Boston 4 Chicago 3 NY/NJ 2 Miami If you have not voted yet, I would recommend you stick to one of those 4 teams, which basically means we are eliminating Detroit, Atlanta, and Los Angeles from contention for Team #9. Will it be Beantown? The Windy City? The Big Apple? Or ... what is Miami's nickname? The big cocaine bump? The Vice City? Does it have one?

And just in case it makes a difference and will spur some discussion, here are the 4 helmet color options for each city; NEW YORK/NEW JERSEY: 1- bright royal blue, 2- black 3-forest green 4- white LOS ANGELES: 1-metallic green-silver, 2-black, 3-light purple, 4-black CHICAGO: 1-silver, 2-medium grey, 3-kelly green, 4-charcoal DALLAS: 1-red, 2-silver, 3-copper, 4-metallic gold ATLANTA: 1-metallic gold, 2-silver, 3-white, 4-white MiAMI: 1-orange, 2-white, 3-black, 4-teal BOSTON: 1-kelly green, 2-teal, 3-white, 4-black

Ready to move to expansion? Let's do this. With 8 teams in place the inaugural AAFL season kicks off in March of 2028. Opening week sees great numbers, both on TV and in the stands. By the end of the 12 week regular season, the TV ratings dipped a bit, but attendance continued to be strong. In fact, by season’s end, St. Louis moved their last 2 games to the Dome at America’s Center, where they drew close to 40,000 for their season finale. The league had set a goal of 18,000 average attendance and blew past that with a season ending average of 20,540, which included several sell outs in the smaller stadia. The Beer Snake was, of course, revived in DC, and while attendance did suffer for the final games of the two weakest teams in the league (Salt Lake and New Orleans), they were still overall very strong. The TV numbers were solid enough for all parties to be happy, and the Championship game was a highlight of the summer. In the title game, San Diego took on St. Louis in the Dome. St. Louis had won the right to host the title game when they were the league attendance leader after 10 weeks, as the league had announced before the season. Over 41,000 attended the finale between the Rampage and the Destroyers, and it scored a higher viewership than all major Spring events except the final weekend of March Madness and the 7th game of the NBA Championship. San Diego took an early lead in the game, but the Rampage stormed back in the 2nd half and took the title 31-28 on a game-winning field goal in the final minute. The league was very happy, the networks ecstatic with the finale, and advertisers ready to jump on board. As the league prepared for 2029’s second season, they worked with Amazon Prime, and ABC/ESPN to renegotiate their contracts for their second year. The networks agreed, but on one condition, the league had to expand to 10 teams, and of the two new cities, one had to be a Top 12 MSA market and the other a Top 35 market. That was well within the plans the AAFL had, so they were happy to oblige, and plans were put in place to have a 10-team 2nd season with expansion of one team in each of the two divisions, moving to a 14 game season with each team playing their division rivals twice, and playing one inter-division rival twice, with the rest of the interdivision matchups being one game. We begin our expansion planning by looking at the Top 12 markets available and deciding which city will join the league next. Once we have that team, we will look at the Top 35 markets available for the other division. It is possible that St. Louis or New Orleans could jump divisions depending on the market chosen in this first round. So, here goes, the viable Top 12 markets: NEW YORK/NEW JERSEY (1)—To play at Red Bull Arena (25,189) in Harrison, NJ LOS ANGELES (2) – To play at Dignity Health Park (27,000) in Carson, CA CHICAGO (3) – To play at Seatgeek Stadium (20,000) in Bridgeview, IL DALLAS (4) – To play at Choctaw Stadium (48,114) in Arlington, TX ATLANTA (9) – To play at Georgia State Stadium (24,333) in Atlanta, GA MiAMI (9) – To play at FIU Stadium (23,500) in Miami, FL BOSTON (11) – To play at Harvard Stadium (30,232) in Allston, MA As you make your choice, consider weather (cold/snow/rain in early season in the north, heat in south in late season), think about sports culture and fan support, think about media presence and attention, even stadium quality. It all comes into play. And, just to clarify on the impact of this vote, it could impact either St. Louis or New Orleans in 2029. If LA or Dallas is chosen, then the 10th team will be in the Eastern Division and will be limited to cities east of the Mississippi. If Chicago is chosen, then the 10th team will come from West of the Mississippi and will be in the Western Division. However, if any of the other Eastern teams are chosen, then either St. Louis or New Orleans could be relocated to the West, which means that the 10th team could be from the full pool of Top markets remaining. If the eventual 10th city is East of the Mississippi, then St. Louis or New Orleans move to the Western Division In that scenario, St. Louis would move unless the 10th team is a strong rival like Chicago. If the tenth city is East is Chicago, then New Orleans moves to the West in place of St. Louis, since New Orleans's closest rival city would be Houston, a Western team. Voting starts now, goes for 2 days or until a city has a clear advantage (4 votes with a total of 15 cast in total, as we have done for the last several votes.) Cast your vote, and make your case why your choice is the best choice. Time to add City #9. If the vote goes quickly, I can say that I have 4 identities in place for all of these city options, so it can move quickly to the ID vote if we have a clear winner, but, that said, I do expect some debate as all of these cities have reasons to support them.

One last 2028 Inaugural season item for you all. Here are each team's home jerseys (replicas available at AAFL.com/Shop, well, they will be by 2028.

Sorry @BengalErnst but your vote change came in after 5pm MT, so it is not valid. We have a winner, by split decision. Congratulations to the Orlando Juice on becoming the 8th and final club in the AAFL for the 2028 inaugural season. The Juice will play their home games at Exploria Park and will debut a uniform set that has a lot in common with the original NFL Buccaneers. Instead of Creamsicle orange and red, their look features two shades of Orange exclusively, making it one of the lighter uniform combos in pro sports. Here is the look, complete with a secondary logo that combines two meanings of the team name (reference to citrus fruit and to electrical power). And, of course, our completed map for the inaugural season with all 8 AAFL franchises appearing. My next post, which I expect will come out tomorrow, will give a quick summation of how Season 1 will go, then a push to reach 10 teams for the 2029 season. So, the voting is not done yet, and if your favorite city did not make the inaugural season, hope is not lost, we have a lot more teams left to select and designs to reveal.

16-14 Juice with fewer just over 2 hours left.

It could be a fear boner. Ka-Kaw??? No, seriously, it is fun to see debate, but we will have a winner by the end of the day, and with all the regulars having voted already, the Juice do seem to have the advantage. (I must admit, even as a Bills fan, having a helmet for the Juice with #32 on it does make me a bit uneasy. Not to mention OJ being the team monogram.) One more quick note. Despite all the grousing earlier, with either Snowbirds or Juice chosen for Orlando, we are guaranteed that there will be no team in the inaugural 8 that have a navy jersey. Three teams with navy in their designs (all in the West) but no navy jerseys, though we do have 2 orange ones and two maroon ones, all 4 in the East, so I will need to think about that as the AAFL grows to 10, 12, and 16 teams.

As I wake up this morning, the overnight results make it... Juice 15 Snowbirds 13 Still too close to call, What is it about Florida and voting? Maybe they should be the Orlando Hanging Chads (a 2000 reference for those of you old enough to remember when elections were comical not "if the other guys wins its the end of our nation" BS.) But, no politics here. Just a shot for the next 10 hours for one or the other to make a move. If no one pulls out a 4-vote lead, then we go until 5pm and the winner is the one with the highest count. If it is a tie, to answer the question, I will just pick the one I like best and go with it. Call it League Commissioner's (or "guy who is doing all the work on this project") prerogative.

This one is heating up, but I think it is now purely a 2 horse race. So, if you voted in the past for either Tropics or Lightning, you can recast your vote. Will it be the Creamsicle Dream? The Vitamin C Victory Dance? The pulpy pugilists? Or will it be the migrating marauders? The blue-haired blitz? An early bird special with a side of cialis? Voting remains open as neither club has been able to make a case. And yes, @NativeSonX, I have and will continue to reuse some ideas from past threads, because, in all honestly, coming up with 4 new ideas for each potential city is more time than this guy can manage in a 2-day voting window. They won't all be former CFL, but there will be some, along with some from my 1980's AAFL, my AAF project, my WFL project, or any other number of past series. Just a fact.

Nice! Maybe they could hold their training camp in The Villages or Del Boca Vista and the team car would be a late model Cadillac.

While we wait, a freebie for you, since i don't think we will see this nickname reused (no remaining city seems appropriate). I generally don't create the full uniform design until I feel pretty good that the particular name/logo is going to be chosen, but the race between Salt Lake Pioneers and Sasquatch was close, so I made both. With Sasquatch not likely to be used at all in the AAFL project, here is the "leaked" design had that name won in Salt Lake City.

We have reached the 15-vote threshold, but we are not particularly close to a decision in what is proving to be a tight race from top to bottom. 8 Snowbirds 7 Juice 5 Lightning 3 Tropics Will this one go the distance (tomorrow at 5pm) or will one of these names start to build a more substantial lead? All of Central Florida is waiting to find out.

Ok, so here is our first tally. 6 Snowbirds 4 Juice 3 Lightning 1 Tropics Seems a gator cannot get much love. We have 14 votes in, so we are closing in on the threshold for an early call of the race, but as of right now it is too close to call. Will Snowbirds stick around or fly home when it gets hotter? Does the Juice have the juice to overcome them? Can we see a lightning fast rise up the charts? I will say this, had the Juice used any other color combo, i don't think they are in the position they are in. All about the creamsicle, right?

I do have 4 Boston ideas just sitting in wait, including: One based loosely on the Atlantic Schooners of the CFL One celebrating the Boston Irish population One tied to the seafaring/fishing culture One based on history without treading too closely to the NE Patsies We will see if they get used. Although I do plan on revealing the designs I created for any city that is not chosen when all is said and done and we reach the full 16.

I do think a team named the "Everglades" could work. They could be the "Glades" for short. Orlando Everglades? Florida Everglades seems too on the nose.

OK, I am going to treat @DCarp1231 's post as a vote switch from Atlanta to Orlando kind of like the Iowa Caucus when your guy is ousted so you have to revote for one of the remaining contenders. With that vote, we have a winner! Welcome Orlando, FL to the AAFL!! This gives us our 8 founding franchises and means that we hit what I consider the 3 biggies for any startup league, Florida, Texas, and California. So now we start the voting process on Orlando's identity, and this one pushed me in some weird directions. I wanted to avoid any space references because Houston went that direction, and since Orlando is not on the ocean or the gulf, I did not feel I could repurpose the San Diego Surf or the Sharks idea. So, what is left? Let's see. ORLANDO TROPICS With a gator as the main component of the logo, you knew this former New Orleans design had to be an option for a Florida team, and so it is. With the potential for the league's first white helmet, and combining UF orange with green from "The U", this is a very "Florida man" look. I opted to change the name from "Gators" to "Tropics" largely because UF would certainly sue if another team in the state tried to use the Gator name. ORLANDO JUICE It's a team the Florida Citrus Growers will love! Not only does it focus on the citrus industry, but we went one layer deeper into creamsicle country with the first team in sports history to propose a dual-orange color scheme. We hae seen double blue (Argonauts), double green (Bucks), even double red (AAF Commanders), so now we have double orange. It certainly screams Florida, but is it too much "juice" for the fans to accept? ORLANDO SNOWBIRDS Another huge element of Florida's unique population is the vast number of northerners who escape the winter to spend the colder months in the Florida sun. Whether just temporary "time share" residents or permanent retirees in "death's waiting room", the Snowbird should be the state bird. In a sun-soaked gold and blue sky combo, the Snowbirds spread their wings in sunny Orlando. ORLANDO LIGHTNING A second repurposed logo as the former DC Power now emerge as the Orlando Lightning. This design recognizes the frequency and severity of lightning strikes in Central Florida, while also providing the team with a color scheme that aligns with its other major outdoor team, the MLS Orlando City club, with their recognizable purple kits. The Lightning will sport purple, metallic gold, and black as their colors, with twin lightning bolts emerging from the facemask on the helmets. There we have them, four choices up for a vote. Only 1 can be the identity of the league's final inaugural team. Will it be a tongue in cheek reference to the state's big crop? a nod to the prehistoric lizard so often found on golf courses and in swimming pools? A tribute to the state's transient sunseekers? or will the team adopt purple once again? As we have established, the vote has a 2-day maximum, but once we reach 15 total votes, then any team with a 4-vote lead takes the W. Following this vote, i will lay out the premise of a first season, and discussion of expansion to 10 clubs in year two. More votes to come, to be sure. But, for now, let's get to picking the identity of Florida's team.

@maxwasson If you go back to the first page you will see the criteria for cities to be eligible for the AAFL. I am trying to strike a balance between TV markets and stadiums of appropriate size, so in order to be permitted to be in the running for a team, a city must: Be in the Top 50 MSA metro areas (Wichita is not) Have a football or football/soccer stadium that has a capacity between 20,000-50,000, not too small and not huge NFL stadiums either. Neither OKC nor Omaha have viable stadiums. The stadiums cannot be baseball stadiums used for baseball in the Spring/Summer. Those criteria eliminated nearly all Great Plains cities other than Dallas and Tulsa for being too small, or not having a "right-sized" stadium option.

Not really planning on it. There are more than enough markets within the USA to reach 16 teams, which is when I will stop.

Orlando 8 NY/NJ 5 Columbus 4 This is not over yet. But Orlando is on the cusp.