XFL 2020 Season

[Gothamite]

The XFL wants to be in major markets but pay decidedly minor-league wages.  Just try living on $27,000 in metro NYC, or in the Bay Area, or Los Angeles, or Seattle.  Even with roommates, that’s a stretch.

[dfwabel]

7 hours ago, BringBackTheVet said:

I really want one of these leagues to succeed, because there's more opportunities for players, more games to watch (if they're any good), another path to the NFL for guys, and honestly there's no downside for a fan.  I think it's ridiculous for people to actively root for leagues to fail... strictly from a fan perspective.  That being said, it's possible to root against certain people to succeed, especially if they're harming other people in their efforts.  I don't know what constitutes a 'living wage' (I'm sure tehre's stats), and how you account for the fact that by nature, football is a sport where you don't need to live where you work (at least for most of the year), but figure it out, and make the minimum at least that number, along with some compensation for all the travel.  It does sound like they have a decent benefits package, especially for a league in which they're players are basically part time.  Then once all the accounting is done, figure out a fair cut of the revenue, subtract what's already been allocated to salaries, and figure out how to distribute the rest.  Once the league is a year or two old, it'll become more clear which players are worth more than others, and a more normal salary structure would start to emerge, with the exception that leagues like this should always have reserves on hand to sign "name" players, since they need that.  For example, someone like a Manziel, for as much as I hate him as a person, would attract a lot of attention that might translate into revenue and there should be extra money available to bring him in (within reason).

There will be nothing to distribute, ever. And it is not because of "crazy accounting". You can have the FASB do the books (if they even do such services) or just follow GAAP to the letter, and one thing would be clear...TOO LITTLE REVENUE COMING IN COMPARED TO EXPENSES!

 

Freedom Football League (the T.O./Ricky Williams one), agent Don Yee's Pac-Pro League concept, and the other one @GDAWG loves to mention in passing and the limping MLFB illustrate how high the startup costs are even for the sparest of "alt football leagues".  We really don't talk much about Arena/Indoor football here (thankfully), but even their economic tightrope of survival foreshadows the financial losses on the outdoor scale.

[DG_ThenNowForever]

17 minutes ago, Gothamite said:

The XFL wants to be in major markets but pay decidedly minor-league wages.  Just try living on $27,000 in metro NYC, or in the Bay Area, or Los Angeles, or Seattle.  Even with roommates, that’s a stretch.

 

Average rent in Seattle is about $2,100. If housing is a third of your income, you need to make $72,000/year. If half, you're at $50k.

 

At $27,000, you simply can't afford to live here. Not without roommates and, as you said, even that's a stretch.

 

I was a little excited to see XFL ball, but now I feel like any excitement is complicit in supporting sweatshop wages for entertainment. No thanks.

 

The rent isn't too damn high; the wages are too damn low.

[mkg74]

51 minutes ago, dfwabel said:

Sadly, every Arena/IFL/NAL/(insert more spare indoor league here) guy will form a line to the left along with the 300+ dudes not drafted last week. 

Which will make it XFL.1 all over again....without some of the engaging personalities such as He Hate Me or Maddox or Jeff Brohm...

[GDAWG]

56 minutes ago, DG_Now said:

 

Average rent in Seattle is about $2,100. If housing is a third of your income, you need to make $72,000/year. If half, you're at $50k.

 

At $27,000, you simply can't afford to live here. Not without roommates and, as you said, even that's a stretch.

 

I was a little excited to see XFL ball, but now I feel like any excitement is complicit in supporting sweatshop wages for entertainment. No thanks.

 

The rent isn't too damn high; the wages are too damn low.

 

So basically a Seahawks practice squadder can afford to live in Seattle but a Seattle Dragon cannot?  That is shameful.  I would think that XFL salaries would be closer to what NFL Practice squad guys are making. 

[Gothamite]

I just hope some of these players can eventually sue McMahon over the inevitable CTE they suffer suffer playing for his pennies. 

[dfwabel]

21 minutes ago, Gothamite said:

I just hope some of these players can eventually sue McMahon over the inevitable CTE they suffer suffer playing for his pennies. 

That's where the problem with suing the NCAA even lies. Even with modern helmets and the data they "record".  You cannot determine when one's initial concussion occurred and if it came from football.  The XFL will follow the NCAA claim that the court cannot tell which specific concussion was the exact concussion was the one which caused the injuries.  It will be a lesser amount of responsibility put in a settlement fund. 

[Gothamite]

I have no doubt that Vince will want to frame it just that way.  We can’t let him.  Any more than we can let the NFL pretend that it doesn’t have any responsibility.  Or the NCAA. 

 

CTE is not about concussions.  It’s about the many sub-concussive hits that happen on every single play.  Anyone who plays a single game in the XFL can make the argument that the XFL is partially to blame for ensuing medical problems.  

 

If a man plays in college, and the NFL, and the XFL, and develops CTE, then all three entities are jointly responsible. It’s only a question of how much responsibility each one needs to take.  And hopefully the NFL settlement debacle will lead to the XFL players actually holding McMahon accountable. 

[dfwabel]

15 minutes ago, Gothamite said:

I have no doubt that Vince will want to frame it just that way.  We can’t let him.  Any more than we can let the NFL pretend that it doesn’t have any responsibility.  Or the NCAA. 

 

CTE is not about concussions.  It’s about the many sub-concussive hits that happen on every single play.  Anyone who plays a single game in the XFL can make the argument that the XFL is partially to blame for ensuing medical problems.  

 

If a man plays in college, and the NFL, and the XFL, and develops CTE, then all three entities are jointly responsible. It’s only a question of how much responsibility each one needs to take.  And hopefully the NFL settlement debacle will lead to the XFL players actually holding McMahon accountable. 

And not to overly digress, as most CCSLC threads do, let's you and I not do that here.  Let's acknowledge that Vince needs to take such hits into his long-tern business plan because he will likely be taken to court over it.  We've got another thread for such posts, which you and I frequent, and before we are deleted here and told to discuss it there, we just should.

 

As we saw earlier in 2019, XFL has many issues before playing a snap and player health is one of them, but the lack of competition for talent appears to have cut the salaries which XFL was to offer and at least one AAF performer has balked via is agent. 

[Gothamite]

7 minutes ago, dfwabel said:

And not to overly digress, as most CCSLC threads do, let's you and I not do that here.  Let's acknowledge that Vince needs to take such hits into his long-tern business plan because he will likely be taken to court over it.  We've got another thread for such posts, which you and I frequent, and before we are deleted here and told to discuss it there, we just should.

 

Absolutely.

 

7 minutes ago, dfwabel said:

As we saw earlier in 2019, XFL has many issues before playing a snap and player health is one of them, but the lack of competition for talent appears to have cut the salaries which XFL was to offer and at least one AAF performer has balked via is agent. 

 

This part is going to be very interesting.  He will want the best talent he can get, but will this new salary structure get in the way?

[Cosmic]

Do new leagues even have the same exposure to CTE litigation? Isn't a main point in NHL and NFL lawsuits that the leagues hid evidence about the dangers of head trauma from players?

[dfwabel]

23 minutes ago, Cosmic said:

Do new leagues even have the same exposure to CTE litigation? Isn't a main point in NHL and NFL lawsuits that the leagues hid evidence about the dangers of head trauma from players?

Why not?  NFL thinks it is the "new tobacco" so shouldn't any new company which wants to enter the market face the same risks to litigation?  The helmet manufacturers are the same?  Even Xenith as a new helmet company has had a recall.

 

While I have written before I am addicted to NCAA and NFL, but as a whole the sport of Football is basically a public health crisis which we ignore.

[GDAWG]

I wonder how much benefit basketball, baseball and soccer actually get from parents wanting their kids to play one of those three sports rather than football?

[The_Admiral]

8 hours ago, GDAWG said:

Also my negativity over the XFL has a lot to do with Vince McMahon.  If he allows Oliver Luck to do what he was hired to do, it could do well. 

 

Vince has never been able to let people do what they're hired to do and on top of that he's probably in cognitive decline.

[Gothamite]

...

[dfwabel]

5 minutes ago, GDAWG said:

I wonder how much benefit basketball, baseball and soccer actually get from parents wanting their kids to play one of those three sports rather than football?

Do you, @GDAWG, actually have a child?

Really? You live in Texas, or claim to, football still rules.  Those football families are ride or die with the gridiron.

Regardless of gender, Texans haven't given tennis a boost following Andy Roddick's US Open win in 2000-f'n-3.

[GDAWG]

1 hour ago, dfwabel said:

Do you, @GDAWG, actually have a child?

Really? You live in Texas, or claim to, football still rules.  Those football families are ride or die with the gridiron.

Regardless of gender, Texans haven't given tennis a boost following Andy Roddick's US Open win in 2000-f'n-3.

 I do not, but I have friends who do but most of them live in other states.  They have their kids playing basketball, baseball or soccer or even individual sports like Tennis or Swimming.  I do have a few friends who live in Texas who have their kids play football but not before 8 years old. 

 

All I was asking was if participation in basketball, football, and soccer was up in states that weren't football heavy. But since you see me as a stupid, ignorant moron, just ignore everything I say. 

[buzzcut]

Bob Stoops is bailing out.

[walkerws]

21 minutes ago, buzzcut said:

Bob Stoops is bailing out.

Getting a huge FSU paycheck is understandable. Noone will make enough money in the XFL to turn down real interest and offers. 

[dfwabel]

1 hour ago, buzzcut said:

Bob Stoops is bailing out.

I'll wait until Chris Vaninni of The Athletic confirms it. Prior to working there, he was managing editor of coachingsearch.com, the better of the two coaching news sites founded by the Rousell brothers.