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Death of the Alliance of American Football


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12 hours ago, pmoehrin said:

 

It may not be a bad idea.

 

It’s fascinating to look back on the USFL and the ABA to see what worked and what didn’t.

 

One point both leagues got was the need to create new stars that weren’t just rejects of the other league.

 

One thing to keep in mind is that the average NFL player was only making 100K when the USFL came into existence. The average team wasn’t worth $2.5 billion either.

 

You still need that new star element, but the way you need to go about it needs to be more creative, because you will not win a bidding war for any player the NFL wants.

 

A big reason why I would want to get away from NFL rules is to not make it an apples to apples comparison, because I can’t win that game or even come close.

 

Any new league needs to be different, because the circumstances that gave rise to the USFL aren’t the same.

About the USFL, read Paul Reeth's book. It is a great read.

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23 hours ago, McCarthy said:

Hearing some horror stories about how they shut down. This is the Fyre Fest of pro sports leagues. 

This is much more Theranos to me with CBS playing the role of Walgreens and Bill Polian as Ramesh "Sunny" Balwani to Ebersol's Elizabeth Holmes.  

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Hey Neo:

 

Having a thread about is all well and good, but with Dumdum, it may fall on deaf ears. The league needs money. None of us have money. If the league were to do an IPO which some EPL teams have done (I used to own a share of Arsenal – when I bought it, it was $12000 USD and when Stan "Pat" Kroenke made a lousy tender offer, I argued and walked away with a higher price tag  – $34000 USD. I owned the share for 8 years.

 

I am just saying that if the IPO price was right, and we all owned a little piece of the league, then you can make sure we would have a voice. 

 

 

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14 hours ago, DG_Now said:

 

Why? They'll be right.

 

I'm premptively pissed the Sounders will be sharing a field with XFL Seattle. This is unacceptable:

 

seattle-sounders-field-600x450.jpg

Is it possible the XFL plays at UW?  I know everything says they'll share CenturyLink...but i didnt know if it was a lock.

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9 minutes ago, NYC Cosmos said:

Hey Neo:

 

Having a thread about is all well and good, but with Dumdum, it may fall on deaf ears. The league needs money. None of us have money. If the league were to do an IPO which some EPL teams have done (I used to own a share of Arsenal – when I bought it, it was $12000 USD and when Stan "Pat" Kroenke made a lousy tender offer, I argued and walked away with a higher price tag  – $34000 USD. I owned the share for 8 years.

 

I am just saying that if the IPO price was right, and we all owned a little piece of the league, then you can make sure we would have a voice. 

 

 

Nobody would invest. Heck, MLFB has been sitting there for like six years as an OTC stock and still sits at a damn penny. 

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36 minutes ago, NYC Cosmos said:

About the USFL, read Paul Reeth's book. It is a great read.

 

I am currently reading Jeff Pearlman's book on the USFL, Football for a Buck. (Despite the perfuntory response that that bum sent to me after I had sent him a well-reasoned and brilliantly-argued e-mail following an appearance of his on a podcast.  Aaaanyway...)  The book is very entertaining and informative.  I never knew what a mess the San Antonio Gunslingers were, or what a nut L.A. Express owner J. William Oldenburg was.  And the charming and friendly Steve Spurrier whom we saw on the Orlando Apollos' sidelines seems to be a different guy from the snarling and intimidating Steve Spurrier who coached the Tampa Bay Bandits.   It really was nice to learn of the affection that Steve Young still feels for the league, as exemplified by his anger over Trump's dismissive "small potatoes" comment, and also to know that Sean Landeta and Bart Oates rate their USFL championships with the Philadelphia/Baltimore Stars equally to their Super Bowl championships with the Giants.

Right now I am up to the part involving the verdict of the trial; and I want to choke the juror who told Pearlman that the $1 award was intended as a means to kick the setting of the actual award back to the judge.  That juror said that she believed that the USFL should have been awarded $300 million (which would have been trebled to nearly $1 billion).  But, of course, the jury's award was final.  That the jury so fundamentally misunderstand the process is the fault of the judge, who failed to explain it to them.

The only thing I really haven't liked about the book so far is the description of USFL witness Howard Cosell as pathetic.  In my view, Cosell's testimony lent plenty of moral weight to the USFL's cause, as well as helping to establish that the NFL was angry at ABC for its having televised the USFL.

Any fan who is interested in the USFL will eat this book up.

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1 hour ago, DG_Now said:

 

No, but they may soon have XFL marks on the field for a good chunk of that time.

 

I'm not sure if you know what point you're trying to make.

 

Just asking, because it looks weird with the soccer lines on a football field.  I know that a lot of high schools do this, but it looks weird on a professional level. 

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24 minutes ago, Ferdinand Cesarano said:

(Despite the perfuntory response that that bum sent to me after I had sent him a well-reasoned and brilliantly-argued e-mail following an appearance of his on a podcast.

 

cc us please

♫ oh yeah, board goes on, long after the thrill of postin' is gone ♫

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27 minutes ago, Ferdinand Cesarano said:

 

I am currently reading Jeff Pearlman's book on the USFL, Football for a Buck. (Despite the perfuntory response that that bum sent to me after I had sent him a well-reasoned and brilliantly-argued e-mail following an appearance of his on a podcast.  Aaaanyway...)  The book is very entertaining and informative.  I never knew what a mess the San Antonio Gunslingers were, or what a nut L.A. Express owner J. William Oldenburg was.  And the charming and friendly Steve Spurrier whom we saw on the Orlando Apollos' sidelines seems to be a different guy from the snarling and intimidating Steve Spurrier who coached the Tampa Bay Bandits.   It really was nice to learn of the affection that Steve Young still feels for the league, as exemplified by his anger over Trump's dismissive "small potatoes" comment, and also to know that Sean Landeta and Bart Oates rate their USFL championships with the Philadelphia/Baltimore Stars equally to their Super Bowl championships with the Giants.

Right now I am up to the part involving the verdict of the trial; and I want to choke the juror who told Pearlman that the $1 award was intended as a means to kick the setting of the actual award back to the judge.  That juror said that she believed that the USFL should have been awarded $300 million (which would have been trebled to nearly $1 billion).  But, of course, the jury's award was final.  That the jury so fundamentally misunderstand the process is the fault of the judge, who failed to explain it to them.

The only thing I really haven't liked about the book so far is the description of USFL witness Howard Cosell as pathetic.  In my view, Cosell's testimony lent plenty of moral weight to the USFL's cause, as well as helping to establish that the NFL was angry at ABC for its having televised the USFL.

Any fan who is interested in the USFL will eat this book up.

I read Perlman's book first. Reeth's tends to delve in  deeper. I strongly believe had the USFL not invited Oldenburg, etc. into the league, and had not expanded, www would still have the league today. I really enjoyed going to Generals games.

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41 minutes ago, dfwabel said:

Nobody would invest. Heck, MLFB has been sitting there for like six years as an OTC stock and still sits at a damn penny. 

Agreed. But ideas are worthless if people don't listen. The problem with people like DumDum are that they are tone deaf. 

 

By the way, has anyone read about DumDum's involvement with Santander?

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I was looking forward to the Apollos to win the first AAF championship. This really upsets me as I had high hopes it would survive. I feel wasted after all this. Like I had hopes for nothing. Good job AAF and Thomas Dundon for doing that. 

 

I doubt the XFL 2.0 will survive longer then the original XFL. But I will have to wait and see. Wondering how Vince screw up this league?

My Alternative History Sports Stories:

CFL-USA - A Different Telling/StL Americans TL

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2 minutes ago, NYC Cosmos said:

Agreed. But ideas are worthless if people don't listen. The problem with people like DumDum are that they are tone deaf. 

 

By the way, has anyone read about DumDum's involvement with Santander?

I kinda feel that investing to a new American football league is just a waste of time. No one cares. There NFL, CFL and all the arena leagues. 

 

It just too much to start a new league. I don't see another AFL to come out to successful as the NFL. Time has change. 

My Alternative History Sports Stories:

CFL-USA - A Different Telling/StL Americans TL

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1 hour ago, dfwabel said:

This is much more Theranos to me with CBS played the role of Walgreens, and Bill Polian as Ramesh "Sunny" Balwani  to Ebersol's Elizabeth Holmes.  

What a great analogy. Totally agree. The HBO piece on Holmes and Theranos is excellent.

 

How about CBS as "savvy" investors, Dumdum as Lloyd Blankfein of Goldman Sachs, Polian as Dick Fuld of Lehman Brothers And Ebersol as Casano of AIG? Casano made huge bets that housing would only go up and there was no such thing as tainted mortgages. Read Matt Taibbi's piece on Rolling Stone. Fuld bet so heavily on the housing market and leveraged Lehman so badly that it had to go out of business. Fuld angered everyone with his attitude. Blankfein turned Goldman into a bank and took Fed funds (taxpayer $$$). 

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50 minutes ago, GDAWG said:

 

Just asking, because it looks weird with the soccer lines on a football field.  I know that a lot of high schools do this, but it looks weird on a professional level. 

 

Got it. Sorry to be a dick in my response.

 

There have been NFL lines on Sounders games just a small handful of times, but it looks awful and bush league. Other MLS teams also deal with this; I've seen Pats marking on Revs games, for example.

 

The concern is that because the XFL takes places entirely within the MLS season, we're more likely to see football lines on the soccer pitch.

 

Husky Stadium would be way better for XFL, assuming they could sell beer at concessions. If not, forget it.

1 hour ago, ShutUpLutz! said:

and the drunken doodoobags jumping off the tops of SUV's/vans/RV's onto tables because, oh yeah, they are drunken drug abusing doodoobags

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38 minutes ago, the admiral said:
1 hour ago, Ferdinand Cesarano said:

(Despite the perfuntory response that that bum sent to me after I had sent him a well-reasoned and brilliantly-argued e-mail following an appearance of his on a podcast.

 

cc us please

 

Well, you asked for it!

Pearlman was a guest on an episode of the Infinite Inning podcast.  That is a show mainly about baseball; but Pearlman and host Steven Goldman discussed both baseball and the USFL.  And so they got to talking about steroids in baseball, a topic about which Pearlman is all worked up.  And it is also a topic about which he is all wet.  These guys went on and on about the supposed moral depravity of steroid-using players; and Pearlman elevated Sal Fasano to veritable hero status not for his outstanding mustache, but, rather, for his refusal to use steroids despite his needed to stay in the Majors in order to deal with his child's medical expenses.

 

After listening to such a profoundly wrong-headed rant, I felt an irrestistable urge to respond.  So I sent Pearlman the following e-mail.
 

Quote

I was not at all pleased with your discussion about the steroids era in baseball during Mr. Goldman's podcast The Infinite Inning, episode 74.  What I found particularly distasteful was the assertion that the players who used steroids had done something morally wrong.  In fact, the thing that is morally wrong is the prohibition. 

 

Please consider that rules and laws are not inherently legitimate.  If a given law or rule is being broken on a mass scale, this is a strong indication that the law or rule in question is flawed and needs to be changed.  Marijuana has been illegal for a very long time.  Yet marijuana is widely used; one may safely assert that a majority of Americans have used it.  As a result of this mass-scale law-breaking, more and more governments are reaching the commonsense conclusion that the law is wrong.  Likewise, the widespread use of steroids and other performance-enhancing substances demonstrates the inappropriateness of the criminal laws and the baseball rules that prohibit this use.

 

I am unimpressed by the tale of Sal Fasano and his misguided decision not to use anything.  If he was so interested in prolonging his big-league career so that he could see to his child's needs, then the sensible thing to do would have been to give himself the best chance by engaging in the standard practice of his peers with respect to the various performance-enhancing substances.  Of course, Fasano is free to place a value on making it without any substances if he so chooses; he would certainly not be the only American to have a firm commitment to acting in direct opposition to his own interest.

 

What's more, the act of citing Fasano's decision not to use steroids as a means to counter the claim that "everyone was doing it" is intellectually dishonest.  Clearly some hyperbole is being employed in the term "everyone":  it does not mean literally every single individual; it means the vast majority.  My mother never smoked pot; nevertheless, we can still colloquially say that "everyone" has tried pot.  More important, society can still use this determination as the moral basis for changing the bad laws that prohibit the use of marijuana.

 

The most important point is this:  people need to be free to decide what to do with their own bodies.  If someone is willing to accept the risks of steroid use in order to improve his or her performance in a sporting contest, then that person is entitled to take that risk.  This is a means that is available to everyone; therefore, from the standpoints of morality and ethics, steroid use can no more be labelled "cheating" than can any other training method that produces results, but that has costs in terms of risks to the body and even to the psyche.

 

Moral consistency requires that all performance-enhancing substances be made legal, both in society and in sports.  Furthermore, baseball and society in general owe a collective apology to all those players who were slandered and even discarded simply for behaving in a manner that was consistent with the norms of their time.

 

Bonds, Clemens, Palmeiro, Sosa, and McGwire are amongst the all-time great baseball heroes; these players deserve to be seen as completely untainted.  To deny this is to engage in a form of thinking that is entirely irrational.  Worse, this approach is almost fascist in its abject deference to authority through a willingness to accept uncritically the legitimacy of laws and rules that are morally indefensible. 

 

In reponse, Pearlman sent me an e-mail consisting of one dismissive word: "Wrong."   Now, I certainly wasn't trying to change this guy's mind; but I really expected some engagement on the substance of my argument.   While I understand that he has no obligation to devote his time to a stranger who has sent him an unsolicited e-mail, for me it's a cultural norm to show enough respect to a worthy interlocutor to address his/her points in rebuttal.  I recently wrote an e-mail to the author of a book on my all-time favourite performer Jack Benny.  I sent comments, critiques, and even a few corrections.  That author responded enthusiastically to each of my points, and we ended up in a very enjoyable exchange of e-mails.  This is the kind of thing that I was shooting for with Pearlman.  His decision to blow me off marks him as a chump in my estimation; I had treated him as a serious thinker, but I had been mistaken. 

 

I realise now that I probably should have guessed from the Fasano stuff that intellectual honesty in debate was not amongst Pearlman's strong suits.  Still, I am glad that I wrote the note and set out the argument.  I am sure that I will use it again someplace  — perhaps even here on this board!

And let me reiterate that this guy's USFL book is superb. I heartily recommend it.  

 

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1 hour ago, NYC Cosmos said:

Hey Neo:

 

Having a thread about is all well and good, but with Dumdum, it may fall on deaf ears. The league needs money. None of us have money. If the league were to do an IPO which some EPL teams have done (I used to own a share of Arsenal – when I bought it, it was $12000 USD and when Stan "Pat" Kroenke made a lousy tender offer, I argued and walked away with a higher price tag  – $34000 USD. I owned the share for 8 years.

 

I am just saying that if the IPO price was right, and we all owned a little piece of the league, then you can make sure we would have a voice. 

 

 

 

1 hour ago, dfwabel said:

Nobody would invest. Heck, MLFB has been sitting there for like six years as an OTC stock and still sits at a damn penny. 

Or too many investors buy in and nothing happens because no one can agree on anything.

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1 hour ago, GDAWG said:

 

Just asking, because it looks weird with the soccer lines on a football field.  I know that a lot of high schools do this, but it looks weird on a professional level. 

The Seahawks own the stadium and have done a good job of cleaning it up between NFL/MLS games unless there were back to back games, so I don't see that stopping unless the XFL does that stupid thing of using only the leagues logos on the field and painting the end zones blue or red. Hopefully that won't happen again. 

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:censored: Tom Dundon. If Jerry Jones buys the AAF, and saves it, I'll be a Cowboys fan. Yes, I know, that's heresy of the highest order. 

HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

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