Death of the Alliance of American Football

[dfwabel]

30 minutes ago, WideRight said:

Exactly. LA seems unlikely while SD seems a very logical choice.  

Hard to commit to San Diego when there's no commitment regarding the stadium past this year.

[Mac the Knife]

10 hours ago, WideRight said:

So far the AAF has confirmed Orlando and Spurrier and now SoCal (San Diego) and Neuheisel.

 

3 hours ago, WideRight said:

Exactly. LA seems unlikely while SD seems a very logical choice.  

 

Just for future reference, the first sentence seems to unequivocally state that San Diego was a done deal.  Congratulations on giving me my own little 10-minute "War of the Worlds" episode where I went scrambling for information about San Diego being awarded a franchise and found absolutely nothing. 

 

 

2 hours ago, Needschat said:

Not sure of coaches, but the last 6 I'd like to see:

 

Raleigh-Durham

 

(1)  If you take nothing away from this reply, please take this:  there's a Raleigh in North Carolina.  There's a Durham in North Carolina.  There's a Raleigh-Durham Airport in between them.  Unless someone's setting something up on a tarmac somewhere, or maybe in the concourse of Terminal A, the phrase "Raleigh-Durham" should never, ever be used.

 

/Have lived here 24 years

//Yeah, it's a touchy subject

 

(2)  Raleigh might inadvertently wind up with either an AAF or XFL team depending on how things shake out, but that doesn't mean we'll support it.  The order of sports here is college basketball > > > > > baseball > local college football > maybe the Carolina Panthers, and I do only mean 'maybe' > hockey, though not necessarily the team that actually plays here.

[Skycast]

I'd love to see someplace in the Rocky Mountain states, definitely under represented. Mile High may be out of the question, but CSU in Ft. Collins has a nice new stadium and Folsom Field at CU is a great size as well. Not as familiar with Utah, but I'm sure one of the college stadiums there would be suitable and could draw fans.

[WideRight]

3 hours ago, Skycast said:

I'd love to see someplace in the Rocky Mountain states, definitely under represented. Mile High may be out of the question, but CSU in Ft. Collins has a nice new stadium and Folsom Field at CU is a great size as well. Not as familiar with Utah, but I'm sure one of the college stadiums there would be suitable and could draw fans.

Will that work for a Feb-April season or will it be too cold for fans to show up?  My guess is that with that schedule during some of the coldest months of the year, this league has to stick to the South and the Pacific Coast.  No way I am sitting outside in Chicago in February for minor league football.  

[WideRight]

Hard to guess what the AAF is thinking.  I saw somewhere that they will have a team in Dallas, which seems the least viable Texas city (I will search for the article where I saw this.)   I would avoid cities that have MLB, NBA and NHL, too much competiton.  Based on weather, stadia and competition, I would like to see them go with these as possible locations:

 

Orlando-- Confirmed

San Diego-- Maybe?  Where else in Southern Cal can they go?

 

Portland-- Not ideal weather, but certainly passable for football fans.

 

San Jose or Sacramento-- Both have decent, if smallish, stadiums to use.

 

Albuquerque-- A pretty small market, but a perfect 30,000 stadium.

 

San Antonio-- Alamo Dome is there waiting.

 

New Orleans-- Tulane stadium, not the Superdome.  Only NBA in Spring for competition.

 

Memphis-- Liberty Bowl is a bit too big, but it is a good market for football

 

Raleigh or Durham, NC-- Duke's stadium is the best size, but either UNC or NCState could work in a pinch

 

St. Louis-- Domed stadium in a "revenge" market

 

Indianapolis-- If the dome is not too pricey.  Only NBA for competition

 

New Jersey-- Rutgers or RedBull for stadium.  Weather is a risk, so is competition, but CBS will almost certainly demand this. 

 

Atlanta-- NBA and MLB competition, but Georgia is football country. 

 

Columbus-- Weather is not great, but Crew stadium could be a perfect small venue.

 

 

[MJWalker45]

42 minutes ago, WideRight said:

Hard to guess what the AAF is thinking.  I saw somewhere that they will have a team in Dallas, which seems the least viable Texas city (I will search for the article where I saw this.)   I would avoid cities that have MLB, NBA and NHL, too much competiton. 

Unless Jerry is letting them use the fields in Frisco, they aren't that big but if you're trying to get bang for your buck a 12,000 seat stadium run by the Cowboys PR staff is a good grab.

[Skycast]

4 hours ago, WideRight said:

Will that work for a Feb-April season or will it be too cold for fans to show up?  My guess is that with that schedule during some of the coldest months of the year, this league has to stick to the South and the Pacific Coast.  No way I am sitting outside in Chicago in February for minor league football.  

 

You’d be surprised how wonderful the weather can be along the Colorado Front Range during late winter and into early spring...really much better than late season games for the Broncos. Sure it can be cold and dreary but it’s pretty typical to be in the 40’s with blazing sun which is spectacular and not uncommon for us to be in the 50’s and 60’s.

[Skycast]

How viable is the Cotton Bowl in the Dallas area?

[TBGKon]

1 minute ago, Skycast said:

How viable is the Cotton Bowl in the Dallas area?

Outside of it's sheer size, i see no issues.  The stadium hosts at least 2 major events every year (Texas-Oklahoma and the Heart of Dallas Bowl)

[Gothamite]

12 minutes ago, AstroBull21 said:

Outside of it's sheer size, i see no issues.  The stadium hosts at least 2 major events every year (Texas-Oklahoma and the Heart of Dallas Bowl)

 

Yeah, but how much do those major events cost?  And how will the AFA pay for that?

[dfwabel]

32 minutes ago, Skycast said:

How viable is the Cotton Bowl in the Dallas area?

It still remains in a part of Dallas which folks really don't want to go to.  I wouldn't say very viable. 

 

17 minutes ago, Gothamite said:

 

Yeah, but how much do those major events cost?  And how will the AFA pay for that?

Assume a flat, mid, five-figure fee plus a percentage of the gross. As for how, Peter Theil and Chernin Group will pay the bill. 

[Mac the Knife]

4 hours ago, WideRight said:

Hard to guess what the AAF is thinking.  I saw somewhere that they will have a team in Dallas, which seems the least viable Texas city (I will search for the article where I saw this.)   I would avoid cities that have MLB, NBA and NHL, too much competiton.  Based on weather, stadia and competition, I would like to see them go with these as possible locations:

 

Orlando-- Confirmed

San Diego-- Maybe?  Where else in Southern Cal can they go?

Portland-- Not ideal weather, but certainly passable for football fans.

San Jose or Sacramento-- Both have decent, if smallish, stadiums to use.

Albuquerque-- A pretty small market, but a perfect 30,000 stadium.

San Antonio-- Alamo Dome is there waiting.

New Orleans-- Tulane stadium, not the Superdome.  Only NBA in Spring for competition.

Memphis-- Liberty Bowl is a bit too big, but it is a good market for football

Raleigh or Durham, NC-- Duke's stadium is the best size, but either UNC or NCState could work in a pinch

St. Louis-- Domed stadium in a "revenge" market

Indianapolis-- If the dome is not too pricey.  Only NBA for competition

New Jersey-- Rutgers or RedBull for stadium.  Weather is a risk, so is competition, but CBS will almost certainly demand this. 

Atlanta-- NBA and MLB competition, but Georgia is football country. 

Columbus-- Weather is not great, but Crew stadium could be a perfect small venue.

 

I can tell you what they're thinking - "Where can we place teams (i) that don't have an NFL presence but are big enough to potentially support us, and (ii) that box out the XFL?"

 

They've probably done the latter in Orlando.  While XFL operated there the first time around and was probably looking to do so again, odds are AAF "getting there first" changes the XFL's attitude toward putting a team there.  On the other hand, it might just coerce Vince into going head-to-head there, a la the Cowboys and Texans in Dallas, just to try to kill AAF.

 

San Diego seems the most likely spot, but there are lots of places in Southern California that a minor-league level team could go and still draw at least a half decent crowd.  I'm not familiar with the territory from a stadium perspective, but I could see Long Beach, Bakersfield, Santa Ana, Pasadena (if they could somehow coerce the Rose Bowl's operators to let them use it), or any number of non-Los Angeles-but-Los Angeles cities with decent college stadia filling the bill.  I'd personally go in San Diego or else leave southern California completely out of the equation, but there are options.

 

I'd avoid Portland.  It's a proven soccer town, and theoretically would support baseball (do they even have a minor league team there right now?), but I can't see it as anything but a "last resort" option for pro football.

 

San Jose/Sacramento could work depending on the stadium.  I'd be far more inclined to go into Oakland first though - if you're serious about having a long term plan for the league, you go into Oakland now, take the financial hit until the Raiders head east, then you have the city's football fans to yourself in terms of attendance.

 

Albuquerque isn't nearly as small a market as one might think, and I think it'd be a perfect fit for AAF or XFL come to think of it.  You'd have to state-brand the team (the "New Mexico Vaqueros" or such), but I think it's a market that's ripe.  In fact, I'd dare say that if they built a brand new arena there, they could land a wandering NBA franchise looking to be the dominant sport in its market (like Oklahoma City).

 

My next two targets would both be in Texas, and in no particular order would be San Antonio and Austin.  Each has adequate stadium facilities, population, and rabid fans for the sport.  The USFL's Gunslingers were a disaster in San Antonio thanks to an idiot of an owner and playing at a friggin' high school stadium... but if you demonstrate you're serious, in those two markets you could have a situation very similar to Houston and Dallas back in the AFL days.

 

You realize Tulane Stadium no longer exists, right?

 

Memphis would be a great market, but the Liberty Bowl is considered ancient by today's standards.  City leaders there have been trying to gin up interest in building a replacement for 30+ years, but the Titans moving to Nashville all but killed serious movement on that.  An AAF or XFL team coming to town wouldn't put any impetus behind it either.  Had they built a stadium in the 80's?  They'd have been the expansion pick instead of Jacksonville.  If they built one today?  The NFL would come calling as soon as the next round of musical franchises occurred... probably with the likes of a Buffalo or Cincinnati moving there.

 

Living here I can say that Raleigh, nor Durham, would support an AAF or XFL team worth a damn.  The area has grown tremendously since the Skyhawks days and WLAF, but as much as I hate to say it I just can't see spring football drawing here.  Once the NCAA tournament's over, this area's about baseball, baseball, and more baseball.  Durham Bulls mostly, Carolina Mudcats (by far) secondarily.

 

St. Louis would fall right in with San Diego in terms of a good market for AAF (or XFL).  An already established football fan base, jilted by the NFL not once but twice in the past 30 years?  Yeah.  Whichever league lands St. Louis (and one of them is going to) is going to do well there compared to their other markets.

 

Indianapolis - a no go because the Colts have an exclusivity clause in their lease.

 

New York - the Meadowlands if you can get it; new Shea Stadium if you can't.  RedBull?  I can see that as well though.  Both AAF and XFL will be in New York, the only question is who's going to go where... and how much it's going to cost each of them to be there.

 

Atlanta - see Indianapolis... though the revamped Olympic Stadium/Turner Field/Whatever It's Being Called Now field would provide an easy alternative.

 

Columbus is Raleigh only with a different focus:  college football.  If the Crew leave for Austin and you can lease it cheaply enough, you give it a shot just to see if it'd work - it might, it might not.

 

If I'm AAF, I'm talking with CBS about where they feel they have to have teams in order to eventually get AAF games on the main network, then basing a strategy from that.  If there's no chance of AAF ever becoming standard, regular CBS programming?  Then unless I'm contractually obligated to put a team somewhere?  I'm looking at a mix of NFL cities where their teams don't have exclusivity clauses with preferred stadium options, and new markets I feel are ready for some football.

 

Particularly, if there's no exclusivity hang-ups, I'm looking at Cleveland, Detroit, Miami among NFL markets.  I'm looking at the Skydome in Toronto (though I think MLSE owns it too now, don't they? - someone here will correct me).  I'm looking at Montreal.  Hell, in AAF's case, if I'm well funded enough, I'm looking at London.  Salt Lake City.  Colorado Springs.  Omaha.  The Norfolk/Virginia Beach area.  There are a lot of markets to choose from if you're willing to part with a lot of coin to try and make things work there.

[Needschat]

15 hours ago, Mac the Knife said:

 

 

Just for future reference, the first sentence seems to unequivocally state that San Diego was a done deal.  Congratulations on giving me my own little 10-minute "War of the Worlds" episode where I went scrambling for information about San Diego being awarded a franchise and found absolutely nothing. 

 

 

 

(1)  If you take nothing away from this reply, please take this:  there's a Raleigh in North Carolina.  There's a Durham in North Carolina.  There's a Raleigh-Durham Airport in between them.  Unless someone's setting something up on a tarmac somewhere, or maybe in the concourse of Terminal A, the phrase "Raleigh-Durham" should never, ever be used.

 

/Have lived here 24 years

//Yeah, it's a touchy subject

 

(2)  Raleigh might inadvertently wind up with either an AAF or XFL team depending on how things shake out, but that doesn't mean we'll support it.  The order of sports here is college basketball > > > > > baseball > local college football > maybe the Carolina Panthers, and I do only mean 'maybe' > hockey, though not necessarily the team that actually plays here.

 

I know about the Triangle.  I've had meetings at SAS, In Carey.

I said I'd like to see them, didn't mean there'd be no debate.

 

 

I live in upstate NY, part of the Tri-City/Capital District/Capital Region/Capital Saratoga region.

We should have had an ABA team called the Tri-City Comets: local politics killed that.

 

[Sykotyk]

If a team does go to Dallas, the perfect place is SMU's stadium. Cotton Bowl is ridiculously large and lacks any emphasis to buy tickets ahead of time. Also, it's been said earlier and many times over the neighborhood it's in isn't exactly the best.

 

Frisco, at FC Dallas' stadium isn't really an option.

 

As for Colorado, depending on potential stadium sizes they're looking for, and the season, Coors Field might be the option. Aside from that, if you want to go to the mountain states, Utah makes the most sense. There's three notable stadiums in the Wasatch range with Rio Tinto, Rice-Eccles, and BYU's stadium. Rice-Eccles would be the prime location.

[MJWalker45]

I don't think we'llsee MLS stadia used because the fields would get torn up at the start of the season and be in bad shape the rest of the summer as a result. That's why Toyota Stadium allows maybe 10 games a year, including the FCS title games. 

[Wings]

Red Bulls ownership have stated that they don't want American football played at RedBullArena & Tulane does have a new outdoor stadium of their own. 

[WideRight]

5 hours ago, Wings said:

Red Bulls ownership have stated that they don't want American football played at RedBullArena & Tulane does have a new outdoor stadium of their own. 

 

Yeah, not sure what he was saying.  Tulane has a new stadium, Yulman Stadium, that is less than 5 years old and a very good size for the AAF (30,000).  I would try wherever possible to find stadia that seat 20,000-40,000 and not use cavernous places like the LA Colliseum or Rose Bowl.   Better to have too few seats than way way too many.  That is why I put New Orleans on the list, no MLB or NHL competition and a perfect stadium (depending on alcohol sales rules).

 

If CBS would allow it, i think 2nd tier cities would make the most sense (2nd tier = not having more than 2 major league teams) especially if their stadia are the right size:

 

Orlando -- Spectrum Stadium (45,000)

New Orleans -- Yulman Stadium (30,000)

Albuquerque -- Dreamstyle Stadium (39,000)

San Jose -- CEFCU Stadium (30,000)

Durham, NC-- Wallace Wade Stadium (40,000)

San Antonio -- AlamoDome (64,000-- a bit big, but the market is a must, right?)

Tulsa -- Skelly Field (30,000)

Portland -- Providence Park (21,000)

 

 

 

[Jacobseye]

On 4/10/2018 at 6:14 PM, Mac the Knife said:

You realize Tulane Stadium no longer exists, right?

Tulane built a new stadium a couple years ago named Yulman Stadium and it has about 30,000 seats.

[dfwabel]

6 hours ago, WideRight said:

 

Yeah, not sure what he was saying.  Tulane has a new stadium, Yulman Stadium, that is less than 5 years old and a very good size for the AAF (30,000).  I would try wherever possible to find stadia that seat 20,000-40,000 and not use cavernous places like the LA Colliseum or Rose Bowl.   Better to have too few seats than way way too many.  That is why I put New Orleans on the list, no MLB or NHL competition and a perfect stadium (depending on alcohol sales rules).

 

If CBS would allow it, i think 2nd tier cities would make the most sense (2nd tier = not having more than 2 major league teams) especially if their stadia are the right size:

 

Orlando -- Spectrum Stadium (45,000)

New Orleans -- Yulman Stadium (30,000)

Albuquerque -- Dreamstyle Stadium (39,000)

San Jose -- CEFCU Stadium (30,000)

Durham, NC-- Wallace Wade Stadium (40,000)

San Antonio -- AlamoDome (64,000-- a bit big, but the market is a must, right?)

Tulsa -- Skelly Field (30,000)

Portland -- Providence Park (21,000)

 

 

 

I'm pretty sure that no league could make money there.

 

Look at an old lease between Portland State football and Peregrine Sports, the owner of the Timbers. While the rent is low ($17K/game), the school got just a 50/50 split on parking revenue from Peregrine-controlled lots and a credit back if certain concession threshold levels are met. There are large limits on sponsorship (the Timbers sponsors have protection from their business competitors), the box office, and security.  Portland State was responsible for the cost of ushers/security too.

I believe it's safe to assume that Peregrine took it somewhat "easy" on Portland State since it is the local university but won't do the same for a private business. They also don't like to paint the football lines and markings b as it takes 8-10 hours and quickens turf deterioration.

 

Link for PDF of the Peregrine/PSU contract.

http://media.oregonlive.com/john_canzano_impact/other/contract.pdf

 

 

[Wings]

As a resident in the Portland area. Pro Football ain't happening.