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Death of the Alliance of American Football


LAWeaver

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Memphis is a bit odd choice.. It lacks any sort of forethought in why Memphis may be a BAD market for another minor football league.

 

The only way this MIGHT work is if St. Louis gets a team and you get some form of a natural rivalry. But, unlikely. Plus, it'd probably be the east/west split like the XFL 1.0 did with Birmingham and Memphis, and put each team in separate divisions.

 

There isn't another stadium in the area for capacity. Crump was downsized years ago far smaller than anything AAF/XFL could even consider (25k) down to 7,500. If you want Tennessee, go to Vanderbilt or MTSU (a bit far from downtown Nashville. Knoxville would be cool.... except putting a team in a 100,000+ seat stadium is a sure-fire failure

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3 hours ago, BringBackTheVet said:

If they're looking for small stadiums in major markets and weather / unplayable conditions aren't a factor, if Temple builds it's near-campus stadium that the neighborhood is trying to squash (but will probably lose), it'd likely be near-perfect for what they're looking for, maybe just a little big.  

 

Also, Franklin Field in Phila might be even better, since that area of the city is already overflowing with students and young professionals, and is blowing up 10-fold due to new developments that are essentially creating a whole second skyline in Phila.  Hell - the Sixers have hinted at building their own arena near there.

 

Either way, it's dumb to even consider north east / mid atlantic for a spring league, but if they're bent on failure, Phila isn't bad place to fail.

 

Philadelphia, up until February, I could see some potential with.  But once the Eagles won the Super Bowl, any football league could write off its chances there for at least two decades.

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3 hours ago, Mac the Knife said:

 

Philadelphia, up until February, I could see some potential with.  But once the Eagles won the Super Bowl, any football league could write off its chances there for at least two decades.

 

Winning the SB is irrelevant.  It's not like there were Eagles fans looking to jump ship.  Also I still don't understand how this team would be looked at as competition, when it wouldn't be marketed that way.

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I could market FedEx as not being competition to the USPS, but that doesn't necessarily make it so.

 

AAF in Philadelphia would have the same hurdles it will in Atlanta (and then some) - competition (albeit indirect) for discretionary sports fan income.  In Atlanta there's MLB, NBA, NFL and MLS.  In Philadelphia, there's those plus the NHL.  If I were responsible for picking AAF cities, I'dve avoided Atlanta like the plague right off the bat - trying instead to establish the league in markets where there's as little competition for discretionary fan income as possible.

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16 minutes ago, Mac the Knife said:

I could market FedEx as not being competition to the USPS, but that doesn't necessarily make it so.

 

AAF in Philadelphia would have the same hurdles it will in Atlanta (and then some) - competition (albeit indirect) for discretionary sports fan income.  In Atlanta there's MLB, NBA, NFL and MLS.  In Philadelphia, there's those plus the NHL.  If I were responsible for picking AAF cities, I'dve avoided Atlanta like the plague right off the bat - trying instead to establish the league in markets where there's as little competition for discretionary fan income as possible.

 

Apples and bananas.  FedEx and USPS do the same thing at the same time, and if I need to send a package, I literally have to choose every time between services.  AAF doesn't play during the NFL season, being a fan of an AAF team doesn't detract at all from it's NFL counterpart, and no intelligent person could ever confuse the two or think that they really were in competition.

 

Your point about battling for discretionary income is valid, but a little overblown.  They play at home once every other week. In a metro area of 6 million, with a lot of affluence (especially in and near the part of the city they'd be in) I think they'd be fine.  It's the weather that would make it stupid, not the demographics or any perceived competition.

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All teams that share a city are competitors. Even if their seasons don’t overlap. They compete for attention in the marketplace, they compete for discretionary household income, and they compete for the corporate dollars that are parceled out on a quarterly or annual basis. The more a company spends on the Eagles or Union every year, the less they have to spend on the Phillies or whatever this AAF team will be named. This is especially true when a second team in any given sport is added, as that team will have to justify its existence to all those customers in a way that others would not. 

 

When the Phillies tweeted out all those congratulations to the Eagles on winning the Super Bowl, when the Sixers took out the full-page ad in the Inquirer, they did it less with smiles and more with gritted teeth, knowing that a good chunk of those midnight green jersey sales next Christmas will be made with cash that would otherwise have gone into their shops. It’s not entirely a zero-sum game, but it’s closer to that than an infinite pool of money. 

 

Now, you can say that the pool doesn’t have to be infinite, just big enough, and that a given city is large enough to support many competitors for all those things. What one company can’t spend, another will. Where some fans are already tapped out, others will step up to take their place. And that very well may be true in Philadelphia’s case. But it doesn’t change the essential competitive nature of the business. 

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4 hours ago, Gothamite said:

All teams that share a city are competitors. Even if their seasons don’t overlap. They compete for attention in the marketplace, they compete for discretionary household income, and they compete for the corporate dollars that are parceled out on a quarterly or annual basis. The more a company spends on the Eagles or Union every year, the less they have to spend on the Phillies or whatever this AAF team will be named. This is especially true when a second team in any given sport is added, as that team will have to justify its existence to all those customers in a way that others would not. 

 

When the Phillies tweeted out all those congratulations to the Eagles on winning the Super Bowl, when the Sixers took out the full-page ad in the Inquirer, they did it less with smiles and more with gritted teeth, knowing that a good chunk of those midnight green jersey sales next Christmas will be made with cash that would otherwise have gone into their shops. It’s not entirely a zero-sum game, but it’s closer to that than an infinite pool of money. 

 

Now, you can say that the pool doesn’t have to be infinite, just big enough, and that a given city is large enough to support many competitors for all those things. What one company can’t spend, another will. Where some fans are already tapped out, others will step up to take their place. And that very well may be true in Philadelphia’s case. But it doesn’t change the essential competitive nature of the business. 

We absolutely agree on something, right down the line.

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Hmmmm. Let's see. Is Birmingham or San Antonio going to be included? Between the "Big 4" (Orlando, Memphis, Birmingham and San Antonio), plenty of franchises have bit the dust. So why would the fans come back to see another failed product? (we are not including indoor football here.)

 

San Antonio

Wings

Gunslingers

Riders

Texans

 

Birmingham

Americans/Vulcans

Stallions

Fire

Barracudas

Bolts

 

Memphis

Southmen (aka Grizzlies)

Showboats

Mad Dogs

Maniacs

 

Orlando

Blazers

Renegades

Thunder

Rage

Tuskers

 

18 teams. Amazing. Special kudos to Shreveport (Steamer, CFL team)

 

If you want a NYC area team, play them in Red Bull Arena. Red Bull was almost awarded an NFL E franchise for Salzburg.

 

AZ? Dumb. LA area – LAFC's new home. Milwaukee? I don't know. I will never watch anyway.

 

 

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1 hour ago, NYC Cosmos said:

18 teams. Amazing. Special kudos to Shreveport (Steamer, CFL team)


That was a WFL team.  The CFL team was the Pirates.

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4 hours ago, NYC Cosmos said:

Hmmmm. Let's see. Is Birmingham or San Antonio going to be included? Between the "Big 4" (Orlando, Memphis, Birmingham and San Antonio), plenty of franchises have bit the dust. So why would the fans come back to see another failed product? (we are not including indoor football here.)

 

San Antonio

Wings

Gunslingers

Riders

Texans

 

Birmingham

Americans/Vulcans

Stallions

Fire

Barracudas

Bolts

 

Memphis

Southmen (aka Grizzlies)

Showboats

Mad Dogs

Maniacs

 

Orlando

Blazers

Renegades

Thunder

Rage

Tuskers

 

18 teams. Amazing. Special kudos to Shreveport (Steamer, CFL team)

 

If you want a NYC area team, play them in Red Bull Arena. Red Bull was almost awarded an NFL E franchise for Salzburg.

 

AZ? Dumb. LA area – LAFC's new home. Milwaukee? I don't know. I will never watch anyway.

 

 

Las Vegas would probably be on this list if it wasn't for Mark Davis.  The Raiders might be the first ever pro football team to succeed in Las Vegas. 

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I'm not gonna care about the AAF or XFL 2.0 without a Milwaukee team.  And even if either is interested, I'm not holding my breath that the Brewers allow a football team in Miller Park.  Which is the only place such a team could realistically play.

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Every time a new football league crops up, someone always make the argument that these are not NFL quality players. But still, fans are packing college football stadiums watching teams whose overall talent is far inferior to that of the new league teams. Heck, they pack stadiums just to watch SPRING FOOTBALL SCRIMMAGES! Anyway, I think there is an unfilled hunger for more football that is currently being filled by watching a bunch of guys in suits talking (NFL draft) or watching a high school kid pick a hat (signing day). Do these fans even care about watching actual football?

 

Looking at this thread, there have only been a handful of posts about quality, which is a credit to everyone else here. I realize that college football has "tradition" or some intangible that a new football league doesn't have. What college football doesn't have is talent. Give the new pro team sufficient practice time to know each other and they'll beat the crap out of Alabama, Clemson or whoever wins the National Championship that year.

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Put in 12 teams. 8 isn't going work geographically. The travel costs would be too high.

 

Orlando, Memphis, Atlanta+??? = southern rivalry.

LA+AZ+Portland?+??? = west

NY+Columbus (the Crew's stadium may be vacant next year)?+St. Louis?+???

 

Please leave out Montreal, Miami, Toronto, Philadelphia (unless they play where the Union does), Birmingham, San Antonio, Bay Area (the Invaders succeeded for less than 1 season), Vancouver, Chicago, Denver, Houston, Dallas, Austin, Tampa Bay (yeah, I know Orlando is an hour - 1 ½ hours away), Tulsa, Detroit, Nashville.....

 

 

 

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4 hours ago, NYC Cosmos said:

Put in 12 teams. 8 isn't going work geographically. The travel costs would be too high.

 

Orlando, Memphis, Atlanta+??? = southern rivalry.

LA+AZ+Portland?+??? = west

NY+Columbus (the Crew's stadium may be vacant next year)?+St. Louis?+???

 

Please leave out Montreal, Miami, Toronto, Philadelphia (unless they play where the Union does), Birmingham, San Antonio, Bay Area (the Invaders succeeded for less than 1 season), Vancouver, Chicago, Denver, Houston, Dallas, Austin, Tampa Bay (yeah, I know Orlando is an hour - 1 ½ hours away), Tulsa, Detroit, Nashville.....

 

 

 

Northern cities should be avoided if you're talking February through April football. San Antonio would want to get as much money as possible out of the renovations that were just completed on the Alamodome so I think they would still be in play. Austin should be avoided because the only suitable stadium is DKR and they won't let that get used if it interrupts spring football practices. 

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Starting with 8, we know Orlando, Atlanta, Memphis and I think it is safe to say that somewhere in Southern Cal is still on the table and perhaps Phoenix as well.  That would be 5 teams.  My guess on the other 3 would be St. Louis in the East, San Antonio in the West and then either a NorCal team (Sacramento or San Jose) or a team in Salt Lake City (weather might be an issue). 

 

 

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NBC will want NYC Metro team in the league. Yeah, I know all the BS about Red Bull Arena being a soccer-specific stadium. But Red Bull is about money too. 7 extra dates on the calendar isn't going to hurt. RBA is right at the Harrison stop on the PATH train (it links NYC and Hoboken/Jersey City/Newark). I would also go Columbus, Louisville in the mix.

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2 hours ago, NYC Cosmos said:

NBC will want NYC Metro team in the league. Yeah, I know all the BS about Red Bull Arena being a soccer-specific stadium. But Red Bull is about money too. 7 extra dates on the calendar isn't going to hurt. RBA is right at the Harrison stop on the PATH train (it links NYC and Hoboken/Jersey City/Newark). 


It's not BS.  Having a "soccer-specific" stadium does not mean that no other sport can be played there.  It means only that the stadium is optimised for soccer.  Don't forget that the Chargers are playing in the Galaxy's soccer-specific stadium in L.A.

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