cLuTcHy Posted February 12 Share Posted February 12 Rockers Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dozap17 Posted February 12 Share Posted February 12 New Jersey Jays Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TrueYankee26 Posted February 12 Share Posted February 12 Finally NY/NJ wins! As for my pick, I will go for the Rockers Quote trueyankee26.wordpress.com Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JayHawk786 Posted February 12 Share Posted February 12 Dragons Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
verbi Posted February 12 Share Posted February 12 rockers Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
neo_prankster Posted February 12 Share Posted February 12 Rockers. Quote The Fictional Story of Austus Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JH42XCC Posted February 12 Share Posted February 12 NJ Rockers gets my vote! Also, I would rather Rutgers' SHI Stadium than Princeton University Stadium as a backup stadium option for the New Jersey team. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WideRight Posted February 12 Author Share Posted February 12 Let's take a look at the early vote: 13 Rockers 4 Palisades 3 Jays & Dragons, Well, that was fast. Are you ready to Rock! The New Jersey Rockers join the AAFL for the 2031 season, filling our 12 team, 3 division format. Expect the full Rockers' look momentarily along with the 12 team map of the AAFL. Then we are on to the next and final expansion, from 12 to 16. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WideRight Posted February 12 Author Share Posted February 12 Alright, football fans. Here is the look for the Rockers. The music theme is consistent throughout. Evident in the two secondary logos based on guitar picks, a reprisal of the 6-string and power chord striping from the helmet to the jersey sleeves, and a new feature. If you look closely at the pant stripe, you will see it is set up just like a guitar neck, with several frets and the identifying dots to mark different placements. The jersey features a black yoke with silver or white outlines and a "rockin'" font for the numbers that is reminiscent of heavy metal band names. The Rockers mix and match their black pants with both jerseys, while the silver pants tend to only be seen with the home red & black jerseys. Two more items for you. First, the 2031 12-team AAFL map, showing the three divisions, East, Central, and West. We have the diversity of helmet colors we were hoping for with 2 helmets featuring Navy (Houston only on the upper half of the helmet) and then 1 helmet apiece for orange, red, green, purple, black, white, teal, gold, grey, and whatever color we are calling Portland's blue. That is pretty well mixed up. Finally, for our 12-team league, here are the jerseys, arranged in rows based on each division. Again, pretty good color diversity, with two maroon jerseys, two very different orange jerseys, two red jerseys, and a range of other colors including our first fully black jersey. We still do not have a Navy jersey, despite all the panic about Navy early on. Houston, Portland and San Diego have Navy features (sleeves or yoke) but still no navy body. That may change as we get to teams 13-16. We will see. More on the next expansion soon. We will have 3 votes in the next round, with our first vote to choose 2 more non-NFL cities to expand the league into new markets. 3 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
raz Posted February 12 Share Posted February 12 Dead sexy. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zoads82 Posted February 12 Share Posted February 12 League's looking good Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
raz Posted February 13 Share Posted February 13 OK I want one jersey each from the Rockers, Juice and Apollos. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dozap17 Posted February 13 Share Posted February 13 A great array of designs so far, looking forward to the expansion to 16 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vinny0930 Posted February 13 Share Posted February 13 Really solid designs, can’t wait to see more from you. There is a reason you are one of my favorite designers on these boards. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DENCLEMONCLEOSU Posted February 13 Share Posted February 13 Can I get a Colorado/Denver team. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WideRight Posted February 13 Author Share Posted February 13 2 hours ago, DENCLEMONCLEOSU said: Can I get a Colorado/Denver team. I wish I could say yes, but Denver's 2 stadiums are either too big (Invesco) or too small (Dick's), and since Denver is the only city in the Top 60 MSA in the country, there just is not an option for a Colorado team. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WideRight Posted February 13 Author Share Posted February 13 FROM 12 TEAMS TO 16. 2031 Is a breakout year for the AAFL. With 12 teams, including the addition of both northern California and the NY-NJ Metro area, the league breaks records for both attendance and viewership. Before the season, Houston joined St. Louis in moving to a larger facility, leaving behind 22,000 seat Shell Energy Stadium for the much more accommodating TDECU Stadium at the U. of Houston, with its 40,000 seat capacity. By season’s end Orlando also made a move, jumping from Exploria Park to the 60,000 seat Camping World Stadium. Using Tarps on the upper deck, Camping World became a very cozy 41,000 seats, perfect for an Orlando Juice squad that looked like a potential champion. The new cities did well, with New Jersey averaging just over 23,000 at Red Bull Arena, despite posting only 2 wins on the year as an expansion club. Both Sacramento and San Jose came out for the Rush, as the team averaged just under 21,000 at Hornet Stadium (over 90% capacity) and nearly 22,000 at SJSU’s CEFCU Stadium. Around the league attendance continued to rise, as fans started to get a sense that unlike past spring leagues the AAFL seemed to have their act together and a real potential to stick around. Yes, there were letdowns, like the Salt Lake Pioneers losing their last 8 games after a 3-1 start, but there were also stories of teams building after some rough years. Washington finally had a winning season, finishing the year just behind Orlando for a playoff spot. Houston won the Central, while San Diego took the West again, but was in a tough battle with Portland all year long. The new structure of the league meant that there were 3 division champs (Orlando, Houston, and San Diego), and two Wild Cards (Washington and Portland). The title would go to the San Diego Destroyers, their 2nd in the first 4 years of the league, as they defeated Orlando, who lose their 2nd straight championship game. In the offseason, very pleased with the growth of the league, the AAFL announced two big changes for the 2033 season, two years away. First, they would start to sell off controlling interests in the teams, something that fans and potential investors had been clamoring for. It was already rumored that former Arenaball owners Jon Bon Jovi and Ron Jaworski were very eager to sign on with the NJ franchise. And they were not alone. The AAFL had shown profits each of the past 2 years, and that was the sign that many investors wanted to see. The second announcement was that they were going to add 4 teams in 2033, bringing the league total to 16 total teams, exactly half of the NFL’s 32 franchise numbers. That meant adding a 4th division, likely splitting the Central into Northern and Southern divisions, and it meant new options for non-NFL cities. The league committed to no fewer than 2 of the 4 new teams being in “underrepresented” (read as non-NFL markets) which was music to the ears of fans in Columbus, San Antonio, Birmingham, Virginia Beach, and the Carolina Triangle, all of whom were disappointed not to be included in the other league expansions. With 2 of the top 3 markets, as well as 5 of the Top 12 MSA in the country already represented, there was room to add smaller markets. The league also announced that they would allow cities with stadia up to 60,000 in seating to compete for a franchise, still unwilling to play in the largest NFL stadia for new franchises. That opened up several new markets as potential homes to AAFL franchises, including non-NFL markets like Louisville and Memphis, but also expands the NFL city options to include formerly excluded locations like Philadelphia (Franklin Field), Phoenix (Sun Devil Stadium), or the Twin Cities (Huntington Bank Stadium). We will see how that impacts the decisions in planning for a 16-team 2033 season. The 2032 Season was another good year, and we saw two more teams relocate to a bigger facility as the NY-Boston rivalry helped push both franchises to new heights. Boston left Harvard Stadium for BC’s Alumni Stadium after the first 4 games of the 2032 season, while New Jersey announced that for 2033 they would play their home games all the way to Piscataway and Rutgers’ 52,000 seat SHI Stadium. That is quite a longer commute from NYC, but the team certainly was feeling too constrained by the limitations of Red Bull. The 2032 season saw both New Jersey and California improve their records, though neither made the postseason. Salt Lake rebounded from their disappointing 2031 and qualified as a wild card with a 7-5 record. Also qualifying for the post-season were Washington (East Champion), St. Louis (Central Champion), San Diego (West Champion), and New Orleans (Wild Card). The title game was held at San Diego’s SnapDragon Stadium (since the Destroyers had won the title in 2031) where Orlando finally broke through, defeating St. Louis for their first title. And so, now it was time to start looking at expansion. The league would be adding 4 teams, with the first two slots to be decided from the contenders among non-NFL cities, the third to be an NFL city, and the 4th to be an open competition between all remaining cities which qualify. The league announced that it would stick with a 12-game season, with each team playing 6 divisional games and 2 games against each of the other 3 divisions to reach 12 for the year. Playoffs would be capped at 6 teams for the first 2 years, then they league could decide to expand them to 7 teams if they saw that there were often teams with winning records left out of the postseason. So, 4 division champs, 2 Wildcards with both the #1 and #2 seeds getting a bye week. The divisions would be split after the 4 new teams were decided on, though it is expected that several key rivalries would be maintained. This includes Boston-New Jersey, Chicago-St. Louis, New Orleans-Houston, and San Diego-California. Our best guess is that we are likely to see an unchanged Western Division (unless a 3rd California team is added) while Orlando may move from the East if more Southern teams are added. We fully expect Chicago and St. Louis to merge with other midwestern or northern teams while Houston and New Orleans could join with any new Southern teams. But, that all depends on where the next 4 clubs are placed. So, here we are, ready for our first vote. The top 2 vote-getters from this pool of cities will get franchises in 2033. When you vote, please select two cities you want to see join the league. We will hold voting open for 2 days, with no quick call should a team get a lead. It will stay open for the full 2 days and in the end the top 2 vote totals will both join the AAFL in 2033. Here are your choices of locations from which to choose two cities. Notice that there are just a few more cities in the pool, added when the stadium cap was raised from 50k to 60k, with the expectation that some tarps will be used in those cities to keep capacity at or below 40k at first: San Antonio, Texas—Alamo Stadium (The dome is still too big) Austin, Texas—Q2 Stadium Shared Austin/San Antonio “Texas” franchise—Bobcat Stadium in San Marcos Columbus, OH--Lower.com Field Tidewater, VA Region—SB Ballard Stadium Carolina Triangle Region—Wallace Wade Stadium Louisville, KY—L&NCU Stadium Memphis, TN—Liberty Bowl Stadium Birmingham, AL—Protective Stadium Fresno, CA—Bulldog Stadium Hartford, CT—Rentschler Field Tucson, AZ—Arizona Stadium Honolulu, HI—Aloha Stadium Two of these cities will join the league. The others will go into the pool with eligible NFL cities for our final round of voting, Team 16. Voting starts now and will extend until Wednesday evening at 6pm MT. Plan carefully, everyone. Only 2 of these cities can get in now, and all the rest have to wait for the final ballot of our entire project. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PERRIN Posted February 13 Share Posted February 13 Shared Texas and Tuscon get my vote, would hope to see Carolina down the line for the East division though. Quote Perrin Grubb | Aspiring Designer | NAFA Project ~ NFL Redesigns Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
raz Posted February 13 Share Posted February 13 Louisville, Birmingham Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BengalErnst Posted February 13 Share Posted February 13 San Antonio, Columbus Quote THE Xtreme Fantasy Football League Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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