RedRamage Posted December 31, 2023 Share Posted December 31, 2023 https://www.nbcsports.com/nfl/profootballtalk/rumor-mill/news/usfl-xfl-combine-to-form-united-football-league The Michigan Panther's will be part of the UFL, which surprises me, but pleases me as well. The first game for the new(ish) league is March 30 and will be the XFL Champs vs. the UFL Champs. Other than the Arlington Renegades (XFL Champs) we don't know which other 3 XFL teams will make it through yet (Kinda surprising given how close the season is). The three USFL teams besides the Panthers who made it through are USFL Champs Birmingham Stallions, the Houston Gamblers, and the Memphis Showboats. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
buddha Posted December 31, 2023 Share Posted December 31, 2023 they keep trying to make a third league happen. it aint happening. not as long as college football exists. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RedRamage Posted December 31, 2023 Author Share Posted December 31, 2023 I dunno... I think there's room for Spring Football as development/minor league sort of thing. For instance I'd love for the Lions to "loan" Sorsdal and Martin to the Panthers for some seasoning. If the NFL investing some money into the league that way and was able to use it for a developmental stuff (sorta an Arizona Fall League for the NFL) then I think it could work. I don't know if it will ever be able to stand on it's own though. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Toddwert Posted December 31, 2023 Share Posted December 31, 2023 1 minute ago, RedRamage said: I dunno... I think there's room for Spring Football as development/minor league sort of thing. For instance I'd love for the Lions to "loan" Sorsdal and Martin to the Panthers for some seasoning. If the NFL investing some money into the league that way and was able to use it for a developmental stuff (sorta an Arizona Fall League for the NFL) then I think it could work. I don't know if it will ever be able to stand on it's own though. didnt they try to do the NFL Europe? seems like the NFL was pushing that league hard Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RedRamage Posted December 31, 2023 Author Share Posted December 31, 2023 2 minutes ago, Toddwert said: didnt they try to do the NFL Europe? seems like the NFL was pushing that league hard Yes they did, and NFL Europe of course failed too. How much of that was Europe not embracing football though? I dunno. I think the NFL is also a much bigger product these days than it was back then. Obviously I'm conjecturing and guessing a lot. I think a development/minor league COULD work and the NFL has enough money to make it work if they wanted to. The question is whether they want too. Would the value they get out of it be worth the money put in? That's the biggest question. With college football they essentially get a free minor league. And with the damage that the game puts on a player's body the league/teams may not want more damage. But I could envision a situation where there's an 8th, 9th, and 10th round of the NFL draft where the players picked are put on UFL rosters, paid for by the NFL teams that drafted them (at a UFL salary rate) and under team control for 1 or 2 seasons or something... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
buddha Posted December 31, 2023 Share Posted December 31, 2023 1 hour ago, RedRamage said: I dunno... I think there's room for Spring Football as development/minor league sort of thing. For instance I'd love for the Lions to "loan" Sorsdal and Martin to the Panthers for some seasoning. If the NFL investing some money into the league that way and was able to use it for a developmental stuff (sorta an Arizona Fall League for the NFL) then I think it could work. I don't know if it will ever be able to stand on it's own though. so you want guys like sorsdal and martin to play/practice for an entire season and then play ANOTHER season right after? and then come back and play again in the late summer/fall? football is a tough game, i'm not sure people can take that much wear and tear and be successful for a long time. maybe qbs and wrs, but probably not guys getting hit on every play like linemen. this aint baseball. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CMRivdogs Posted January 1 Share Posted January 1 I'm old enough to remember the Continental Football League and the Atlantic Coast Football League (ACFL) back in the mid to late 60s. True minor league ball. A few clubs had agreements with the NFL at the time. You would possibly have a couple clubs putting a few players on the team. 32 man rosters with something like a 5 player reserve squad. There is too much competition for sport entertainment dollars to make an enterprise successful now. The NFL owns Sundays, Monday, Thursday nights, Colleges control Saturdays. Not to mention what you can watch on TV now Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RandyMarsh Posted January 1 Share Posted January 1 6 hours ago, buddha said: so you want guys like sorsdal and martin to play/practice for an entire season and then play ANOTHER season right after? and then come back and play again in the late summer/fall? football is a tough game, i'm not sure people can take that much wear and tear and be successful for a long time. maybe qbs and wrs, but probably not guys getting hit on every play like linemen. this aint baseball. Yeah the thought of something like this being a minor league type system for the NFL is often brought up and it does sound good in theory but in reality like you said football is too much of a violent sport for it to really be feasible. You would need to have it run the same time the NFL does so the guys would either be playing there OR in the NFL but of course that would never happen cause it wouldn't make financial sense for them to try to compete for viewers with the NFL and CFB on at the same time. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CMRivdogs Posted January 1 Share Posted January 1 Minor league hockey still has some appeal so maybe there is a glimmer of hope. Of course you don't need the number of bodies for hockey as you do football. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
buddha Posted January 1 Share Posted January 1 2 hours ago, CMRivdogs said: Minor league hockey still has some appeal so maybe there is a glimmer of hope. Of course you don't need the number of bodies for hockey as you do football. there is no college football equivalent in hockey. and no one is watching minor league hockey on tv. 10 million just watched georgia win a game by 60 points. the nhl wont get 10 million people to watch the stanley cup finals. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CMRivdogs Posted January 1 Share Posted January 1 22 minutes ago, buddha said: there is no college football equivalent in hockey. and no one is watching minor league hockey on tv. 10 million just watched georgia win a game by 60 points. the nhl wont get 10 million people to watch the stanley cup finals. My thinking was along the lines of getting fans into the sets. Minor league hockey seems to thrive in smaller markets where there isn't that much competition. Much like minor league baseball. We're probably talking apples to kumquats. No one is watching any college football outside of the major conferences on TV either. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gehringer_2 Posted January 1 Share Posted January 1 (edited) 28 minutes ago, buddha said: there is no college football equivalent in hockey. and no one is watching minor league hockey on tv. 10 million just watched georgia win a game by 60 points. the nhl wont get 10 million people to watch the stanley cup finals. Right on both counts. A) The NFL will never have a minor league. (Of course the truth of that statement is exactly the source my abstract concerns about professionalizing college FB!) b). Hockey is weird sport. I'm a fan and I still often find myself wondering why I'm watching such an odd activity. Edited January 1 by gehringer_2 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CMRivdogs Posted January 1 Share Posted January 1 2 minutes ago, gehringer_2 said: b). Hockey is weird sport. I'm a fan and I still often find myself wondering why I'm watching such an odd activity. i cut my teeth on the old Eastern Hockey League. One of the original goon leagues. But that was eons ago. i still find it more fun to spend a little time at a minor league game than to try to navigate the NHL's, NBA's and the NFL's of the world. I admit to being a dinosaur Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hongbit Posted January 1 Share Posted January 1 2 minutes ago, gehringer_2 said: Right on both counts. A) The NFL will never have a minor league. (Of course the truth of that statement is exactly the source my abstract concerns about professionalizing college FB!) Not never The NFL will develop its own minor league if/when the profit not realized outweighs the cost savings of outsourcing it to the NCAA. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RedRamage Posted January 1 Author Share Posted January 1 3 hours ago, CMRivdogs said: Minor league hockey still has some appeal so maybe there is a glimmer of hope. Of course you don't need the number of bodies for hockey as you do football. Now that brings up an interesting idea: Iron Man Football. Do like the AFL used to do and severely limit substitutions so that players needs to be play on both offense and defense. Obviously this wouldn't be a minor league for the NFL as the game would be quite different, but it would mean much fewer players. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RedRamage Posted January 1 Author Share Posted January 1 18 hours ago, buddha said: so you want guys like sorsdal and martin to play/practice for an entire season and then play ANOTHER season right after? and then come back and play again in the late summer/fall? football is a tough game, i'm not sure people can take that much wear and tear and be successful for a long time. maybe qbs and wrs, but probably not guys getting hit on every play like linemen. this aint baseball. Yeah, the UFL season is shorter... only like 8 games I think, but that still be might too much for a player. I guess I was envision it more like a the player would play in the UFL... if he's good enough, the NFL team would promote him to the NFL and he wouldn't go back to the UFL. If he wasn't he'd say in the UFL for two seasons and then either be promoted or let go by the NFL after that... so you'd never have UFL season -> NFL season -> UFL season. It would be UFL -> NFL -> NFL or UFL -> UFL -> NFL. Even that might be too much, but remember these aren't likely to be starters, so they won't see extensive game time. Still full practice of course... and that's much more time than game times so yeah... maybe I'm dreaming. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chasfh Posted January 16 Share Posted January 16 On 12/31/2023 at 5:10 PM, buddha said: so you want guys like sorsdal and martin to play/practice for an entire season and then play ANOTHER season right after? and then come back and play again in the late summer/fall? football is a tough game, i'm not sure people can take that much wear and tear and be successful for a long time. maybe qbs and wrs, but probably not guys getting hit on every play like linemen. this aint baseball. I would think the only way they could make a winter-ball-type situation happen for gridiron football is to somehow put the clamps on the more injury-yielding contact, even beyond kickoffs, and emphasize skills development, which might help preserve some bodies but might also make it such a different game that the learnings might not be well translatable to the League. I think they’d also have to limit it to a six-game season, plus two playoff games max, ending in mid-May. Twelve games of competitive football from March into June, with no weeks off and League training camps opening in July, would be too much even for skill position players. And beyond that, how do they justify trying to season their best talent in spring football only to lose them to a career-ending injury? They’d also have to make UFL rules identical to NFL rules. Can you imagine the uproar after an NFL game is lost because player couldn’t remember the rule for whatever is different in the fall versus in the spring? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chasfh Posted January 16 Share Posted January 16 On 1/1/2024 at 12:05 AM, RandyMarsh said: Yeah the thought of something like this being a minor league type system for the NFL is often brought up and it does sound good in theory but in reality like you said football is too much of a violent sport for it to really be feasible. You would need to have it run the same time the NFL does so the guys would either be playing there OR in the NFL but of course that would never happen cause it wouldn't make financial sense for them to try to compete for viewers with the NFL and CFB on at the same time. They would have be OK with toiling in obscurity, airing their games on the Ocho or something, plus play their games during the week, probably Tuesday. I’m pretty sure the money behind the UFL wouldn’t be happy with that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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