OK Authentic Thomas Rawls Jersey , let’s get the bad jokes out of the way: Are some teams going to be wearing masks and representing parts unknown? Will the hook-and-ladder play involve smashing someone with a real ladder?
The XFL was a ”colossal failure” the first time McMahon tried it – his words – and there’s every reason to believe XFL2 will meet a similar fate.
But a spring football league, done the right way, could work.
And, no, we’re not kidding around.
The United States Football League came up with the most feasible concept back in the 1980s, only to crumble after just three seasons because of out-of-control spending and a suicidal push by owners such as Donald Trump to compete directly against the NFL .
But the USFL might still be around today if it had stuck to its original concept, which was to serve as more of a complement to the NFL than a direct competitor.
The timing is ripe for another attempt.
While the economy is booming and football remains the nation’s most popular sport, the NFL is contending with shrinking TV ratings, empty seats and a lingering debate over players kneeling during the national anthem to protest social injustice. For the first time in decades, there are actually some cracks in the league’s armor.
Clearly, those issues figured into McMahon’s planned re-launch of the XFL in 2020 .
”As far as this league is concerned, it will have nothing to do with politics, nothing to do with social issues,” he said. ”That’s what the fans want. When they tune in to a game, they don’t want to deal with political issues. They want to watch good football.”
Good football will likely be the fatal flaw in McMahon’s new venture, just as it was for the original XFL. While the risque cheerleaders and close ties to wrestling brought plenty of much-deserved ridicule, it was the amateurish quality of play that ultimately caused its downfall. As Bob Costas memorably observed, it was ”mediocre high school football” combined ”with a tawdry strip club.”
Since McMahon’s new XFL will follow the same single-entity plan – he’ll be the sole owner of the eight-team league – there’s unlikely to be nearly enough money to lure any recognizable names, unless Tim Tebow (yes, he came up during the announcement Thursday) decides to make a football comeback.
But an updated version of the USFL concept would have a real chance at succeeding during the spring and summer, football’s traditional offseason.
Here’s a few ideas:
– Start with 10 or 12 teams, split between major NFL cities such as New York, Chicago and Los Angeles; those that have lost teams (San Diego, St. Louis and soon-to-be Oakland); and untapped markets with big league stadiums (San Antonio comes to mind).
– Restrict ownership to those who not only have deep pockets, but are totally committed to the concept (i.e., not simply trying to turn their investment into a merger with the NFL). Point out the relative bargain of owning a team in the new league compared to, say Authentic Trenton Cannon Jersey , the Carolina Panthers, whose selling price will surely exceed $2 billion. Maybe Mark Cuban would be interested in a Dallas franchise. Reach out to Oprah Winfrey about a Chicago team.
– Don’t get into a bidding war with the NFL over players. Focus heavily on scouting and development, which means pursuing lower-level pros who might thrive in a bigger role and college stars projected to go in the later rounds of the NFL draft. Always be on the lookout for someone like 2016 Heisman Trophy winner Lamar Jackson, the subject of wildly varying draft projections, who might have a better chance at playing time in a new league. And let’s not forget: Colin Kaepernick is still unemployed.
– Line up a traditional TV deal to provide financial stability, perhaps some combination of a major network and a newer, sports-themed cable outlet such as NBCSN or Fox Sports 1. But also be on the cutting edge of subscription services, mobile streaming and other innovative conduits that appeal to a younger audience.
In essence, follow the model laid out by the late David Dixon, the New Orleans businessman whose longtime push for an out-of-season league finally came to fruition with the launch of the USFL in 1983.
Looking back, that first season was a rousing success in many ways. The Denver Gold averaged more than 41,000 fans. Overall attendance was roughly in line with the hoped-for 25,000 per game. TV ratings on ABC and then-fledgling ESPN actually exceeded projections. The quality of play was solid.
But the seeds of the USFL’s downfall were already in motion. When the New Jersey Generals skirted the salary cap to lure Heisman Trophy winner Herschel Walker away from Georgia, it only led more teams to dole out big bucks in pursuit of stars. That, in turn, led to huge financial losses. Dixon wisely walked away after that inaugural season.
In the end, the USFL’s most enduring legacy was the $3 judgment it ”won” in an antitrust suit against the NFL, a ruling that finished off the league in 1986 before it carried out a Trump-backed move from spring to fall.
No one since has made a serious attempt at a spring football league.
A revived XFL certainly doesn’t qualify.
But someone out there should heed McMahon’s words.
”Football is America’s favorite sport,” he said. ”We’ve got seven months of no football on the gridiron and 70 million fans. Why not now? Now is the perfect opportunity.”
—
Paul Newb
In a story March 5 about the Super Bowl DVD, The Associated Press reported the site of NFL Films as Mount Royal, New Jersey. The correct site is Mount Laurel, New Jersey.
A corrected version of the story is below:
PHI-NALLY: An Oscar winner in Philadelphia?
Putting together a documentary of a Super Bowl season is an extensive and exhausting project
By BARRY WILNER
AP Sports Writer
Putting together a documentary of a Super Bowl season is an extensive and exhausting project.
Except when it becomes a labor of love.
For dozens of employees at NFL Films, the 2017 Philadelphia Eagles season was particularly special. Thus, the DVD that chronicles it and becomes available to the public on Tuesday – PHI-NALLY is how it is dubbed – wasn’t exactly work.
”We are in Mount Laurel, New Jersey, which is about 20 minutes from the Linc,” says Todd Schmidt Authentic P.J. Hall Jersey , who produces such enterprises for NFL Films. ”So many of our people are lifelong fans of the Eagles, who have suffered for all those years. And that is something the becomes part of the film; we wanted people out there to understand what some of these people went through during that crazy game and this season.
”I would love for an Arizona Cardinals fan to get the same bang out of this as my 22-year-old son and a lifelong Eagles fan will, and I like to think that the story will do that. This is more than a story of a football season. It’s about why teams and fans don’t quit, and that’s what Philly fans are like. They may get a lot of criticism, but there’s a reason Rocky means so much and showing the heart to never give up means so much.”
NFL Films had the good fortune of being able to place microphones on coach Doug Pederson and quarterback Nick Foles. The exchanges between them not only are insightful football-wise, they provide a window into the aggressiveness that was so critical to not only upending the Patriots in a classic Super Bowl, but in the Eagles putting together such a successful season.
Indeed, Philadelphia’s 41-33 victory in Minneapolis probably made for a much more enchanting story than had the Patriots won. After all, New England taking the NFL title is anything but new, and the Eagles last won it in 1960, when Norm Van Brocklin was the quarterback and Chuck Bednarik was playing linebacker and center.
So Schmidt opted to open the documentary with a shot of Franklin Field on the University of Pennsylvania campus – the site of that 1960 win over Green Bay. And he decided to close the film with the parade witnessed by more than 700,000 ”so you get a clear idea of what this meant to the city of Philadelphia, the people of Philadelphia, and to Eagles fans.”
NFL Films actually makes two 55-minute films annually. The 2017 version of the Patriots’ season ”will not see the light of day,” Schmidt explains. But it also would have had plenty of cachet.
”I think every team has a story,” he says, though how many viewers would be interested in, say, the Browns‘ 0-16 campaign is debatable.
”Had the Patriots won, it would have been a film of dominance; if they had won they would have been the `27 Yankees. It would have been magnificent if they had pulled out that game, two of the most amazing Super Bowls back to back. Tom Brady would go down as the greatest magician ever to walk the earth.
”We are storytellers and we would have made the elements we had work well.”
Still, the elements they had on Philadelphia’s side certainly seem more compelling. A team loses five key players, including late in the schedule the QB who appeared headed to league MVP honors. It’s an underdog in all of its postseason games despite being a top seed. Its history of falling short is monumental.
And then it wins a classic Super Bowl against an NFL dynasty.
”The Eagles story has a lot more historical context, which is red meat to a storyteller,” Schmidt says. ”The more context and unique elements of the story, the better the story. So I loved the Eagles story.”
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