Arena Football League relaunching with 16 teams in 2024

[famicommander]

You're being ridiculous. The league was getting good TV viewership and decent attendance. That's good for a first year league. McMahon has his reasons for abandoning it, but it wasn't because his second effort was failing. If it were a lost cause, no one would have bothered bringing it back

People bring back lost causes all the time. You're posting in a thread about a league that has gone bankrupt several times and some clowns are trying again.

Bottom line is if the league had any path to profitability Vince never would've pulled the plug.

 

[DanielPlainview]

That’s not true at all. Vince is an old man who had no idea how long the Covid thing was going to last. Obviously he thought it wasn’t going to work if he couldn’t get people into the stadiums for a few years

 

[famicommander]

That’s not true at all. Vince is an old man who had no idea how long the Covid thing was going to last. Obviously he thought it wasn’t going to work if he couldn’t get people into the stadiums for a few years

Vince is a creature of pure vanity. It has been his life's ambition to be viewed by his perceived peers as something more than the slimey carney that he is and always has been. He desperately wants a successful endeavor outside the wrestling business to be associated with his name. Admitting defeat is always his last resort. If he thought for half a second he could have added "founded successful football league" to his resume he would stop at nothing to do it. He tried twice, he failed twice, COVID gave him the out he needed to save face and he took it. The XFL was never going to be profitable, COVID or no. The current XFL will never be profitable.

 

[DanielPlainview]

Did Vince bang your wife or something? lol

McMahon was prepared to lose hundreds of millions for a few years to keep the league going. But that ballooned due to Covid restrictions. So he shut it down and sold it. Not that complicated

As for the new XFL, as I said before, McMahon expected to lose somewhere around a quarter billion the first year and similar the next couple of years. That's what it takes to get a new league off the ground, a few years of losses. Maybe even a decade or two. Look at MLS. Ran pretty much in the red for its first 25 years, now it's doing very well. The new XFL only lost about $60m in its first season. That's not bad. Anyone expecting immediate profitability from a brand new league isn't operating in reality.

 

[famicommander]

Did Vince bang your wife or something? lol

McMahon was prepared to lose hundreds of millions for a few years to keep the league going. But that ballooned due to Covid restrictions. So he shut it down and sold it. Not that complicated

As for the new XFL, as I said before, McMahon expected to lose somewhere around a quarter billion the first year and similar the next couple of years. That's what it takes to get a new league off the ground, a few years of losses. Maybe even a decade or two. Look at MLS. Ran pretty much in the red for its first 25 years, now it's doing very well. The new XFL only lost about $60m in its first season. That's not bad. Anyone expecting immediate profitability from a brand new league isn't operating in reality.

The league completely and utterly failed to gain any traction in year 1. If they had continued it they would have just lost more and more money with each successive season. You bought the PR nonsense excuse about COVID. The truth is the league was doomed no matter what and so are the current USFL and XFL.

Look at the massive decline in XFL 2020 ratings
FS1 ratings by week:
n/a --> 1.4 --> 1.0 --> 1.1 --> 0.8

ABC ratings by week:
3.3 --> 2.4/2.1 --> 1.9 --> 1.6 -->1.5

ESPN ratings by week:
2.5 --> n/a --> 1.5 --> 1.0 (ESPN2) --> 0.8

Fox ratings by week:
3.3/3.4 --> 2.3 --> 2.1 --> 1.8 --> 1.5

Average ratings by week:
3.1 --> 2.1 --> 1.6 --> 1.3 --> 1.2

They were down to barely over 1/3 of their starting ratings halfway through their regular season. It was an abject failure by every measure and Vince was glad for the COVID excuse to pull the plug.

 

[DanielPlainview]

There’s always a first week or two spike in TV ratings, then a leveling out. You think McMahon went into it thinking he was going to maintain week 1 ratings for the whole first season? He’s not an idiot.

People who don’t like Vince want to paint this as something more than it was.

 

[Jumptheshark]

Is this the 4th or 5th time they have tried this

 

[famicommander]

There’s always a first week or two spike in TV ratings, then a leveling out. You think McMahon went into it thinking he was going to maintain week 1 ratings for the whole first season? He’s not an idiot.

People who don’t like Vince want to paint this as something more than it was.

They didn't level off, though. They dropped every single week on every single platform. The USFL 2022 ratings from week 1 through 5 went down, up, up and down. Week 2 was the same average rating as week 5. The biggest drop was week 1 to 2, then it found a normal range. By contrast, the XFL cratered every week and never found a bottom. And even then, the USFL did much worse in season 2 than season 1; they also failed to build any momentum. And then the XFL 2023 performed roughly the same as the USFL 2023 season (XFL had better demographics, USFL had slightly better raw viewership), which was worse than either XFL 2020 or USFL 2022.

Comparing it to building an entirely new sport like MLS had to do is ridiculous. Minor league football is minor league football. The audience for it is what it is. It's not going to suddenly explode.

 

[famicommander]

Is this the 4th or 5th time they have tried this

Technically this is the 3rd incarnation, but most people consider it the 4th.

AFL 1.0 was a continuous operation from 1987-2008. A combination of the financial crisis of that era, poor vetting of new owners, a reliance upon expansion fees to pay bills, and exploding salaries tanked the league. The AFL's minor league, af2, remained in operation in 2009.

In 2010, a group of af2 owners and some former AFL 1.0 owners bought the rights to the AFL and its teams out of bankruptcy and rebooted the league. The salaries were much lower, many teams played in much crappier arenas or markets, but it was still clearly the best indoor league at the time. This era lasted until about 2017, when a series of contractions left the league with 6 teams. Washington Capitals/Wizards/Mystics owner Ted Leonsis essentially assumed control of the league at this point and they played the 2018 season with 4 teams, 2019 with 6, then went bankrupt again. Most fans consider the Leonsis era to be AFL 3.0 since it accompanied another large drop in the quality of play and image of the league.

So this current league would be the 3rd legal entity, but for all intents and purposes 4th incarnation of the Arena Football League.

 

[Jumptheshark]

Technically this is the 3rd incarnation, but most people consider it the 4th.

AFL 1.0 was a continuous operation from 1987-2008. A combination of the financial crisis of that era, poor vetting of new owners, a reliance upon expansion fees to pay bills, and exploding salaries tanked the league. The AFL's minor league, af2, remained in operation in 2009.

In 2010, a group of af2 owners and some former AFL 1.0 owners bought the rights to the AFL and its teams out of bankruptcy and rebooted the league. The salaries were much lower, many teams played in much crappier arenas or markets, but it was still clearly the best indoor league at the time. This era lasted until about 2017, when a series of contractions left the league with 6 teams. Washington Capitals/Wizards/Mystics owner Ted Leonsis essentially assumed control of the league at this point and they played the 2018 season with 4 teams, 2019 with 6, then went bankrupt again. Most fans consider the Leonsis era to be AFL 3.0 since it accompanied another large drop in the quality of play and image of the league.

So this current league would be the 3rd legal entity, but for all intents and purposes 4th incarnation of the Arena Football League.

wasnt there one announced but just nothing came of it?

 

[famicommander]

wasnt there one announced but just nothing came of it?

Not with the official AFL branding, no. But there are phantom indoor/arena football leagues all the time.

 

[joestevens29]

Not with the official AFL branding, no. But there are phantom indoor/arena football leagues all the time.

Between you and handjob I didn’t know it was illegal shark , I’m sure we have the best information

 

[NextBigThing]

Tony Khan runs a 3 billion dollar NFL franchise meanwhile Vince has failed twice at a minor league spring football league. Love it.

 

[famicommander]

Tony Khan runs a 3 billion dollar NFL franchise meanwhile Vince has failed twice at a minor league spring football league. Love it.

Tony Khan does not run the Jags. He heads up the analytics department. There are at least 3 guys ahead of him on the team's pyramid
Owner - Shad Khan (Tony's father)
President - Mark Lamping
General Manager - Trent Baalke

Tony will inherit the team some day but right now he's not even close to running the show.

 

[willy702]

League success doesn't mean there isn't demand for football outside of fall. This is such a fallacy look at all these teams fanbases losing their mind about third string guys getting cut and maybe another team will pick them up. You are telling me these fans who think some undrafted TE from Podunk U isn't the next Kelce wouldn't watch him and hundred of others like him in March because he is not wearing an NFL jersey?

Huge demand is out there, the NFL is just fouling it up. They need to be involved and to this point the only thing that will prod them is a league that doesn't lose its shirt. All these dreamers are trying to be it. Don't know who will get it right but without a doubt there is untapped demand for this, just needs to be done reasonably at first and then get the NFL involved allowing their kids and unsigned prospects get a shot.

 

[famicommander]

You are telling me these fans who think some undrafted TE from Podunk U isn't the next Kelce wouldn't watch him and hundred of others like him in March because he is not wearing an NFL jersey?

Yes.

 

[DanielPlainview]

League success doesn't mean there isn't demand for football outside of fall. This is such a fallacy look at all these teams fanbases losing their mind about third string guys getting cut and maybe another team will pick them up. You are telling me these fans who think some undrafted TE from Podunk U isn't the next Kelce wouldn't watch him and hundred of others like him in March because he is not wearing an NFL jersey?

Huge demand is out there, the NFL is just fouling it up. They need to be involved and to this point the only thing that will prod them is a league that doesn't lose its shirt. All these dreamers are trying to be it. Don't know who will get it right but without a doubt there is untapped demand for this, just needs to be done reasonably at first and then get the NFL involved allowing their kids and unsigned prospects get a shot.

To a degree, yes, fans are only interested in those players while they have their team's uniform on. Camp and pre-season cuts are seen as rejects. However, that doesn't mean there isn't a demand for spring football. Football has a terribly long off-season, leaving fans hanging for 6 months while other leagues go no longer than 3 or 4.

There is a market, but football is a uniquely expensive venture primarily due to the large rosters. Breaking even is a tall task, pretty much impossible out of the gate.

Perspective and expectations need to be reasonable. Leagues always take a long time to catch on, so ownership has to be willing to take losses for the foreseeable future. For the first 30-40 years of its existence, pro football was considered small time, even below college football in prestige. It really wasn't until the mid-late 50s that it began to be taken seriously, and the NFL was just one of a few leagues. Even if a spring league were to catch on, it would not ever compete with the NFL while the NFL exists; expectations of some spring league being an NFL competitor are ridiculous, but that chatter always come out from anti-NFL football fans. Laughable.

If I were starting a league, I would simply put teams in places where there are a lot of football fans. These leagues seem to go for big markets but many of them aren't really football crazy. I would do my best to get somewhere around 18-20k people in the stadiums to prove the product. If that can be managed, you can establish a solid base from which to grow.

 

[famicommander]

Fans don't care about the quality of the product if they don't have a rooting interest. They only care about their own teams. That's why people still watch college football despite it having less parity than any major sport in the history of the world. If people cared about good football all of America would be watching the CFL over the NCAA, XFL, or USFL but they're not. They watch the NFL and NCAA because that's what they know.

 

[GKJ]

The league completely and utterly failed to gain any traction in year 1. If they had continued it they would have just lost more and more money with each successive season. You bought the PR nonsense excuse about COVID. The truth is the league was doomed no matter what and so are the current USFL and XFL.

Look at the massive decline in XFL 2020 ratings
FS1 ratings by week:
n/a --> 1.4 --> 1.0 --> 1.1 --> 0.8

ABC ratings by week:
3.3 --> 2.4/2.1 --> 1.9 --> 1.6 -->1.5

ESPN ratings by week:
2.5 --> n/a --> 1.5 --> 1.0 (ESPN2) --> 0.8

Fox ratings by week:
3.3/3.4 --> 2.3 --> 2.1 --> 1.8 --> 1.5

Average ratings by week:
3.1 --> 2.1 --> 1.6 --> 1.3 --> 1.2

They were down to barely over 1/3 of their starting ratings halfway through their regular season. It was an abject failure by every measure and Vince was glad for the COVID excuse to pull the plug.

You have it right. The networks were going to ditch XFL 2020 because of poor ratings. Vince was going to have nowhere to go, so he was forced to kill it. Covid only expedited that.

 

[joestevens29]

Fans don't care about the quality of the product if they don't have a rooting interest. They only care about their own teams. That's why people still watch college football despite it having less parity than any major sport in the history of the world. If people cared about good football all of America would be watching the CFL over the NCAA, XFL, or USFL but they're not. They watch the NFL and NCAA because that's what they know.

No, no they wouldn't.

CFL is in shambles.

 

[famicommander]

No, no they wouldn't.

CFL is in shambles.

The CFL is several tiers above the XFL or USFL. The USFL and XFL will be lucky to exist in 3 years.

 

[GindyDraws]

Tony Khan does not run the Jags. He heads up the analytics department. There are at least 3 guys ahead of him on the team's pyramid
Owner - Shad Khan (Tony's father)
President - Mark Lamping
General Manager - Trent Baalke

Tony will inherit the team some day but right now he's not even close to running the show.

Tony can't even run two promotions (yes, technically Ring of Honor still exists despite an abysmal Honor Club buy rate and the quality of the programming each week being that of the old Dark show, with disinterested crowds leaving the Collision taping and jobbers fighting for statistical purposes) without coming off like a basket case in need of validation from career grouches, so that's going to be a fun day.

No, no they wouldn't.

CFL is in shambles.

In Toronto, yes. But everywhere else in Canada people still follow it.

Just because the Argos are seventh banana in MLSE doesn't mean the entire league is invalid. But we all know that Toronto represents the entirety of Canada.

 

[MMC]

 

[GindyDraws]

For context, Billings comes in from the CIF, where player salaries are around $150-200 a week, and West Texas (Odessa) came from a league with "ironman" (as in, players had to play both sides of the ball) rules. So, if you have high expectations for this league, temper them. Temper them a lot.

 

[famicommander]

The league claimed today that teams will pay players $10,000 for a 10 game regular season.

I really don't see how teams in Billings and Odessa are going to manage that when teams in IFL cities like Phoenix and San Diego are paying 300 bucks per game.