Is a money-making league possible?

Good, legitimate question, how would a league FIRST handle the initial barriers every other startup league has encountered (what happened to that league in 2008 that was supposed to use ex graduates and NCAA stadiums?).
and I do appreciate the responsible, fiscal control you outlined (that would set it apart from others).

If you had a kid 16-18 would YOU let him play on this team, or would it be safer for him to play for HS?

If you were a woman, why would you play with men?
If you were a man, why would you play with women (well, wait....I know why I would....er...)?

I would definitely suggest starting in Texas or the Gulf South in the Spring (competiting with HS,NCAA,NFL in the fall would be a disaster), as I don't believe any other region could consistently support such an idea from the jump (though, the weather would be so nice, how do you DRAW fans into a stadium?).

What else would bring people to your games, though? No band? That is 1/2 of most HS stadiums reason for people showing up.

I've always felt a spring/early summer league would work. Franchises in the most "football crazed" areas just before HS/college startup (The South, Texas, Ohio) playing in small college/large high school (roughly 20,000 seat). Play the games on a Saturday night (minimal competition with baseball, which plays primarily day games) and get FSN to pickup the games (unless they could convince ESPN 2/U to pick them up).

If high school teams are profitable, and there are some profitable semi-pro teams than there is no reason why a football league couldn't be profitable. The issue with most of these startup leagues is that they aim for BIG markets and try and use big stadiums. They try and fish out new markets (NFL europe, AFL) and find new fans. They won't just go to where they have a built in fanbase.

Get "college heros" from schools like LSU, 'Bama, Ohio State ect. ect. who didn't get a shot in the NFL, put them in the biggest football markets when there is no other compeition and people will show up.

Imo you have to start small. barn storming small. every team for themselves.
dont try to be revolutionary. Keep the game what it is. keep salaries low. let the game build it self. If you try to with big names, it will fail imo. take the players that WANT TO PLAY.

+ competing with NFL, NCAA, AF2, HS football
those markets competing means they would subvert any upstart (see AFL / WFL). Imagine a new soft drink....what would Coke & Pepsi do to counter customers from pulling away from THEM to choose a newer product?

+ No draw - third-rate product: there is no incentive to choose this league
what athletes/coaches/owners/trainers/sponsors would choose this over the more mainstream venues? There is all the risk and none of the reward

+ financial irresponsibility - most alternative leagues have failed because of a lack of clear cut financial objectives or profit-win for sponsors (= in the red)

+ lack of consistency / quality destroys the 'brand'
with {censored} coaches and throw-away players, what you get is glorified rec league football. It isn't worth watching even if you know someone on the team.

+ no capital - how do you get a wide-reaching $$$ burning venture off the ground when its future is uncertain and you do not already have a draw? Unless you have T.Boone Pickens bankrolling this adventure, getting it off the ground may be an unsurmountable obstacle to overcoming the previous 4 challenges

+ Attention competition - in this day and age with so much to do, who/what is your target demographic? With the Internet, Gaming, vast social outlets, increased recreational sports, and a shakey economy.....how can you generate a completely NEW following in the midst of so many different competing venues of a region? In the 'old days' you had sport monopolies (baseball/footall), now there is everything under the sun to support and/or spend your time enjoying (rather than plopping down in a stadium for 3 - 4 hours)

Semi-pro is fancy name for pay to play adult football.
Almost all are money losers, even those that charge $$ to play.
They rarely draw more than family and close friends for all the reasons Matt Brophy mentioned. Back in the day when every town had it's own team and there wasnt competition for the enertainment dollar, they were viable. Not today as a money maker.
I know 1 local team, you pay for your own equipment AND pay $500 to play.

You start a league, who / what is going to cover these expenses from a 10-year perspective?

Team jerseys / uniforms
Player equipment
Practice facility / equipment
Coaching salaries / stipend / compensation
Training staff / orthopedic specialist
Game facility / stadium costs
Travel/lodging/meal costs incurred by the team
Team liability insurance policies


After you tackle that, how do you handle;
Merchandising
Gate workers
Concessions
Half-time entertainment / draw

I have seen this handled before with owners investing $20-30k upfront to handle the initial expenses and entry into the league and became hostage to getting players to front up $500 for equipment, then pony up $$$ for each road game. This is consistent with many amateur leagues I've seen (there are quite a few, and none of them have a quality product). Some of these leagues were televised (IWFL) , while others (particularly in the MidWest) relied on regional teams that really were nothing more than beer leagues. The successful business models were setting the team up as a non-profit (for tax purposes) and claiming stipends for the COOs and CEOs of the organization (team)....covering all expenses and donating whatever was left over to some cause (regardless of how little it was).

Here's the scheme;
The league is created.
The league commissioner solicits teams to join with promises of keeping all gate receipts and how cool it would be to own a team. You front up the $$$ to join the league(union) for games and recognition, and it is their job that consistency in the league (teams don't fold right away).....but once they have your money and your LEGAL commitment for a franchise, your {censored} is on the line / indebted to them until you can get out of the contract.
It profits the commissioner and league executors.

And HERE is where the bottom line is at (not the general ledger)......this league will NOT be putting out a quality product, so why would you start a league to showcase baaaaad football?

Why would people want to go and see it?

Here is a league I would pay to see -

All good questions.

Well, the big thing is money. If you want to attract real football players and coaches, you have to pay them something. Then there's all the equipment, etc. It adds up and I don't think the $1,000,000 Bob Goodman set out in his original post would be enough to cover what I think it would take to work.

Borderline NFL guys might play for free or close to it, but only if they feel they have a shot at parlaying their success to a lucrative NFL (or at least CFL) career. You already see this happening now with players in some semi pro leagues. Guys play to stay in shape and hopefully be discovered by an NFL scout. No, it's not the most realistic dream, but it's a dream. It's still probably not in the best interests of developing a league for the long-term because your most popular players may actually get snatched up by the NFL, if for no other reason than to hurt your league before it beomes real competition.

I disagree with all the "play in the spring or summer" talk. Football season is in the fall. That's when people want to go see football games. You don't see independent minor league baseball teams playing in the winter to avoid competition because if they did nobody would come out. I don't think it's just a coincidence that the XFL, World League, USFL, etc. all tried to play in the spring or summer and quickly folded. People think if it's the spring or summer, it's not "real football" so they don't care. I think a new league should capitalize on the general enthusiasm for football built up in the fall by its "competition."

Really, the calendar is sort of a catch 22 for minor league football. You play in the spring or summer and nobody takes you seriously. You play in the fall and the weekends, when people are most likely to come to games, are already booked up with High School, College, and the NFL.

IMO, the key would be to get a sizeable investment up front and locate the league in markets not served by the NFL or major college teams yet supportive enough of football to support the teams. Play in small HS or College stadiums at first (maybe 2,000 seat capacity) to provide a more intimate atmosphere--nothing drains enthusiasm faster than row upon row of empty bleachers. You could always move on to bigger stadiums as the league grows.

Also, I'd like for the teams to be owned by the league, which would appoint the GM and HC for each franchise (may be the same person) and actually pay them as much as a typical HS HC. That would help you to find competent coaches, and by having the league name them (and fire them) the league itself would have better control over the product on the field.

For example, in order to make games more interesting, they could pick coaches who would run diverse styles of offenses. You could have a Run and Shoot team, a Wishbone team, a SW team, an Air Raid, a Wing-T, etc but everyone should do something a little different so the teams stand out from one another. That would also help maximize the distribution of talent because there'd be less competition for specific types of players.

I would also try to put the teams fairly close together to save on travel costs and build a sense of rivalry among fans. Specifically, if I were setting up such a league, I'd go for a regional 9 team league with an 8 game schedule plus a championship game, located in the Southeast or Texas because that's where football fans are. That would yield 4 games a week with one team getting a bye. I'd spread the games out on Thurs.-Sun, being careful not to conflict with local HS or college football.

Size of the league is a concern early on, as a league that's too small won't be taken seriously by anyone and, obviously, one that's too large would just collapse under its own weight. I think a 9 team league with 8 game schedules, which starts its games a week before HS ball and has its championship game before HS playoffs is the way to go, but this would require lots of money, especially when some of the franchises are duds.

Now, as for the marketing and putting butts in seats... a lot of it would be very similar to the problem of marketing a newly built HS team to the local community. You would have to make a very creative use of limited resources, and you have to do things in a way that the community sees a connection with the team. To encourage this, I'd steal some of the secrets the NFL used back in the leather helmet days: sign local players with some name recognition or washed up college/NFL types people remember. This is something the indie wrestling feds know they have to do to survive. Even if he's not the best player or the easiest guy to work with, a draw is a draw. Any indie sports league is going to be painfully short on those.

As far as the quality of product on the field... that, to me, depends more on the coaching and personalities of the players involved than the athletic ability. If you could pick players and pay them, say, $18-24k a year, you'd have no problem finding competent players to stock your teams (they could always work second jobs in the offseason or even hold down a full time job during the season) and they would look good relative to each other. We might not have many big fish, but we'd have a much smaller pond, too. It's all relative. The big thing is having them be able to execute.

To get players people want to see, I'd be willing to take anybody over the age of 18 if he's willing to play. That opens up possibilities to recent HS graduates who couldn't make the grades or test scores for college or a kid who's flunked out of HS before his senior season. Obviously if a kid can get a scholarship he would be foolish not to take it but college right out of HS is not always the best choice for everybody. We all know of great athletes who fall through the cracks for whatever reason, or sign a scholarship and quit within a week because they're homesick. It would really be a struggle for the GM of each franchise just to stock the team with players worth seeing, but people can be loyal to hometown heroes when they're successful. I'd even get the hometown boys out making appearances at the schools, malls, etc. They would be the faces of the franchises.

Also, to better market the league, I'd get a 30 minute TV and radio show broadcast on local TV where the teams play. I'd also put it on youtube. Basically, anything to get in the paper or on popular blogs would be good, too. Exposure would be TOUGH.

In terms of the game itself, I'd go with 11 man football, played with modified NCAA rules on NCAA fields. I'd drop the "ineligible numbers" and "anti-Fumblerooski" rules to allow for lineman eligible plays. I'd ban cut blocking entirely in order to better protect players from injury (when they're paying for nothing or next to it, this is the least you can do).

For crazier on-field gimmicks, maybe institute the "multipe motions and a running start" rule from the CFL. I'd also toy with the idea of allowing forward passes from anywhere on the field, though this might cause the game to quickly degenerate into a Rugby-ish, unrecognisable version of itself.

I'd also maybe even allow a losing team to play with a 12th man if they go down by 21 points so that the game becomes instantly more competitive. Even more radical, make a TD worth more if it's scored from further out: say, anything over 50 yards is worth 7 points. If we're re-writing the rules, why not have fun with it? The possibilities are wide open there.

I like a suggestion Brophy made in the other thread of limiting the size of the rosters so players have to go both ways. I'd go with maybe a 22 man roster, but institute a rule that no more than 4 players can be substituted at a time and have a 30 second play clock, with no headsets allowed anywhere (even on the coaches). That means most players have to go both ways and know multiple positions, which would keep offenses and defenses simpler by necessity. This might actually help a fledgeling pro league to put a better product on the field by stressing execution over some owner or player's idea of a great complicated offense.

Another idea... REALLY smokin' hot stripper-esque cheerleaders. And cheap beer at games. Lots of cheap beer. I like Brophy's muppet idea, too. And give away lots of novelty stuff at each game--cheesy t-shirts and all sorts of cheap keepsakes, while keeping the ticket prices low ($5-10, but no more than that). Maybe even give away tickets for games with various promotions (team colors day or something) in hopes of making it back at the concession stand.

It's still there. It's called Sprint Football. My college dropped their football program and now plays that. I don't know how many people will pay to see it.

Bobgoodman,

I've got your money-making league right here

www.khou.com/topstories/stories/khou091007_mp_lingerie-football-league.1f524a815.html

There've been some individual games played like that, but I didn't hear that they made money. But maybe the league will.

It would be interesting if the LFL was profitable, for the effect it'd have on women's football. Some of the "serious" teams & players might be tempted to convert to "skinny", although they joke about it now.

Boy, I've seen some pictures of some of the women's teams. You don't want lingerie. You really don't.