Apologies, this is a long post, but typing it out helps me to get my thoughts ordered...
Stumbled across something really interesting. Was trying to prove to a mate that there was once a wrestling themed gridiron competition (it ended up being the XFL that lasted for one season) when I stumbled across this on the American football wiki site: there is no less than 4 different professional gridiron leagues being set up to start in the next 2 years :shock:. Fair dinkum. What's in the water over there at the moment cause everyone seems to want to start their own professional sporting competition.
The most interesting thing though is that they're all being delayed to see how the credit crunch plays out, some of them being delayed 2 or 3 times so far. They also had a lot of figures as to start up costs etc with owners splashing around about $30 million each for the privelage of a half share in their very own team which I suppose explains why they're so cagey about the financial risks. However, if we consider that the NRL has a salary cap of about $4 million for the best players in the world it should be reasonable to suggest that a new American League comp can get away with much less.
Say the new American comp had a cap of $800,000, you're still talking about a decent salary in world League terms. Throw in operating expenses, travel costs etc and I'm guessing around $3 million a year could get you a decent team going after anything you spend on infrastructure. With figures that low, and an 8 team comp, you'd be looking for $25 million a year for the comp, a figure that's probably chicken feed by American standards, especially when you consider the American pro soccer teams ask for a minimum $500,000 for a shirt sponsor. Get decent sponsorship, a tv deal and an okay amount of crowd support and we have a decent little comp.
Couple of disturbing issues from the wiki pages though: there was a bit of talk about trying to make the gridiron franchises 'more permanent'. Seems the teams get moved so often in America that they're trying to come up with ways to tie them to the community with shareholder agreements and schemes where every team is owned by the central governing body so that they can control what goes on. They also have a fair amount of problems with stadiums. From the sounds of it they go around and lock in the stadiums before giving franchises just so that they know the franchise wont have to be moved on after a few years. Disturbing, extraordinary stuff.
(Side note- the weirdest comp was the 'All American' one where you HAVE to have a 4 year degree to play. No joke, completely fair dinkum; if you're not a uni graduate you can't play. Apparently it's supposed to encourage people to get educated but from the team list etc it sounded down right elitist, like the upper classes wanted their own 'civilised' football competition or something. Truly bizarre)
As for teams, they seem to be set up the same way that the League is going- a lot of the time they just stick pins in a map, see if a stadium is available, then go and find someone who wants to chip in the money. It's a bit alien to anyone from the rest of the world but if that's how Americans set up sporting competitions.... who are we to judge.
Just for comparision I also went and wikied the soccer comp over there which also had some interesting notes on its early expansion. Apparently they started with a lot of foreign players (Pele etc) but the American public never took to it. It wasn't until the foreign players all moved on and gave some room fora few exciting young American stars to come through that the league began to get some notice and credibility which they capitalised on by winning through to the semis of the World Cup. The other major factor is the use of soccer-specific stadiums. Apparently teams were really struggling to draw crowds until they began making stadiums that were built specifically for soccer, at which point crowds stabilised and they're now starting to become profitable.
One thing I thought about was whether League could capitalise on the creation of these new stadiums. Would soccer fields be better than gridiron fileds for League? If so the soccer boys are paving the way as there's quite a few going up, including the impending DC and New York fields.
Pay tv also plays a big part across both sports which I suppose was fairly obvious.
Having read this stuff I think League will really benefit from the fact that it is a unique sport, so, unlike the new gridiron competitions, they wont be in direct competition with anyone else. I also think, like the soccer, the international factor needs to be leveraged right with plenty of homegrown talent built up which then can be turned into international success rather than heaps of internationals to build quality play that the audience just doesn't care about. Soccer leads the way in this respect with money being forced into the creation of second division comps to develop home grown talent and imports restricted to one or two marquee players (like Beckham for the Galaxy).
I still believe in a lower salary cap to build up local talent rather than imports (something that may take time with the low participation rates in America) and a lot of the money going into grass roots development, especially if games are being played in places like Los Angeles where there is no real grass roots development to back up the first grade team. All these other comps are starting with a solid base of players whereas we're starting from scratch in places like the West Coast. That will be the biggest risk to the long-term success of the comp.
Also, if there are team owners of any kind, they're going to want to own their teams for the love of the game. Ideally I'd prefer a community owned club-based system but if their are owners they really shouldn't be expecting big results quickly. Soccer has two profitable teams after 15 years of competition and they have seen several fall by the wayside. It will be a constant temptation to use the massive financial resource to go for the biggest and best to win comps and whatever but I really think the new administrators will have to be salary cap nazis looking to the long term good rather than short term headlines.
And I really dont know about the expansion into areas that haven't even heard of League before. I hope they don't care about crowd support because it's gonna be a struggle to get exposure without any previous community links. Even the east coast is gonna be difficult let alone elsewhere. Here, overseas, it seems that professional comps grow out of grass roots support that gets to the point that there's the ability to professionalise, rather than the American model which seems to work the opposite direction with a belief in top down, "build it and they will come" franchises. That might work when you've got unis pumping out battle hardened athletes to feed the system but what about a sport where you're building things from outside the college system? In this we have an opportunity to reach a part of America that has probably been left behind, the working-class communities that dont have a college team or a college culture for that matter, but that sort of growth takes time. Franchises are businesses which is great if you're a rich business that can buy credibility but what about a smaller business that moves into town? They're gonna need some good old fashioned Time to settle in and that's the only way I can see League being successful. Will the franchises be willing to spend the time?
I suppose what I'm trying to get at is that I'm hoping for a club-based league rather than owner operated franchises. Any possibility of this being the case?
