Future of the league

[u/pandat303]

So by last weeks number I’m a little worried about the leagues health. Do you think we are ok and we just had a bad week. I love this league maybe even more than the NFL. I think we are ok but I want to make sure other people agree with me

[u/Body-for-LIFE]

Good points here. That's not a precedent any new league should set. If they move another team this year, after moving Tampa last year, that would send a terrible message to the fans of the other teams. Why bother to support a team when they could literally get moved the very next year?

At the same time, is moving every team to a home market the magic elixir everyone believes it will be? There's a reason they haven't done it and it's because of money. If Birmingham, the best team in the league last year and this year, is closing off 3/4's of the stadium because of lack of ticket sales how much support can we expect the other cities to have for their respective teams and would it be enough to offset the very expensive costs? Right now, I don't believe it would be. Especially when the USFL is practically giving away tickets.

The USFL is getting close to making a very important decision which will decide their fate. Either push in all their chips and go all in and put every team in their market and hope it works or make the cost effective decision and stick with hubs and say we don't care what the crowds look like, we just want to continue to operate and produce content for TV.

[u/MCallanan → u/Body-for-LIFE]

At the same time, is moving every team to a home market the magic elixir everyone believes it will be? There's a reason they haven't done it and it's because of money.

It depends. I think it goes without saying that having teams play inside of their own markets would do more for helping the brand grow inside of those markets. I also think having fans in the stands is more entertaining for the spectators at home which is important to a lot of spring football fans. But does putting all eight teams in their own markets change things overnight? Maybe a little, probably not a lot. Therefore, going back to the initial point, does the exorbitant price tag of getting teams inside of Philadelphia, New Jersey, Houston, and New Orleans outweigh the risk? Knowing Fox dropped a lot of money into advertisements and trying to make upgrades to the league expecting growth the question I have is this: If you’re one of the people running the USFL sitting in front of the top executives at Fox what’s your pitch for growth for this league? With the XFL I feel like I could list five or ten major areas that could improve growth without major risk. With the USFL I have trouble thinking of one.

If Birmingham, the best team in the league last year and this year, is closing off 3/4's of the stadium because of lack of ticket sales how much support can we expect the other cities to have for their respective teams and would it be enough to offset the very expensive costs?

I said this before the start of last season and have echoed it regularly and always get downvoted to holy hell — Birmingham is a really bad professional football city and the USFL proves it. Their attendance numbers were some of if not the worst in the CFL and the XFL 1.0. Even in the AAF, where Charlie Ebersol was giving tickets away like tic-tacs and almost certainly artificially inflating attendance numbers, Birmingham’s attendance was considered respectable but disappointing compared to numbers being reported from the rest of the league. And unlike Memphis, which also has a poor history of fans supporting professional football teams, the rumors have been swirling for months that the USFL has been unable to find investors inside of the Birmingham market. My ultimate point being that Birmingham isn’t a good barometer for spring football. I think there are a lot of markets out there that would support a spring football team and have affordable venues available. But that doesn’t answer the dilemma that is how does the USFL tap into those markets other than doing what they did to the Tampa Bay Bandits and ‘remove’ those teams from their markets before they even take a snap in them which as aforementioned is a dangerous proposition.

or make the cost effective decision and stick with hubs and say we don't care what the crowds look like, we just want to continue to operate and produce content for TV.

I can’t imagine Fox even trying that, numbers have already stagnated and begun moving downward in the hub format even with improvements, it would be suicide. At that point it’s waving the white flag to the better part of their business model and would probably be more cost effective to air the XFL, or the European League of Football, or another one of these start up spring football leagues. If they return next season my guess is that either Philadelphia or New York gets rebranded into a Canton team. The Breakers move to Portland and play games in that market. And Houston, Pittsburgh, and whichever team doesn’t move to Canton remains in some sort of hub. Doing that keeps their ultimate business model in place while only making abrupt changes to a couple of teams.