USFL Wk.3 game threads

[PetermansRedemption]

Why have I heard of Taamu? Did he have a cup of coffee in the nfl somewhere?

[Mr. WEO]

22 minutes ago, Buffalo Timmy said:

My bigger point is that we are a football crazy country, this AA level football gets more viewers than basketball can get for some playoff games. I will state that if the QB play does not improve it won't last 

history has proven over and over that this football crazed country has no appetite for non NFL pro football. 

[Steptide]

They should litterally kick Pittsburgh out of this league for running this much 

[Albany,n.y.]

5 minutes ago, PetermansRedemption said:

Why have I heard of Taamu? Did he have a cup of coffee in the nfl somewhere?

He was one of the XFL's best QBs and was on some NFL practice squads including KC.

[PetermansRedemption]

20 minutes ago, Mr. WEO said:

history has proven over and over that this football crazed country has no appetite for non NFL pro football. 

If college football wasn’t so large here, these lesser leagues might have slightly more of a chance. But when college football ends up being a better product, there’s almost no chance for a lesser league. 

[PromoTheRobot]

29 minutes ago, PetermansRedemption said:

Why have I heard of Taamu? Did he have a cup of coffee in the nfl somewhere?

 

Chiefs. Also played for St. Louis in the XFL.

24 minutes ago, Steptide said:

They should litterally kick Pittsburgh out of this league for running this much 

This is easily the worst game of the four.

[KingBoots8]

37 minutes ago, PetermansRedemption said:

Why have I heard of Taamu? Did he have a cup of coffee in the nfl somewhere?

 

[Mr. WEO]

10 minutes ago, PetermansRedemption said:

If college football wasn’t so large here, these lesser leagues might have slightly more of a chance. But when college football ends up being a better product, there’s almost no chance for a lesser league. 

College ball has been around far longer than the NFL

[Warcodered]

 

[LeGOATski]

2 hours ago, PetermansRedemption said:

If college football wasn’t so large here, these lesser leagues might have slightly more of a chance. But when college football ends up being a better product, there’s almost no chance for a lesser league. 

Well, that's why the play in the spring. It's their best chance.

 

The formula for this league is better than what the AAF or XFL v.1 tried. Draw on the popularity of a former league, only pay for one small stadium, and get a good TV contract. They might barely complete season 1 because of those smart decisions.

 

The lawsuit is obviously concerned, but I'm not sure why anyone thinks the old USFL reps have a case. When the story broke, it seemed like FOX had a significant upper hand in the case because the old USFL was officially abandoned.

[LeGOATski]

13 hours ago, Rochesterfan said:

 

We will see - opening arguments are expected today in the original USFL suit - with preliminary findings pointing to the original USFL having a case against Fox and either the league needing to change its name and the teams names and logo’s or pay fees to the original league for use of the names.

 

By 7pm tonight it could be the 2 unnamed teams versus each other in bland uniforms for the new Fox Sport league.

 

I will laugh so hard if the Fox loses and the USFL gets a significantly bigger settlement from this than the anti-trust lawsuit they won against the NFL.

 

It was incredibly stupid of Fox to reuse the names and team names from the USFL and with limited fan support already, below average play, and crappy weather - this looks to be a potential washout.

 

They rushed a product to try and beat the XFL and similar to other rushed endeavors - a poor ending is likely.

 

 

The thing is that there was no USFL. It was officially abandoned in the eyes of the law and FOX knew that. I haven't seen any recent news on the lawsuit, but definitely interested in what the outcome is. I think if anyone looks dumb here, it's the original USFL owners for giving up all rights to their league and now trying to cash in as soon as someone else picks it up.

 

On FOX's end, it was smarter to draw from a well that was already dug, rather than dig a new well. It's hard enough to get these new leagues started, so you need to cut corners wherever you can.

[Locomark]

This league sucks. 1) the talent is awful. 2) when all the games are played in Birmingham why bother? Might as well name a team the Iraq Bombers just to create a villain team. There are really no cities truly involved and that eliminates the excitement of a real crowd outside of the Birmingham team itself. Just silly. Honestly, I would watch arena football again over this. 

Edited April 19, 2022 by Locomark

[Rochesterfan]

6 hours ago, LeGOATski said:

The thing is that there was no USFL. It was officially abandoned in the eyes of the law and FOX knew that. I haven't seen any recent news on the lawsuit, but definitely interested in what the outcome is. I think if anyone looks dumb here, it's the original USFL owners for giving up all rights to their league and now trying to cash in as soon as someone else picks it up.

 

On FOX's end, it was smarter to draw from a well that was already dug, rather than dig a new well. It's hard enough to get these new leagues started, so you need to cut corners wherever you can.

 

That is the issue in the eye of the law.  Fox specifically chose to draw from the nostalgia - using a similar Logo, team names, etc - so they were not beginning at zero, but in doing that - they still needed permission.  
 

The owners gave up the main trademark, but are still making money off nostalgic gear and after the 30 for 30 had a bit of a revival.

 

It will most likely cost Fox quite a bit of money to keep the Logo or they are going to be forced to rebrand everything - costing them time and money.

 

It was a calculated risk, but considering exactly how hard it is to start these - this is going to hurt and could have been avoided - since you are not playing in the home stadiums - by simply changing up the names of the teams and making the USFL Logo different.

 

 

[Rochesterfan]

10 hours ago, PromoTheRobot said:

 

 

Week one draws a lot of the curious. It will definitely fall from there. By week 6 you'll see where the league will land ratings-wise.

 

Also keep in mind that the NHL regularly draws under a million viewers, as does most NBA and college basketball and MLB games. A million viewers still puts you in the top ten most weeks.

 

10 hours ago, Buffalo Timmy said:

My bigger point is that we are a football crazy country, this AA level football gets more viewers than basketball can get for some playoff games. I will state that if the QB play does not improve it won't last 

 

9 hours ago, PromoTheRobot said:

 

It's unrealistic to play 4 games a week in a market the size of Buffalo and expect to people to show up for every game. So far fans turned out for the home team. If the ratings stay at around a million and the sponsors get on board, they will move to their home cities. (Though I'm not convinced every city will welcome them.) As for the XFL they are going to have a very difficult time catching up. The fact they put things off till 2023 tells me they don't have the funding.

 

The issue is the size of the football teams versus the size of an NBA team.  The cost to run an NFL team, pay the players, feed the players, have the staff needed to attend to these players, equipment, insurance, televise the product, have referees to police the product, maintain the stadium, etc - is astronomical versus like the NBA.  
 

Having viewership at NBA levels will not bring in enough money to break even - it has been shown over and over.  The NFL is successful because their viewership is 7-10 times the viewership of everything else.  Therefore - the NFL gets huge money from sponsors and TV deals.  
 

The USFL is basically getting free TV - which will be ok on plain Fox, but their ratings on things like FS1 are going to be a fraction of the original.  The are playing without home fans - so they are not getting any crowd money and it plays terrible on TV.  They rushed everything to beat the XFL, but the quality of play and players shows the rush job.  
 

I think the XFL does have issues with funding, but I also think they are smarter to wait and put together a plan.  This version of USFL with old coaches and inadequate players - all being played in Alabama is set-up to fail.  The play is bad, the video is bad and the games being played on many channels is bad.  It is filler TV with to many players to make money.

 

 

[Steptide]

These minor football leagues always do everything the wrong way. Imo they could make an exciting product, but they try too hard to emulate the NFL. 

 

They need to shorten the quarters to 10 minutes. The level of talent on these teams doesn't warrant a 15 min quarter. I'd also get rid of running plays all together. Make everything passing. Watching these teams run non stop is horrible. It's worse than nfl pre season football. I'd also get rid of punting. Every team has 4 downs to get a first down, if they don't get it, the ball gets turned over on downs (can still kick field goals Ofcourse). 

[PromoTheRobot]

7 hours ago, Locomark said:

This league sucks. 1) the talent is awful. 2) when all the games are played in Birmingham why bother? Might as well name a team the Iraq Bombers just to create a villain team. There are really no cities truly involved and that eliminates the excitement of a real crowd outside of the Birmingham team itself. Just silly. Honestly, I would watch arena football again over this. 

 

Hmmm.

 

 

 

[Mr. WEO]

12 hours ago, LeGOATski said:

Well, that's why the play in the spring. It's their best chance.

 

The formula for this league is better than what the AAF or XFL v.1 tried. Draw on the popularity of a former league, only pay for one small stadium, and get a good TV contract. They might barely complete season 1 because of those smart decisions.

 

The lawsuit is obviously concerned, but I'm not sure why anyone thinks the old USFL reps have a case. When the story broke, it seemed like FOX had a significant upper hand in the case because the old USFL was officially abandoned.

 

This is a bad decision for 2 reasons:

 

1. if only people in and around Birmingham come to the games, the cities the teams are ostensibly "from" have no real fan base.  No reason to follow the team.

 

2. if the league is depending  on people in and around Birmingham filling the stands for every game every week, there will be endless images of nearly empty stadiums on TV for entire games.  This will affect the impression of all but the most hopeless football junkie in that fewer people will continue to watch bad football played in front of a noiseless/nonexistent crowd.   Ratings have to plummet and who wants to buy ad space for that?

 

1 hour ago, PromoTheRobot said:

 

Hmmm.

 

 

 

 

This has been proven meaningless during the last (XFL) fiasco.  Local ratings aren't going to keep any league afloat.  Plus, networks pay for content--lots of programming slots to fill.  NBA brings 82 games a year for every team.  Plus every team has fans/viewers outside of the home town viewing radius.  

[Billy Claude]

4 hours ago, PromoTheRobot said:

 

Hmmm.

 

 

 

 

They seem to have forgotten to mention that the Detroit Pistons were the third worse team in the NBA this season.   No one wants to watch a team if they are fairly certain to lose even before the game starts, not even Sabres fans.

Edited April 19, 2022 by Billy Claude

[LeGOATski]

1 hour ago, Mr. WEO said:

 

This is a bad decision for 2 reasons:

 

1. if only people in and around Birmingham come to the games, the cities the teams are ostensibly "from" have no real fan base.  No reason to follow the team.

 

2. if the league is depending  on people in and around Birmingham filling the stands for every game every week, there will be endless images of nearly empty stadiums on TV for entire games.  This will affect the impression of all but the most hopeless football junkie in that fewer people will continue to watch bad football played in front of a noiseless/nonexistent crowd.   Ratings have to plummet and who wants to buy ad space for that?

It didn't work for the AAF or XFL, but you're suggesting they repeat those same mistakes. 🤔

[What a Tuel]

1 hour ago, Mr. WEO said:

 

This is a bad decision for 2 reasons:

 

1. if only people in and around Birmingham come to the games, the cities the teams are ostensibly "from" have no real fan base.  No reason to follow the team.

 

2. if the league is depending  on people in and around Birmingham filling the stands for every game every week, there will be endless images of nearly empty stadiums on TV for entire games.  This will affect the impression of all but the most hopeless football junkie in that fewer people will continue to watch bad football played in front of a noiseless/nonexistent crowd.   Ratings have to plummet and who wants to buy ad space for that?

 

 

This has been proven meaningless during the last (XFL) fiasco.  Local ratings aren't going to keep any league afloat.  Plus, networks pay for content--lots of programming slots to fill.  NBA brings 82 games a year for every team.  Plus every team has fans/viewers outside of the home town viewing radius.  

 

Im not sure this true. Anecdotal but as someone looking for a team to root for, I didnt really care where they played and almost settled on Pittsburgh due to proximity, but eventually rested on Houston Gamblers due to the Jim Kelly connection.

 

If there was a Buffalo team it would've been a no brainer. 

 

It is a good way to keep the league's expenses down in the beginning too.