Category: Alternative Football

The Freedom Football League – the latest in a sudden surge of upstart pro gridiron circuits – has a bold vision.

The question is, will anyone ever see it?

Late last year, 12-year National Football League veteran and Heisman Trophy winner Ricky Williams announced the formation of the FFL. He is one of 50 former NFL players who are stakeholders in the venture, which would turn corporate football on its head if successful.

The early takeaway is that the league is as much a social movement as it is a sports business.

According to the FFL website:

“What began as a moment where former NFL players began re-imagining and re-thinking the ownership structure of professional football has evolved into a movement. In a league owned by fans and players together, this movement profoundly and boldly replaces the exploitative power dynamic between owners and players and revolutionizes the relationship between fans and the teams they root for. Billionaire owners have for too long put their wealth and greed ahead of the health and safety of the men on the field. And more recently, the voices and free will of players as humans has been thwarted and stifled. Players who speak out against societal injustices that plague our nation are punished by a power structure threatened to admit the truth.”

The movers and shakers of the league vow to “fight institutionalized racism through unity” and explicitly state that “billionaires are not welcome.”

Standing up for what they believe and making it the guiding force of the league is all well and good. Ultimately, though, its success will be determined by how the game itself resonates with fans.

To that end, the FFL – in theory – will be about as fan-friendly a football league as one could hope for.

Instead of a sugar daddy owner, the franchises will be a joint venture between players and fan investors. And while there are 10 franchises currently on paper, San Diego is the first to be officially announced. In that team’s news release it states that the club’s “distributed ownership model” mandates that no person or group can invest more than $1 million, thus preventing a controlling position.

Basically, players and fans will be partners and decisions on the direction of a given franchise will be communal.

From the website:

“The FFL will be owned by a unique consortium that includes former NFL players, active players from each FFL team, the local franchise operators, and most uniquely, the fans.”

Joining the San Diego Warriors in a planned 2020 launch are the Birmingham Kings, Connecticut Underground, Florida Strong, Oakland Panthers, Ohio Players, Oklahoma City Power, Portland Progress, St. Louis Independence and Texas Revolution.

Again, San Diego is the only franchise that currently exists; the cities and nicknames were unveiled in concert with the league announcement, a true “cart before the horse” moment in the annals of sports.

It reminds me a bit of the late David Dixon’s grand ideas.

The United States Football League was Dixon’s brainchild, but when league owners went on a spending spree and began competing with the NFL for players, he became disillusioned and disassociated himself from it.

In 1987 he tried to form America’s Football League, Inc., which would feature fan ownership, but it never got off the ground.

A decade later he revived it in the form of the Fan Ownership Football League, where 70 percent of each team’s stock would be sold to the general public.

It never made it past the drawing board, either.

Yet here we are in 2019, with another group vowing to give fans more than a rooting interest.

But …

Will the salaries be “major league” or “minor league”? Players might want to distance themselves from billionaire owners, but I assume they’ll want and expect to be paid good money. If the FFL wants to take on the power structure of the NFL, it seems the best way to do that is to give fans a comparable product.

Are the rules similar to the NFL or will they be innovative, giving the league an on-field gimmick?

When will the season take place? The Alliance of American Football starts next month and the rebooted XFL takes the field in February, 2020, so the spring and summer is about to get crowded with pigskins.

And the biggest question of all, will the Freedom Football League ever even get off the ground?

Hopefully more info will be forthcoming soon. As I’ve said ad nauseam, I’ll always give a new pro football organization a chance – and the motivation behind the Freedom Football League is admirable.

But to be taken seriously, it has to get down to the serious business of identifying stadiums, players and coaches.

Until that happens, it’s still nothing more than a nice idea.

For more information on the league, go to www.freedomfootball.co

 

 

The Canadian Football League is doing a great job remaining a topic of conversation even though it won’t play another game again for six months.

The 2018 season ended on November 25 with the Calgary Stampeders defeating the Ottawa Redblacks, 27-16, in the Grey Cup.

But there has been all sorts of major news off the field.

The implementation of a non-player football operations cap has forced some teams to trim their coaching staffs (and prompted some coaches, like Hamilton defensive coordinator Jerry Glanville, to leave for “personal reasons”).

The cap is in place so that more money can be freed up to increase player pay and help prevent possible defections to the Alliance of American Football, which begins play in February. The CFL’s collective bargaining agreement expires in mid-May and players want an increase in their salary cap and league minimum salary.

Currently the league minimum is $54,000, and with the AAF (and, coming in 2020, the new XFL) promising salaries of roughly $75,000 for a 10-game season, the threat of losing players to upstart leagues is real.

New head coaches have taken over at British Columbia (DeVone Claybrooks), Hamilton (Orlando Steinauer), and Toronto (Corey Chamblin), meaning a third of the league’s teams are under new leadership.

Arguably the biggest news, of course, is that a 10^th franchise is almost a done deal: it looks like football fans in Halifax, Nova Scotia, will be cheering for the Atlantic Schooners as soon as 2021.

That’ll give the CFL a coast-to-coast wingspan.

However, the working relationship the CFL has entered into with a Mexican tackle football league is also potentially significant. And even though that announcement is lost in the spotlight somewhat, it intrigues me a bit.

Starting in 2019, the Liga de Futbol Americano Profesional (LFA) will join the Canadian league in a partnership designed to develop players.

“We started this conversation about what we could do to grow the game of football in Canada and in Mexico,” CFL commissioner Randy Ambrosie said during his annual state of the league news conference. “We could work with our players to welcome the best players from Mexico into the CFL and then find opportunities for Canadian players; maybe those that are coming out of college or junior that aren’t quite ready yet, to give them the opportunity to go and play professional football in Mexico, (to see) if we could share resources and learn from one another.”

Hmmm … a CFL feeder league in Mexico?

Now that would be interesting.

“We have a lot to learn from a league that is about to celebrate the 106th edition of its championship,” LFA commissioner Alejandro Jaimes said before the Calgary-Ottawa clash. “And we are confident that there is much we can offer.”

Canadian college players have limited options. The highest level of university ball there is the 27-school U Sport, which is divided into four conferences.

A few stars wind up in the National Football League, but otherwise those who don’t get drafted and signed by CFL teams are often out of luck. Now a few more might have a chance to hone their craft further down the continent.

Conversely, there is a tentative plan to have at least one Mexican player on each CFL roster every season.

The CFL and LFA are planning a CFL scouting combine for LFA players in Mexico in January, ahead of the Mexican league’s spring start.

Currently the LFA has eight teams in two conferences, and is best described as semi-pro. Still, its games are broadcast on television and has developed a strong following. It’s a growing league.

“We’ve got some of the best football coaches in the world and if we could get our football coaches interacting with our partners in Mexico that would be very positive,” Ambrosie said.

This partnership is expected to lead to CFL games being played in Mexico, although I doubt you’ll ever see the league actually place franchises there.

Expansion south of the border failed once, and expansion even further south seems unlikely.

Still, Ambrosie says perhaps the time will come when the LFA might be on equal footing with their Canadian counterparts.

“Someday, teams from the LFA could compete with their CFL counterparts,” he said. “But we have a lot of work to do, and learn first. This is a wonderful opportunity to develop a plan that we can use to create positive alliances with more leagues, in more than 30 countries where this sport is practiced.”

I think best-case scenario would be an LFA that is one day shaped in the image of the CFL, which could result in exhibition games.

An even more daring proposal would be to have the LFA expand into the United States and create a Mexican-American Football League, although admittedly that’s just wishful thinking on my part.

I’ve already stated my case for the American League of Canadian Football in an earlier column.

https://adamsonmedia.com/out-of-left-field/the-american-league-of-canadian-football/

I’m glad the CFL continues to try and grow its game. Stepping over the U.S. to put a footprint in Mexico is bold, but it opens up a whole new world of possibilities.

The original XFL – made for TV and dripping with a pro rasslin’ influence – was killed on May 10, 2001. The brainchild of World Wrestling Entertainment overlord Vince McMahon, the one-and-done spring league is best known for over-the-top gimmicks, sloppy football and Neilson ratings that hit record lows.

But McMahon went back to the drawing board – or laboratory, if you will – and on December 5, 2018, the XFL rose again.

McMahon, who unveiled the eight flagship franchises on Wednesday during a news conference in New Jersey, says this XFL has learned from its predecessor’s mistakes and is in business for the long haul.

The fact that he’s reportedly sunk $500 million into the endeavor certainly shows his commitment.

“A lot has changed in the years since we announced the first XFL, but what hasn’t changed is people’s love for football,” McMahon said. “And there’s a financial commitment for the long term. I think we’ll be presenting a more innovative and more exciting (style of) play.”

McMahon appears serious about making the new venture all about football and nothing about wrestling, and that’s a smart move. And planning this far in advance will hopefully mean teams won’t be hastily thrown together as they were during the first go-round.

Oliver Luck is the league’s commissioner, and yesterday’s presser suggests he’ll be the face of a circuit vastly different from the sometimes sleazy original.

In other words, there will be no more cheerleader locker room cams, bump-and-grind dance teams and double entendres from announcers.

“We’ll be family-friendly with a good, solid in-game experience for fans,” Luck said. “And we want it to be affordable for families, more affordable than other professional sports leagues.”

There are only two original XFL markets in the rebooted league – New York and Los Angeles (which also happen to be the nation’s top TV markets). During the 2001 season, the New York/New Jersey Hitmen were second in attendance with an average of 28,309 fans per game, while the Los Angeles Xtreme was fourth with 22,679 fans attending each home game.

The rest of the 2020 lineup features Dallas, Houston, St. Louis, Seattle, Tampa Bay and Washington, D.C. All eight franchises are owned and operated by the XFL.

Conspicuous by its absence is San Francisco, which clearly had the biggest following in XFL 1.0 with an average of 35,005 fans showing up for Demons home games.

But one of the main takeaways from the announcement is that all teams are placed in major markets and, with the exception of St. Louis, all have NFL teams.

“Combined, these markets comprise nearly a quarter of the nation’s population,” Luck said. “The quality of football is our number one priority and we are doing everything possible to get that right.”

The XFL’s spring counterpart – the Alliance of American Football – begins play this coming February with eight teams but only two (Atlanta and Phoenix) in NFL territories.

Both leagues, however, will be going after the same kinds of players and offer similar money.

AAF players will make $250,000 over three seasons while XFL players will make, on average, $75,000 based on one-year contracts. McMahon has hinted that “exceptional” players could earn much more than that, however.

If the AAF survives its first year, players will have more options outside of the NFL and Canadian Football League going into 2020.

“Hundreds of players are cut from NFL teams every year,” Luck said. “And we plan to invite those players to try out for the XFL.”

(It’ll be interesting to see if the two spring leagues eventually merge, if one puts the other out of business, or if both go belly-up in short order. Before we get too far ahead of ourselves, though, I’m guessing the XFL will closely watch the AAF to see what works and what doesn’t before its teams take the field).

No rule innovations were announced on Wednesday, but Luck said there are many changes in the works.

“We’ve talked about less stall and more ball,” Luck said. “We want to modify the game where it’s familiar, yet distinctive. We will have a game that’s crisp, fast-paced and can be played in under three hours. We’re considering changes to punts, kickoffs, kick returns, extra points and the play clock.”

And while the original XFL tried to brand itself as “tougher” than the NFL, there are no such ridiculous claims this time around.

“We want fewer interruptions and improving player safety is a top priority of ours,” Luck said. “We’ve established a health, wellness and safety program.”

Luck makes it clear that the new league is not the enemy of “traditional” football.

“This game will be fan-centric,” he said. “Our research indicates fans want more football, and we want to complement fall football. In the true spirit of reimagining the league, we’ve had conversations with the NFL as well as other former players and officials.”

The league kicks off February 8-9, 2020. Teams will play a 10-game schedule with two playoff games and a championship.

“We’re really looking forward to once again establishing a very exciting, innovative form of football that, quite frankly, we’ve never seen before,” McMahon said.

Stay tuned …