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Will the FFL become more than an idea?

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

**Scott Adamson’s sports column appears pretty much whenever he feels like writing it.**

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

Watching all bowl games isn’t mandatory

We’ve now reached the portion of the holiday season where college football fans – seemingly a lot of them, anyway – start bitching and moaning about the large number of bowl games.

“Who cares about the Shawshank Shiv Bowl?”

“How dare ESPN televise bowls I care nothing about!”

“Having a bowl in the Bahamas is un-American!”

I’ll bet the gatekeepers of all that is good and righteous about major college football were indignant last Saturday when five bowl games (plus the Football Championship Subdivision Celebration Bowl) littered the airwaves.

But you know what?

I hooked up to the Google Machine and have determined that there is absolutely no enforceable law on any book that requires you to watch a single bowl game.

Seriously, you can ignore all of them without fear that a SWAT team will bust down your door, tie you in a chair, and force you to experience the Frisco Bowl Clockwork Orange-style.

With all the real problems in the real world, bowls ain’t among ‘em.

But since we’re on the subject, I’ll let you in on a little secret; with the glut of college football on TV, I’m kinda tired of it by mid-December. That being the case, there are only five bowls I plan to watch, and I’m about to check one off the list.

Tonight, I’ll see UAB play Northern Illinois in the Boca Raton Bowl because I’m a fan of the Blazers.

That’s the only reason.

Had the game featured, say, Louisiana Tech against Northern Illinois, I would’ve ignored it, choosing instead to watch “Leah Remini: Scientology and the Aftermath” on A&E. That’s a really fascinating series, and I always hold out hope that at some point Kevin James and Jerry Stiller will show up and we can have a mini “King of Queens” reunion.

I also plan to watch the Fiesta Bowl on Dec. 29, just to see if unbeaten Central Florida can stay perfect and defeat SEC foe LSU.

As a fan of a Group of 5 team, I like it when Cinderella* gets the chance to slipper-whip a Power 5 school.

* UCF is no longer a “Cinderella,” but since the school is in the shadow of Disney World, the description seems appropriate. Plus, I really wanted to use the phrase “slipper-whip.”

Finally, I’ll watch the Cotton Bowl (Notre Dame vs. Clemson), Orange Bowl (Oklahoma vs. Alabama) and College Football Playoff National Championship.

Even though it still makes me snort-laugh to think the NCAA considers culling four teams out of 130 a legitimate “playoff,” those are the three games that make up the major college football Final Four, and they interest me.

Now admittedly, things have changed dramatically since the days when bowls were considered “special.”

Back in the pre-parity era and before the glut of televised games, postseason matchups were designed as rewards for good seasons and often featured matchups between teams that rarely played.

In 1970, for example – about the time I really started paying attention to college football – there were only 10 bowl games and I watched as many as I could. All the biggies (Cotton, Sugar, Orange and Rose) were played on New Year’s Day, capping off a season where only 20 teams got to play beyond the regular season and a mythical* national champion was crowned.

* Sorry to use an asterisk again, but I also chuckle at the term “mythical national champion.” The teams declared the champion were quite real, even though the selection process might’ve been flawed.

Over the years, of course, more and more bowls have been added (40 this year) to the point that now it’s often hard to find teams with winning records to fill the slots.

With the number of 6-6 teams that earn berths, the only “reward” from some bowl games is finishing a game above .500

But again, so what?

ESPN Events outright owns 13 of the bowls currently on the schedule and 32 are televised on either ESPN or ESPN2. And the sports network couldn’t care less if there are 50,000 or 5,000 people in the stands because these games are designed to provide live programming.

And traditionally, they get good ratings.

While you or I might not be interested in the Potato Bowl, ESPN is most certainly interested in all the couch potatoes who are.

So sure, if you want to shake your fist because teams you deem unworthy of a bowl game are in bowl games, knock yourself out.

Or, you can do like me and simply ignore the games you aren’t interested in watching.

Because if 6-6 Vanderbilt playing 6-6 Baylor in the Texas Bowl is going to adversely affect your life, perhaps it’s time for some serious self-reflection.

CFL and Mexican league form intriguing relationship

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.