Category: History and More

Every now and then, someone has the bright idea to “revive” a defunct sports league.

The American Basketball Association was a high-flying, high-scoring, wide-open competitor to the National Basketball Association, good enough to eventually force a mini-merger with the NBA.

There is also a modern ABA which, like its namesake, uses red, white and blue basketballs.

Unlike the original circuit, though, this ABA is semi-pro (at best).

The new North American Soccer League (which, unless a court ruling fails to go its way, will likely fold) sought to capitalize on the name and legend of the original NASL.

But while it features quality second division-level soccer, there are no Peles or George Bests to be found.

And now – maybe – the sports world is about to see another unlikely revival in the form of the XFL.

Journalist Brad Shepard (on Twitter @TheBradShepard) broke the story, and then other outlets picked up on the news that pro wrestling mogul Vince McMahon is ready to get back in the pro football business.

Apparently, the Bombastic Baron of Brawn (if Vince starts using this he owes me a dime every time someone says it) thinks the time is right to make another go at the gridiron game.

Let’s just hope he provides a better product than he did with the XFL, which played one season in the spring/summer of 2001 and was a spectacular failure. It even holds the dishonor of owning the lowest rating for a prime time telecast in the history of television.

For those who don’t remember (and really, why should you?), the XFL was billed as old school, blood and guts football accented by the sideshow of World Wrestling Entertainment.

It had NBC and cable network contracts, and with McMahon’s financial empire behind it, there was reason for optimism.

Yet while there were some solid innovations in terms of camera and microphone usage (the NFL uses some of them now), the telecasts were marred by lowbrow vulgarity.

Taking cameras inside cheerleaders’ locker rooms was about as objectifying as it gets … I refer to it as the Perv Cam initiative. And the announcers (some of whom also worked WWE shows) threw in as many double entendres as possible.

McMahon also brought out some of his biggest wrestling stars to pimp the league with promos and in-stadium appearances, but they couldn’t make up for one, overriding factor:

It was minor league football.

And considering the fact that rosters were thrown together so quickly and training camps so short before the season opened in February, it was very bad minor league football early on.

By the time the quality of play improved to the point of making it slightly palatable, no one was watching on TV anymore.

When NBC said “No mas” to a second season, McMahon pulled the plug and the XFL was soon forgotten.

So if McMahon forms another league (and according to ESPN’s Darren Rovell, McMahon sold 3.34 million in WWE stock worth about $100 million), he’ll need to learn from the mistakes of his venture into non-scripted sports.

For starters, he is forming another company, Alpha Entertainment, which is completely separate from the WWE.

That likely means his new league won’t try any of that wrestling crossover nonsense.

He also needs to avoid pretending it’s a major league.

In order to prop up the XFL he created the narrative that it was somehow “tougher” that the NFL. In reality, the best XFL team (the Los Angeles Xtreme won the championship) would’ve lost to the worst NFL team in 2001 (that would be the 1-15 Carolina Panthers) by 50 points.

Now, if he wanted to go the USFL route and bring in billionaires to buy franchises and go after top NFL talent, well, that would be another story entirely. Ultimately it would be an unwinnable financial war, of course, but in the short term it could create plenty of buzz and maybe even some Triple-A level football.

My guess, though, is he would rather come up with some sort of developmental agreement with the NFL, billing it as a spring showcase for the stars of the future.

So, as someone who is always willing to give pro sports upstarts a look, I’ll wait and see what – if anything – comes of this.

And while Vince didn’t ask for my advice, hopefully this time he’ll focus more on football and less on the cheerleaders’ locker rooms.

 

 

Let me be among the first to spread the rumor that the Carolina Panthers will move to London and play their home games at Wembley Stadium.

Sure, it’s probably a ridiculous rumor, but we live in a ridiculous world where truth is optional, so I’m gonna go with it.

Jerry Richardson, who made his coin in the food services industry and owns the Charlotte-based NFL team, announced that he was selling the franchise at the end of the season.

It was an abrupt move and comes on the heels of workplace misconduct allegations against the 81-year old; the NFL is currently investigating the charges.

Richardson didn’t mention the allegations in his statement about the sale, but Sports Illustrated published an article detailing them. Let’s just say they mostly fall into the “creepy, sexist, racist old man” category and move on to the main point of this column, which is expansion of pro football’s biggest league beyond the United States.

Commissioner Roger Goodell insists that the circuit doesn’t like to move teams, but he and his cabal of owners must not hate it too much.

This season alone the Rams returned to Los Angeles from St. Louis and the Chargers left San Diego for L.A., the city they started in as an American Football League franchise in 1960.

And the Oakland Raiders are heading to Las Vegas, probably no later than 2019.

But as much talk as there’s been about a team in London – and there’s been a lot – no situation has existed that made a move across the pond as likely.

Until now.

The Panthers have been in the NFL for 22 seasons, played in two Super Bowls, and have established themselves as a solid franchise in a thriving city with a nice fan base.

But …

The Panthers are still “young” in the sense that their roots and legacy do not date back to the formative days of the NFL. While the rest of the league’s owners would recoil at the suggestion the Bears move from Chicago or the Giants from New York/New Jersey, uprooting a modern expansion team and sending it to England might seem more palatable.

Now before I push this theory any further, let me say I think placing a franchise in London – or anywhere overseas – is ridiculous as a standalone move.

Scheduling will be a nightmare and create a huge hardship on players based in London, who would have to make transatlantic flights eight times over a 16-game regular season schedule.

Logistically, it makes no sense.

If the NFL wanted to do it right, it would need to expand to at least 40 teams and create two, five-team international divisions. It still wouldn’t be perfect, but far more reasonable than having one outlier.

A number of suitors are already lining up and I assume most who come along will want to keep the team in the Carolinas. As someone who lives in Greenville, South Carolina, I truly hope that happens.

Although I’m a Jets fan, it’s much more convenient to drive 100 miles to Bank of America Stadium on a Sunday morning than to make the 718-mile trek to MetLife Stadium in New Jersey.

And despite music mogul P Diddy’s tongue-in-cheek interest in buying what he calls the “North Carolina Panthers,” Richardson said there will be no negotiations or inquiries about the sale until the end of this season.

By the looks of things, that season will extend beyond 16 games. The Panthers are 10-4 and currently situated as a No. 5 seed in the NFC playoff picture.

When it does end, though, it’ll be interesting to see if any kind of London-based group is in play.

Back in September Mark Waller, the NFL’s executive vice president of its international division, suggested that having a team in London by 2022 was a distinct possibility.

“Absolutely,” Waller told Albert Breer of Sports Illustrated. “And that aligns well from a CBA and union standpoint—that would need to be part of a union agreement. Not to say we couldn’t bargain it separately, but obviously if we’re doing it around that time, that would make sense.”

The 2022 season is still off in the distance, but come January (or early February) there will be only one franchise in a position to make the move.

And here’s a little tidbit for you; that team is contractually obligated to stay in Charlotte only until June, 2019.

I wonder if anyone has already copyrighted London Panthers?

(This column was originally published on Dec. 13, 2017).

Back when I worked for a living, I used to talk about the Canadian Football League so much that it became a bit of a joke among my fellow sports writers.

Since the colleges in my primary orbit were Clemson, South Carolina and Georgia, I could always be counted on to stay on top of which Tigers, Gamecocks and Bulldogs were in the CFL.

And as a UAB graduate, I keep a close on any Blazers who might find their way onto rosters as “internationals.”

Thing is, the CFL is not a novelty for me. I legitimately love it.

You might remember the league tried its “American experiment” a couple of decades ago in which franchises were placed in the United States. Personally, I thought the plan was terrific and had high hopes it would last.

Of course, it didn’t.

The CFL is not just a league of unique rules, it’s also very Canadian culturally, and the feng shui of tackle football dictates that the CFL have teams in Canadian cities only.

I get that, and respect it.

But since I now have a lot of free time on my hands, I’ve used an inordinate amount of it thinking about professional sports leagues that I would like to form.

One is the Global Football League, which I’ll address in a future column.

But the one nearest and dearest to my heart is the one I’ll write about today – the American League of Canadian Football.

Yep, the ALCF would bring the Canadian pro game to the Lower 48, giving Americans their own version of the CFL.

That means the ALCF would adopt most of the rules used by the CFL, such as:

• A playing field 110 yards long and 65 yards wide.
• Goal posts situated on the goal line.
• Three downs to make 10 yards and a first down.
• Twelve players to a side (extra slotback on offense, extra secondary player on defense).
• All backs allowed in motion toward the line of scrimmage.
• No fair catches on punt returns.
• Fumbled balls that go out of bounds belong to the last team to touch the ball.
• Kicking teams awarded a single point for missed field goals or punts that are downed in the end zone by the receiving team.
• Players who line up behind the kicker on a punt or field goal try may recover an “onside” kick.

Now remember I said the ALCF would adopt most rules of the CFL. One change would be the depth of end zones, which span 20 yards in the CFL. This was a problem that plagued the American experiment since many stadiums were not built to accommodate such lengthy playing fields.

So, while 20-yard deep end zones are desirable, teams will have to improvise and just make them as deep as possible (just think about the varied sizes of outfields in baseball and it makes better sense).

OK, now that we’ve got the rules set, we have to select cities.

This is the tough part.

When most leagues are formed, the first order of business is to get teams in major media markets for the purposes of advertising and TV revenue. Problem is, it’ll be impossible for the ALCF to compete with cities that field NFL teams.

So we won’t.

Instead, the 10-team ALCF will place its flagship franchises in Birmingham, Memphis, Norfolk, Orlando, Portland, Rochester, Sacramento, San Antonio, Tulsa and Wichita.

I’ve even gone to the trouble of giving the teams nicknames for you: Birmingham Battalion, Memphis Blues, Norfolk Mariners, Orlando Coasters, Portland Brews, Rochester Boom, Sacramento Rivermen, San Antonio Sol, Tulsa Oilers and Wichita Flight.

Following the CFL model, each team would play two exhibition games before embarking on an 18-game regular season that begins in June of each year. And, like their Canadian counterparts, the average salary for an ALCF player would be roughly $80,000 per season.

Am I the only person who has dreamed of such a league?

Maybe not.

I’m a member of a great Facebook group, “CFL Fans In SEC Country,” which features hardcore, knowledgeable fans – some who even venture to the Grey Cup every year.

But are there enough of them to put down seed money for the ALCF and make me commissioner?

That’s another story.

If they can pull it off, though, we’ll all have a helluva party when the Battalion hosts the Blues in the 2020 season opener.