Classic football video game anyone?

If you have not hear. Due to a recent lawsuit EA sports has stopped development of its next NCAA College football game. You can learn about it here:

http://kotaku.com/a-blindside-hit-takes-down-an-ncaa-football-team-rallyi-1429336606/@tcraggs22

http://kotaku.com/no-college-football-video-game-next-year-says-ea-sport-1404530680

So to all of you wonderful football video game programmers out there now looking for work consider this: Ironman Football! A classic football game similar to this failed attempt at a football game for the PS1:

http://www.playstationmuseum.com/games/CGIMAN/

It today's world of digital download and  indy games game designers going into business for themselves and making their own football game would be pretty cool. A true throwback game would be fun too. It could include classic teams like

Rochester Jeffersons

Bloomfield Rams

Goodyear Silents (yes an all deaf football team)

Even teams like:

Pottstown Firebirds

Chambersburg Cardinals

More than likely no football video game designer will ever see my idea but if you know of any, pass this idea along.

What went wrong with the XFL?

Do you remember the good ole XFL? If not go ahead and read the Wikipedia page:

 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XFL

The XFL was yet another failed league for developmental football. It had some good ideas and a good deal of money but failed after 1 season.

The XFL had some good ideas: The creative things on the players backs, the way you could get into the huddle and go into the locker room, it had players being interview on the side lines during games, the extensive amount of pyrotechnics helped make games seem special.  But ultimately the league failed. Here are some of my thoughts on why the XFL was such a failure:

-the XFL advertised wild play and loose rules. The truth is that the rules were different than that of the NFL but nearly all of the rule changes were taken from other professional league like the CFL or the old USFL.  This marketing mistake turned off a massive part of its potential fan base.  The football/sport fan didn’t want to watch it because it seemed too wild and crazy. The wrestling fan gave it a try and then discovered that it really wasn’t wild and crazy like pro wrestling at all.

-The league felt they couldn’t make big enough stars out of their football players to draw crowd. The players in the XFL were typically portrayed as regular Joes trying to keep their dream of playing football alive. With NFL Europe closing up shop and the XFL really playing better than the CFL and arena football the XFL was able to cherry pick the top stars from three of these leagues. Virtually all of the players had been star players in college and a good number of players had NFL connects.  The XFL could have marketed their players. I think people would have come out to see Tommy Maddox. When arena football got on NBC they were able to develop their own stars. Instead of developing star players the XFL placed more attention on how there were pro wrestlers at the games and there were firework (which are cool) and there are cheerleaders (which were NOT family friendly). The league was open about how the cheerleaders, which kept away a lot of families, were bigger stars than the football players.

-The league spent too much time trying to market the league and not market the teams. All of the fields in the XFL looked exactly the same. No field had a team emblem on them. The team color skims seed to run together. People remember the crazy XFL but you have to be a real fan to remember even 3 team names.  The teams all seemed the same and run together. I remember wanting games and not even know which team was the home team. This hurts your ticket sells and the WWF should have known that ticket sells are your bread and butter.

-The league was put in prime time too soon. This is a tough point to make because NBC contributed a lot of money to the league to put it on the air. Without NBC money the league probably never would have had a game. But if the XFL had been this edgy thing on cable that people heard about but a lot of people had not seen (you know like what arena football did) and it spent a few years on cable and after a few season came to NBC it would have been much more successful. Starting out right out of the gate on 3 networks (2 of which were on broadcast TV) with a league were the teams all seemed to blend together and where some of the football was really bad really over saturated the market. You can get away with bad football during the off season on cable. Particularly if it is so bad it is good football like people love to watch the ‘blooper’ reels of the USFL on youtube(USFL bloopers).  Being on 3 networks was a receipt for TERRABLE TV ratings.

Ultimately the XFL’s legacy is it helped a list of players make it to the NFL and it opened the door for the AFL to get on NBC in 2003 (also part of the legacy is that VinnyMac can fail at something). The AFL a football alternative with faster action and higher scoring and all of those things the XFL promised but didn’t deliver on.  

Major trends in Minor League Sports

The success of failure of minor league sports comes down to funding 3 line items:

1

11 -      Cost of players

22 -      Cost of travel

33 -      Cost of venue

Can you develop a marketing plan where as a league or as a team able to balance these 3 line items with revenue form investors, sponsorships, ticket sells, concessions, merchandise, TV revenue (unlikely for minor league sports), est.

Arena Football League (AFL)

The AFL is hands down the most successful minor league system for professional football in the history of the United States. Around since 1987 arena football was a creative idea executed smartly although modestly over an extended period.

The AFL was the brain child of not big investors but of Jim Foster. Jim played college football at the University of Iowa. Following graduation he played for and eventually helped run different minor league football teams. An example of this is the Newton Nite Hawks (extra credit if you have any idea were Newton is) who Jim helped organize an international tour of Europe (video of this tour can be found on youtube and is kind of fun to see).

Jim understood the difficulties of minor league football. A minor league team would be luck to draw 6,000 fans. For that size large stadiums like those used by colleges and the NFL are out of the question. Minor league teams ended up mostly playing in high school football stadiums. The problem with that is high school football stadiums have a negative stigma, your are limited to the kind of promotions you can do, you can’t serve beer or alcohol which is were minor league baseball and hockey makes its money, and high school stadiums are often poorly maintained.

There is also a lot of expense connected to keeping a full roster (36 guys or more) on a football team lucky to draw 6,000 fans.

Jim saw the success indoor soccer was having during the 80s and had a revolutionary idea. He took the game of football and smushed it down to fit in a hockey rink. That way games could be played in indoor arenas around the country. 6,000 fans at a 60,000 seat NFL stadium look pitiful but 6,000 fans at a hockey arena looks like a happin time!  Since games were done in arenas you could sell beer and do crazy promotions and venues were used for big name concerts and other sporting events so there was no stigma.

Instead of playing 11 per side football the league played 8 per side and had an “iron man rule” where 6 players had to play both offense and defense. This reduced the roster size down to only 20 players per team making pay-roll a lot easier to get.

Jim Foster did a good job in the early days securing sponsorships and television deals and eventually big name investors.

In the early days many of the players were former DII college players and the league had a reputation of being a place players go when their careers weren’t going to go anywhere else. Slowly over time the caliber of players grew and there are along list of NFL players that used the AFL as a stepping stone.

So the league did a good job managing both personal expectation and fan expectation and a good job managing their pay-roll.

The main problem Arena Football has had is being accepted as “real” football. In the early days the game was very gimmicky this was okay because the league was trying to get noticed. When the league landed a national TV contract with NBC the game needed to become more mainstream and more like outdoor football. The ball size was too small, the iron-man rule became out-dated, the defense was too restricted, there was no running game, the nets at the end of the end zones seemed silly, the lack of out-of-bounds, the regular flying of players into the crowd, the amount of video game like crazy plays, All of these things kept the game from being accepted by the mainstream football fan and all of these issues could have been addressed easily.

Because of this Arena Football eventually filed for bankruptcy. The league is still around today. They currently have a pretty nice TV deal with CBS Sports and teams in several major markets. The AFL is still the best option for American football players to play professionally without going to Canada.

Alternative Football

It is fall and it is time for America’s national Game: Football! Not soccer, or rugby, but American Football! Interestingly enough the countries number one sport and arguably the top grossing sport in the world does not have a true minor league system. Baseball and hockey have very successful and profitable minor league systems. Soccer and basketball have a minor league system; their success is debatable. A minor league football league seems like a no brainer.

There are options to play football professionally out side of the NFL. There is the CFL in Canada (which is difficult for Americans players to break into because half of each roster is Canada players) and there is Arena football (which was so cool at the turn of the century) which uses small roster sizes. Then there are a ton of indoor football leagues (check out Indoor Football League or Lone Star Football League) some of the league are stable and professionally ran some are not some teams are stable some fail to play an entire season or ever play a player.

Since it is fall I wanted to high light some teams and leagues that have tried or are trying to make a go at being minor league football. We will talk about what they have done right and what they have done wrong.

Women's Baseball

During the month of July Baseball takes center-stage in the United States. Hopefully all of you have made it to a local minor league game by now. I was at a minor league baseball game the other week and noticed that there weren't many women players in the minor leagues. Actually there are pretty close to zero women in the minor leagues.

This got me thinking could a women's professional baseball league catch on in the United States?

Many of you have probably heard of the All-American Women Professional Baseball League which started during WWII when  the country didn't have enough men to field teams and lasted for a surprisingly long time. If you aren't familiar go check out the movie "A League of the Own" it's a pretty easy movie to get a hold of.













Right now in USA there is a little bit of an amateur women's baseball culture. Right now there are around 859 girls playing boys high school baseball. (Women Knocking on Baseball's Door) There is also a women's professional softball league (http://www.profastpitch.com/) made up four teams two of which actually have stadiums. There is a professional women's baseball league in Japan but it is hard to find much more that the wikipedia page on the league. (Girls Professional Baseball League) It is made up of only four teams. It appears to have no corporate sponsors which is the life-blood of professional sports in Japan even the American football league in Japan has major corporate sponsorship like IBM, Panasonic, and Fuji.

I think there could be a niche for professional women's baseball in the United States. The player pool would be women currently playing amateur baseball and former college softball players interested in still playing sports at a high level. Starting off the league could run its season during February and March in minor league baseball stadiums before the minor league baseball season strikes up. Teams could be placed in smaller cities that are known for supporting their minor league baseball team by being in smaller markets publicity would be cheaper. The teams could be ran on bare-bone budgets like many independent baseball leagues and players could stay with host families to keep costs down. Teams could feature a lot of knuckleball pitchers and Submarine pitchers which will help games seem fun and different for the hardcore baseball fan. Teams would also hold on to their baseball players for the entire season, as opposed to minor league baseball where players move up and down the ranks, making it easier to have hometown stars.   

Favorite ESPN 30 for 30 Documentaries

I am a huge documentary fan! I particularly enjoy sports documentaries probably more than I enjoy watching sports. With this being a holiday season I figured many of you are sitting at home and many be in the mood to watch a documentary or 2. Here is a list of my 3 favorite ESPN 30 for 30 documentaries. This is based off of the first line of documentaries that aired on ESPN between Oct 6th 2009 and Dec 11 2010. All of the films were directed by famous directors. All of them are home-runs wonderful documentaries and I think they can all be streamed on Netflix. If you don't have Netflix you are welcome to borrow them from me I have them all on DVD. Here is a list of all of the documentaries:

30 for 30

3. Small Potatoes: Who Killed the USFL?

This is the story of the little professional football league that could until being brought down by greed. If you enjoy this documentary also try "Once in a Lifetime: the Story of the New York Cosmos" another great documentary from ESPN that would be on this list if it was a a 30 for 30 documentary.
 
2. Once Brother

This is probably the most powerful sports story ever told that most people have never heard of. If you are a history nut particularly a war history nut you have to see this movie. Honorable mention for this list and a documentary you should check out if you enjoy this one is "The Two Escobars".

1. Pony Excess

The last in the series and in my opinion the best. This documentary goes need into the rise and fall of Southern Methodist football. If you enjoy this one you might enjoy "The U" as well. Fun game to play while you watch "The U": spot all of the times you see Dwayne "the Rock" Johnson. He was all over Miami U football. It weird the WWE never really played of The Rock's football success.