I think you misunderstand the situation with indoor ball.GDAWG wrote: ↑Tue Mar 23, 2021 2:48 pm If the FCF can maintain costs, they can last. The problem is that the FCF is in a sport (Indoor football) where it's a contest between the IFL, NAL and CIF to see who has the biggest ego. The sport of indoor football would be much better and more stable if the three leagues ever worked together but that's never going to happen. Instead, the clashing egos of those three leagues have prevented the sport from being stable. Look at the outdoor game. One of the best things to happen to the NFL was it's merger with the AFL. The merger made the sport of outdoor football a lot more stable.
Most of these leagues that play indoor ball play "small ball," featuring no-name players in no-name markets with next-to-no fans. Because of that, most of the teams can't even afford to cover travel expenses for a national league. I remember the SIFL, which came tantalizingly close to going national, but it ended up falling apart after a single year in 2011. That's why you don't see CIF go outside the Great Plains area or the AWFC outside the Pacific Northwest. (In a sense, though, it's less chaotic now than it was about 10 years ago when you had a half-dozen leagues scrambling to corner territory.) These leagues occasionally try to encroach on another's territory every once in a while (see the AAL's attempt to get into Texas) but that usually falls apart pretty quickly.
FCF, in that sense, is totally different. They're going for the national audience first and foremost, and arguably they're the first league to do that since the original Arena Football League. Furthermore, they're actually taking the measures to get that national audience by signing recognizable names. You would not see the NAL's Jacksonville Sharks sign Johnny Manziel. Indoor small ball is designed to be a product to cater to local markets. FCF is casting a much wider net. (Ironically, going the bubble route this year may have helped that since teams weren't tied to a local city.)