News and Notes from Oliver Luck's appearance on Sports Business Radio

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MikeMitchell
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News and Notes from Oliver Luck's appearance on Sports Business Radio

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Oliver Luck was the featured guest at The Players Tribune in New York City for Sports Business Radio on Thursday. It was an open forum that lasted over an hour. Students from Montclair State were in attendance. They ended up asking Oliver Luck questions at the end of the open forum. Which is available at SBRadio on their website and podcast channels.

Here are some quick news and notes. No major news from this but some tidbits.

* The XFL is looking into changing the communication from the Head Coach to the Quarterback on the field. In The NFL, QB's get their play calls sent to them through their helmets. The rule is that the communication is automatically turned off when there is 20 seconds left on the play clock. The XFL is looking to leave the communication open until the ball is snapped.

* Oliver Luck talked about the goal of Access and Voice. Access being what fans see and hear during games. Going deeper than what the original XFL did by mic'ing players and coaches. The voice part of this was very intriguing. Luck talked about crowd sourcing, for things like fans choosing game music, what uniforms the home team wears, halftime shows etc.... but the area that was most eye opening was the potential of crowd sourcing a play a game to the fans. Oliver put over a company called Your Call Football. Luck didn't say that the league would allow for a full game to be called by fans but that there could be something like fans calling the team's first play.

* Luck proclaimed that as a result of last week's mock game and testing. They feel confident that they have found a solution for kickoffs. A solution that maximizes the excitement of a kick return, while reducing the chance for injury. The players, coaches and referees in Mississippi all liked the new kickoffs.

* The XFL is working on Biometric Data to not only improve player safety but wants to use the technology to help with player performance.

* This may make some original XFL fans happy, but when discussing player nicknames on jerseys. Oliver didn't reverse course on this but he did say that the league is taking a wait and see approach on player nicknames on jerseys, but that they are still leaning towards traditional surnames on the jerseys. This is a different tone than a couple of months ago when he closed the door on this. I still don't see 'Death Blow' or 'CFL Reject' returning but this door was re-opened very slightly.

* Luck was asked on a few occasions about the league's pending broadcast rights package. Luck didn't reveal anything, except to state that the league will have a "powerful broadcaster". He also called their pending tv deal "awesome". It will include broadcast, cable and streaming.

* Salaries were asked about again. Luck said that the league has 4 tiers. The highest will be their premiere players, the quarterbacks, which Luck quoted as being 250 to 300k and above per season. The lowest tier will be 50 to 60k. All teams will have the same salary cap. Head coaches will be the GM's and personnel decisions will be decided by the HC and his coaching staff.

* Team Presidents will be responsible for the business end and will be expected to help sell tickets by forming relationships and working heavily in their markets.

* There was talk of how an average 3 hour football game has only 14 minutes of actual action. That's unbelievable. The XFL is looking to change that. It begins with what we have heard so far, a 25 second play clock, a running clock, fewer timeouts per coach, 30 second timeouts like the NBA, instead of a 2 minute break for a quarter, it will only be 30 seconds, less penalties and less commercials.

* Oliver Luck's favorite part about his job as commissioner is that the league is going to employ 500 players, over a hundred coaches, support staffs, team employees, referees etc

* There were a few more tidbits along the way. Luck said that he liked the NBA model and how you never hear about any issues with the players and management. All XFL players will have a code of conduct in their contracts. There is zero tolerance for Domestic Violence. The series of drafts was asked about by a student. Specifically the potential of signing high school players. Luck didn't rule it out but pointed more towards the league entertaining signing college football players that have only played 1 or 2 years in college. The XFL doesn't have the same 3 year rule that the NFL has with their CBA. Luck cited an example of college players that end up redshirting for a year when they transfer, and that they may decide to go pro in the XFL instead. Ticket affordability was also asked about. Luck mentioned family packs where you buy 4 tickets and get 4 sodas and popcorns. He had a similar deal in the MLS with The Houston Dynamo. 4 tickets for 50 dollars kind of thing.

Oliver Luck came off well during this long session. He was engaging, talked a lot about his background as a football player, his time building NFL Europe, his transition from being a football player and a funny story about his son Andrew watching a video cassette of his father beating Dan Fouts and San Diego in Houston. Oliver joked about it being his only good game as a pro.
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