laxtreme56 wrote: ↑Fri Jul 16, 2021 6:52 am
MGB01 wrote: ↑Thu Jul 15, 2021 11:23 pm
I know all that, but what's next? When XFL1.0 announced a deal with NBC over Wrestlemania weekend in 2000, there were little bits of news leading up the team reveals in August. When XFL2.0 announced with ESPN and FOX two years ago, same deal. Now the USFL's website is effectively a placeholder (as well as their Twitter and FB) that might as well be MLFB's useless 50% financial info much less anything else --doesn't even have to be news, just little 'we're here and we can't wait ' updates
Maybe the XFL's playing, what they consider, smart money over here, thinking "We'll let them go Kitty Hawk, and (re)build ourselves in quiet". Why is it smart? A TSL rebrand simply won't work, and the name value (both teams and league) only has so much shelf life before it's time to move with it.
I don't want the USFL to fail, far from it, in fact I'm even setting my 2022 XFL sim season to it. But seeing the same "They'll come anyway" naive logic used by Garcia (only difference is Woods is further along--only here it doesn't make much of a difference) isn't giving himself the greatest chance of success right off the bat. 400K is fine for a placeholder, not the place.
This is a very fair assessment. We've heard the USFL is looking for individual ownership groups, which makes sense as B. Woods doesn't have nearly the funds to run a paying 8 team professional league. So between now and March we're supposed to see 8-10 teams, front office hires, some kind of national and regional marketing plan, venue leases and agreements. 400k viewers isn't going to pay the bills with 8-10 teams of 50+ players per teams. Can any of these potential markets sell 5k+ season tickets and $1 million+ in local sponsorship before the intended kickoff, my magic 8 ball says "no way." Besides Fox saying their "invested" what does that really mean. If it's anything like we've seen with similar leagues, they'll cover the costs of production and share in the profits (if any) while providing some minor marketing of the league in non primetime spots. If it's a TSL rebrand, I won't bother watching. If I wanted to watch guys pay to play there's plenty of flag football leagues I could go watch on a Sunday afternoon.
Like I laid out in a post above - I don't see the USFL being run like AAF/XFL and respective cost structure. I'm thinking 30-40% the cost or less if its more a rebrand and only partially based in cities. And to clarify the vast majority of the TSL players DO NOT pay to play - they dont get paid other than R&B but if they've been to a recent NFL camp, or roster, PS there's no charge along with TSL alum.
We don't know FOX's involvement $$ wise but I also posted where they were providing TSL funds (per B Woods) as he said he needed self discipline to not over spend the money. Recall FOX approached B Woods not the other way around. FOX NEEDS low cost programming.
As far as the TSL's 400k+ viewers. That was with an unrecognized league, virtually no promotion or advertising, with no city affiliation. Sometimes will no lead in program at all. And still they got 400k+.
Next up is the USFL - if it fails we'll know soon, XFL has 3x delayed (well 2x with D/R/Rk). I could care less which one makes it as we all know how hard it is to do so. Just Win Baby! - AL Davis