THIS OUGHTA BE GOOD

XFL Football discussion.
Sounder
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Re: THIS OUGHTA BE GOOD

Post by Sounder »

What more can be done to make it work? It's seems NBC did all they could do....they gave it major league treatment, a studio show with Al Trautwig, highlights of other games, even a serious post game celebration segment after the Arena bowl....tried to make a household name of Tony Graziani. Promoted the Ironmen like Barry Wagner and Hunkie Cooper.....but as a tv product, people yawned. But anyway ...good luck.
laxtreme56
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Re: THIS OUGHTA BE GOOD

Post by laxtreme56 »

Sounder wrote: Tue Feb 07, 2023 11:59 am What more can be done to make it work? It's seems NBC did all they could do....they gave it major league treatment, a studio show with Al Trautwig, highlights of other games, even a serious post game celebration segment after the Arena bowl....tried to make a household name of Tony Graziani. Promoted the Ironmen like Barry Wagner and Hunkie Cooper.....but as a tv product, people yawned. But anyway ...good luck.
The game never quite translated well to TV, though the 1 million viewers they averaged across 4 years on NBC would stand up well to the USFL and potentially the XFL this time around too. Unlike television shows, sports properties rarely turn into overnight "smash hits." There needs to be a solid 5-10 years of teams in the same markets, adequate television coverage and production, and some "star" players before fans really get invested. MLS is just turning that corner now after nearly 30 years, though Freddy Adu in the early 2000's started bringing them to the next level.
Tank55
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Re: THIS OUGHTA BE GOOD

Post by Tank55 »

They need to limit the exposure. If the NFL is the Big Mac, Arena can be McRib. Make it a big deal for a summer and then come back again a few years later. Maybe go full TBT and make a 64 team single elimination tournament.
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Firecop
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Re: THIS OUGHTA BE GOOD

Post by Firecop »

I never understood the attempt to make arena/indoor football a TV product. It is great for small college players who want to keep playing and for small to midsize cities who cannot ever support a major outdoor team - but TV? We have had an indoor team where I live for the past 20 years; although ownership has changed and issues occasionally surface; it is well supported with multiple championships. I think it is fine for what it is, a different animal than 11 man outdoor football. Even though our away games are single camera streamed, trying to make it a TV product just seems ludicrous to me.
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johnnyangryfuzzball
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Re: THIS OUGHTA BE GOOD

Post by johnnyangryfuzzball »

Firecop wrote: Tue Feb 07, 2023 1:11 pm I never understood the attempt to make arena/indoor football a TV product. It is great for small college players who want to keep playing and for small to midsize cities who cannot ever support a major outdoor team - but TV? We have had an indoor team where I live for the past 20 years; although ownership has changed and issues occasionally surface; it is well supported with multiple championships. I think it is fine for what it is, a different animal than 11 man outdoor football. Even though our away games are single camera streamed, trying to make it a TV product just seems ludicrous to me.
Well, you also have to remember than in 2003, NBC Sports was, let's face it, desperate. They'd just lost the NBA, they'd lost the NFL, they hadn't had baseball in nearly a decade, the only college sports they had was Notre Dame football, and XFL1.0 had crashed and burned worse than the Hindenburg. They thought they were on to something when they put the XFL on right after the Super Bowl.

But the reality is, other than that, they totally botched it. Arena football was always mostly an exercise in filling indoor arenas during the spring and summer when hockey and basketball are out of season. But NBC tried to make it a main event. And the moment Jerry Jones showed up, that's when everything fell apart. Instead of showcasing what was then somewhere around a 16-team league with teams across America, it ended up being the Cowboys farm team against New York or Philly every week. (Basically they ran the AFL into the ground the same way they almost did the NHL.)

I remember being a fan of the Buffalo AFL squad, the Destroyers. They were not a very good team, though in the Ray Bentley era they were respectable and even made the playoffs once. But NBC made it ten times worse. NBC literally went out of their way not to show the Destroyers on TV. They'd have games scheduled in NBC's regional windows, and they would simply not send a crew to that game. And that led to other teams losing NBC coverage; they even apologized to Grand Rapids when they finally got an NBC game late in the season, essentially saying "things came up" (I think a Buffalo/Grand Rapids game was one of the games NBC refused to carry). With that blatant of a bias, is it any wonder nobody wanted to bother?

That said, arena football, as flawed of a game as it is with defense so difficult to pull off, fun to watch on TV. It's all in a tight space, packed with action, and the smaller field makes everything look faster. I love watching Fan Controlled Football and think that it has a lot of elements that arena football could be at its best. But indoor football is meant to be seen at night. The artificial light just seems off on Sunday afternoons; the XFL and USFL can pull that off, but they're outdoors.
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Re: THIS OUGHTA BE GOOD

Post by DavedaHammer »

I think an Arena Football League could work in Canada playing 3 downs instead of the 4 downs played in the AFL, IFL. The season could be played during the Winter months until the CFL season starts. Canada has so many arenas in the country. These Canadian arenas are always looking for a tenant to cohabitate with junior hockey teams. It could fill 12,000 seat arenas in places like Quebec City, Halifax, Saskatoon, London, ON, Laval, QC. If indoor lacrosse can be successful in some Canadian cities, why not Football
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BattleHawks
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Re: THIS OUGHTA BE GOOD

Post by BattleHawks »

MLS is just turning that corner now after nearly 30 years, though Freddy Adu in the early 2000's started bringing them to the next level
no one was watching mls on tv, their 285k was less than half of the usfl's 715k average, which was in turn less than half of xfl 2.0's 1.9m

there's a reason they pulled it of broadcast tv and moved it to streaming
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Re: THIS OUGHTA BE GOOD

Post by MGB01 »

BattleHawks wrote: Wed Feb 08, 2023 11:27 pm
MLS is just turning that corner now after nearly 30 years, though Freddy Adu in the early 2000's started bringing them to the next level
no one was watching mls on tv, their 285k was less than half of the usfl's 715k average, which was in turn less than half of xfl 2.0's 1.9m

there's a reason they pulled it of broadcast tv and moved it to streaming
Not all, FOX still has matches most weeks in the first half of the season (fact they even pulled a spot that the USFL had last year).

But overall, yeah. NBC walked on it in 2014 and said "we'll take the real stuff (PL) thank you" and FOX did an MLS/NFL regional DH in 2016 that was such a smash hit that it's never been done again.

Fact during Seattle/LA 3/18 I'll watch to see if they accidentally mention Roughnecks/Dragons two nights earlier as an excuse for the pitch conditions--to which somebody will get chewed out I'm sure: "NEVER MENTION THAT @#!+ AGAIN! :lol:
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