Rangersking669 wrote: ↑Fri Dec 27, 2019 2:18 am
The XFL Today wrote: ↑Thu Dec 26, 2019 4:18 pm
Personally, I think the best choices for expansion are for the following cities:
Birmingham, Alabama (former home of the Bolts)
Chicago, Illinois (former home of the Enforcers)
Las Vegas, Nevada (former home of the Outlaws)
Memphis, Tennessee (former home of the Maniax)
Orlando, Florida (former home of the Rage)
Portland, Oregon
San Antonio, Texas
Some of these cities have a hard time hanging on to teams, but this XFL should make sure teams are placed in these cities, especially Birmingham, Memhis, Orlando, Portland and San Antonio. But Chicago is essential and crucial.
I think Raleigh-Durham is an underrated option. No NFL team in market, plenty of stadiums, minimal competition, over 1 million TV homes(25th). Charlotte could work too though. Having a team in either allows you to probably parlay both TV markets somewhat. Unfortunately, Sacramento lacks good stadium options for now unless you really want to play football in really old, not as updated stadiums like at sacramento state or hughes. Portland is a good option too but you only have one option to play at Providence Park but if you can make that work, do it. san antonio is an easy option for sure. Indianapolis is also pretty underrated as a market and provides unique NFL relationship building opportunities. Birmingham and Memphis could work as well, but the AAF left a pretty bad taste in my mouth from them. Vegas is a good option but I'm concerned about attendance and ratings compared to san diego who has abandoned Chargers fans. Despite being close to Tampa, Orlando still is a sizable market and only has the Magic to compete with and it has a pretty promising history of supporting offseason football. Market size is smaller than san diego though.
Notice, all of these options have no more than 1 NFL team and 1 non NFL team combined.
If I had to rank "small TV market" options
1. san antonio
2. Indianapolis(due to NFL relationship potential)
3.san diego(pending stadium renovation, farther from LA than Orlando to TB especially considering traffic)
4. Orlando
5. Portland(for the rivalry with seattle and having hardcore fans)
6. Raleigh-Durham/Charlotte
7. Las Vegas
8. Memphis
9. Birmingham
Realistic options left out: sacramento(stadium issues)
Big TV Market Options(1.5M TV homes or more)
1. Bay Area- if the XFL can work out a way to fix that coliseum's structural and plumbing issues with Oakland and the A's, they should come no more questions asked. If not, explore other options in Berkeley, san jose, or maybe even santa clara, but this may not be as ideal. The league crushed it in the bay area the last time, so this really seems like a must. Capturing abandoned Raiders fans in addition to the entire market of the Bay vaults this over Philly.
2. Philadelphia- Considering Chicago's laundry list of failed spring league teams, giving Philly a shot may not be a bad idea, and they still have over 6M people in their metro area. Philly also has a much stronger MLS attendance record compared to Chicago(which indicates families may be more willing to come out and spend) and Philly's MLS stadium would be much less difficult to fill as it is 10K seats smaller than in Chicago, if the XFL wanted to opt for that. Not to mention, Philly doesn't have two baseball teams to compete with like Chicago(yes, I know the Bay does, but the Bay is a unique situation because you have a ton of abandoned Raiders fans). Philly has a good history with spring football as well.
3. Detroit- Football fans in this city have suffered a TON this century with only 3 playoff appearances...why not bring an XFL team here? stadium options are pretty limited here, with only Ford Field being a viable option. The trouble here is there are a ton of options for a market that isn't that big and, while having troubled fanbases, doesn't have abandoned football fans and isn't a huge market like philly, and has all 4 big leagues unlike Tampa. Not a bad option to have in the long term.
4. Denver- There was a pretty strong history with the usfl here, and denver would be a solid market size wise to get into. There is also an mls stadium here to play in should the xfl want to. Helps that the Broncos are a mess for now.
Options left out due to poor history- Atlanta, Chicago, Phoenix, Boston
Options left out due to having not enough market size/attendance, and too many other good options in sports and events- Miami, Minneapolis, Boston, Chicago, Atlanta
Anybody I left out here?