Wait 'Til Next Year

[Pounder]

http://www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20061129/SPORTS/61129024

OK, 2008.

[nksports]

$5 says they don't play a game

[sportsguy12]

$5 says they don't play a game

Send em the $5 bucks. I'm sure that would help with the start-up costs. Is anyone really surprised by this announcement. This league is done. RIP.

[Jammer]

What a shock, another down before it starts. This league will never happen.

[Sykotyk]

The fact they're trying to be a legitimate league, but then only gave themselves a few months to get everything together. What surprises me is that they didn't go with 2008 as their start date only shows they didn't know what they were doing.

Sykotyk

[SignGuyDino]

I think that provision that only college graduates can play didn't sit well with a lot of people and potential investors and sponsors.

Smacks of elitism to me. I'm sorry but I'll call it as I see it.

[ChampionOfSteel]

I think that provision that only college graduates can play didn't sit well with a lot of people and potential investors and sponsors.

Smacks of elitism to me. I'm sorry but I'll call it as I see it.

I'm sure the definition of college graduates = college graduates or those 4 years or more removed from high school.

The signing of Hershel Walker in the 1980s sent shockwaves throughout the NCAA membered schools when the USFL Generals made this move. The USFL had to reassure the NCAA schools repeatedly this was the only exception. The elite NCAA schools threatened to lockout USFL talent scouts.

The AAFL college graduate rule is to appease the NCAA schools, and not the AAFL itself.

I could be wrong, but I doubt it.

[ChampionOfSteel]

The fact they're trying to be a legitimate league, but then only gave themselves a few months to get everything together. What surprises me is that they didn't go with 2008 as their start date only shows they didn't know what they were doing.

Sykotyk

I think there's a great deal of intelligence in delayed action. Those that refuse to change their plans are either perfect or reckless.

Would you have preferred them to go at it anyway without their ducks lined up this spring, like the NIFL?

If anything you should respect the league's organizers for making that call. ;)

Maybe this past week the league's organizer reached a set decision point on their PERT/project management calendar chart as a go or no-go to play this spring. A few months may be more than enough if a project is well thought-out.

Gnome has a great (and free open source) project management planner tool for a Linux operating system. Software is for everyone nowadays. But it helps to have a college business education degree that actually taught the basics of how to use such a tool.

I applaud the college degree requirement. Too many youngsters piss away their educational opportunities and blame society with a laundry list of every -ism you can think of when they can only make minimum wage.

As a matter of fact, I'll change my statement. Keep the college degree requirement and refuse to let anyone in regardless of their years beyond high school.

No degree. No player.

[SignGuyDino]

Will this mean that only college graduates would be permitted to WATCH these games? That's exactly how a lot of people will look at this requirement.

It's like an old rugby event where some retired players play some last hurrah. People may watch one weekend as part of a festival, but you don't do it to make money.

I mean, unless it's a private school, the stadiums don't belong to the schools, they belong to the TAXPAYERS. So what business is it of a football league to tell players who are grown adults and who have clean records that they can't earn a living? They can say "nobody in the league under 22 without a degree" and that's fine. Otherwise, this is elitist and there are more than enough people who would not attend because of that to make any team lose money, if they are even aware of this league at all. I've heard nothing about this league other than their own website and OSC. No national media coverage of this, no espn, no foxsports, nothing.

I honestly don't see why any stadium would rent out in the summer anyway if they have a grass turf since they'd have to resod it, now if it was artificial turf, that's another ballgame, then again, I wouldn't want to have a team play on turf in the summer unless it's at nighttime. The rent some of these schools supposedly were going to charge were insanely too high.

I see NADA, ZIPPO, ZERO revolutionary ideas with this league. No rule changes that would make sense. (They may have asked us on their website but I heard nothing about any proposals from any fan. I notice now that it's completely gone now. So much for fan-friendly. They don't even discuss any potential rule changes on their site.)

The only thing is it's summer outdoor football with only college graduates allowed. Other outdoor leagues failed and they didn't have that requirement. What will compel people to pay for this?

This concept makes some PLAUSIBLE sense with a BASKETBALL league with a college degree requirement. Fewer players, basketball is easier to stage than football, etc. But there's a reason you don't see any minor league rent out college gyms even in summertime. Rent's way too high.

Even Vince McMahon was able to start and finish a season like he said he would. This was touted as something far more credible than the XFL and these guys did not deliver.

I'm telling you right now Vince McMahon could announce he's bringing back the XFL in 2008 and it would have more credibility than the AAFL. Write it down.

[SignGuyDino]

I'll make one more ranting point...

It's expected that 12 regular season games will be followed by a two-week playoff made up of the League's top four teams. A league champion will be crowned in the championship game, which will be played on Fourth of July eve, 2007.

What? No BCS?

Remember, the key people here are all college guys and college football is too corrupt (yes, I said corrupt) to have a playoff for college football.

It's going to look hypocritical that they talk so elitist about how college football is so good if they can have a playoff in the AAFL and not in college football itself.

(And if they ever DO have a playoff, it won't be a fair one because it will be engineered to where only the "top" schools will get a chance. You think a pollster will vote Boise State ahead of Notre Dame for an 8th spot, for example? If the smaller colleges don't even have a theoretical chance at a national championship, the whole I-A system itself is a fraud.

They SHOULD realign all 120 teams in I-A to 8 "alliances," and then have a playoff with the champions only. No polls, no computers, no politics...

It CAN be done...

http://www.wncsport.com/BCSPROPOSAL.pdf )

Ok, enough ranting for now...

[nksports]

They SHOULD realign all 120 teams in I-A to 8 "alliances," and then have a playoff with the champions only. No polls, no computers, no politics...

It CAN be done...

http://www.wncsport.com/BCSPROPOSAL.pdf )

Ok, enough ranting for now...

If you went to Swiss rounds, ala US Chess, you could do all of Division I football in seven to eight weeks and determine a clear champion. You could use the first four to five weeks of the season to establish each team's rating for the pairings for the championship. Every team would play every week through the championship series, unless you wanted to make the bowls the final round of play. Then you would rank all the bowls in a hireachy and either drop the teams that weren't high enough to make a bowl game or make them play their final game before the bowls.
The only drawback is in Swiss rounds, there would be no set schedule after the weeks of non-championship play.
It's a little complicated, but it could be done (I was president of the chess club my senior year in college 20 years ago and a US Chess certified tournament director at the club level.)

[SignGuyDino]

Yeah, I'm familiar with that.

I got it! Each team plays each other once. A game each 4 days.

Then the regular season champ is the national champion!

Why didn't I think of this before?! :unsure:

[ChampionOfSteel]

Will this mean that only college graduates would be permitted to WATCH these games? That's exactly how a lot of people will look at this requirement.

Two words: postponed gratification

I did very few social activities until I earned my bachelor's degree. If you got time to watch football, you should redirect that effort to a goal of graduating from college with a marketable degree.

I mean, unless it's a private school, the stadiums don't belong to the schools, they belong to the TAXPAYERS. So what business is it of a football league to tell players who are grown adults and who have clean records that they can't earn a living? They can say "nobody in the league under 22 without a degree" and that's fine. Otherwise, this is elitist and there are more than enough people who would not attend because of that to make any team lose money, if they are even aware of this league at all.

Job earners from McDonald's put very little funds in the taxpaying pot.

You don't have any business spending money going to these games in the first place if you don't have a suitable income stream above the poverty level.

There's more than enough NFL released folks who have a college degree that would be just as good if not better than the folks released from NFL camps without their degree.

I've heard nothing about this league other than their own website and OSC. No national media coverage of this, no espn, no foxsports, nothing.

ESPN has a deal with the NFL. Not cool to comment about this league from them.

I honestly don't see why any stadium would rent out in the summer anyway if they have a grass turf since they'd have to resod it, now if it was artificial turf, that's another ballgame, then again, I wouldn't want to have a team play on turf in the summer unless it's at nighttime. The rent some of these schools supposedly were going to charge were insanely too high.

Ohio State resodded a minimum of 3 times this past year. The stadiums to be used will come from programs that are in the black.

I see NADA, ZIPPO, ZERO revolutionary ideas with this league. No rule changes that would make sense. (They may have asked us on their website but I heard nothing about any proposals from any fan. I notice now that it's completely gone now. So much for fan-friendly. They don't even discuss any potential rule changes on their site.)

Lots of folks wrote off the XFL because they had rule changes.

The only thing is it's summer outdoor football with only college graduates allowed. Other outdoor leagues failed and they didn't have that requirement. What will compel people to pay for this?

Compelling? The idea there won't be any thugs around? Maybe the image is suppose to be clean-cut, parity based rostered teams with role models. Does Terrell Owens have a degree? Is degree attainment and thuggish behavior correlated?

This concept makes some PLAUSIBLE sense with a BASKETBALL league with a college degree requirement. Fewer players, basketball is easier to stage than football, etc. But there's a reason you don't see any minor league rent out college gyms even in summertime. Rent's way too high.

Basketball simply isn't as popular than football.

Even Vince McMahon was able to start and finish a season like he said he would. This was touted as something far more credible than the XFL and these guys did not deliver.

I'm telling you right now Vince McMahon could announce he's bringing back the XFL in 2008 and it would have more credibility than the AAFL. Write it down.

The NIFL has started and "finished" seasons too.

You'd have to know the inside planning of the AAFL to make that statement. Some leagues do inside planning for a minimum of 2 years before announcing their intentions. The AAFL elected to announce right away.

[SignGuyDino]

Good God, the comment about fans having to have college degrees was sarcasm to point out their elitist view.

Vince McMahon announced his league and started it months later, too. he still started and finished a season.

It was public knowledge David Stern planned the D-League for two years before starting it, and even five years afterwards still can't figure out that they should play smaller venues until they justify larger ones. So it's not that hard to see the gist of how they approach things to comment on them. If I can't comment on THAT, what the heck is this board here for?

This league acts like the Messiah, said without a doubt they would play 2007, and did not deliver. Why shouldn't we question it's credibility? They didn't start by saying "we'll get everything in order for 2008."

As to the XFL, what killed the XFL was Vince McMahon, putting the games on expensive network tv (not sticking with just cable), and oversexing the league. It's that simple. The rule changes were mostly raved until he kept changing them at the end as a desperate act.

It's funny to hear how the AAFL itself on it's own site claims the USFL may have survived had it stuck with a spring schedule. Yup, sure...

It's bizarre that Terrell Owens is brought up as an example of why people need college degrees to be allowed to play pro football. So I guess MicroSoft shouldn't be allowed to sponsor the AAFL. Bill Gates didn't finish college, you know...

A lot of colleges, hell, a lot of HIGH SCHOOLS won't allow rental of the taxpayer-paid football fields. The resodding costs is absurd and this is why some are going artificial turf now.

You seem to be the only person on ANY board who thinks this league will take off and be successful. That's the whole point. There's been zero media coverage of this on espn, foxsports, nowhere. I've looked. Nowhere to be found.

THEY said they wanted to hear comments from fans. Well, a few of us did. They ignored all of them, neither saying if any idea can or cannot work. They never acknowledged ANY comments on their boards. They don't even have those comments allowed anymore. I guess we need a college degree to be heard, or just blindly agree with them.

It's hypocritical for them to talk about any playoff when these guys opposed playoffs when they were running colleges and the NCAA.

All they have to do is say "nobody under 22 without a degree" and that point is settled. Until then, their approach smacks of elitism, and if you're going to be an elitist, you better not fail.

[nksports]

As to the XFL, what killed the XFL was Vince McMahon, putting the games on expensive network tv (not sticking with just cable), and oversexing the league. It's that simple. The rule changes were mostly raved until he kept changing them at the end as a desperate act.

One thing that killed the XFL was lack of a pre-season. They jumped in without enough preparation to get basic offenses and defenses down. The early football was so bad that people tuned out after a couple of weeks (or in some cases quarters). By the end of the season, the football was pretty good but nobody cared enough to tune in. If they would have concentrated on the football and cut out the "oversexing" antics, I think the XFL would have made it.

BTW -- I liked the race for the ball instead of a coin flip, but what I would have done is allowed all 22 players on the field and once a guy got the ball, he could try and return it. Where he ends up is where the team starts the ball. (You'd probably get a guy wasted on about the 45).

[ChampionOfSteel]

If you went to Swiss rounds, ala US Chess, you could do all of Division I football in seven to eight weeks and determine a clear champion. You could use the first four to five weeks of the season to establish each team's rating for the pairings for the championship. Every team would play every week through the championship series, unless you wanted to make the bowls the final round of play. Then you would rank all the bowls in a hireachy and either drop the teams that weren't high enough to make a bowl game or make them play their final game before the bowls.
The only drawback is in Swiss rounds, there would be no set schedule after the weeks of non-championship play.
It's a little complicated, but it could be done (I was president of the chess club my senior year in college 20 years ago and a US Chess certified tournament director at the club level.)

Swiss rounds should be used in the NIFL. Have 14 weeks of Swiss rounds, followed by an eight to twelve team single elimination tournament.

Teams that have the sheriff confiscate their equipment or have their arena leases revoked can be easily removed from the latest weekly Swiss matchups.

Yes, I know we only need 5 Swiss rounds for 29 NIFL teams to get an undefeated team. Continue matching up teams that haven't met for rounds 6 thru 14 randomly (computer generated) between teams with the same or virtually the same number of wins. There are various internet sources that illustrate this type of tournament.

After the 14 Swiss rounds, teams are listed from top to bottom. The top 8 to 12 teams that would be playoff bound who have identical records will require head-to-head comparisons as a tiebreaker. Since the Swiss system matches up teams with the same or virtually the same record anyway, there's an excellent chance the head-to-head tiebreaker will break ties every time because those teams probably already played each other.

All of this Swiss talk has my stomach growling for swiss cheese and swiss miss hot chocolate.

P.S. I heard the NIFL Marshalls plan to play in the same soccer barn the Dayton Bulldogs claimed they would do to finish out their season last year. The AF2's Cincinnati Jungle Kats have become first tenant in Cincy and not the Marshalls.

[baydaddy77]

True, the "Vince" style promo didn't help, but what really killed the XFL was NBC.

Here's my opinion (please feel free to have yours):

If you recall, the XFL was pulling in decent (not NFL), but decent Saturday night numbers. Then the XFL made the mistake of having a great game that went into overtime (I believe LA vs ??) and the runover caused NBC to delay Saturday Night Live (which hasn't been worth watching in 10-15 years). NBC then complained about the runover, the ratings dropped amost immediately and never recovered. Instead of NBC touting the great game, they bashed it. This league was never intended to rival the NFL, but it did nave some decent games. Sure, some of the ideas that Vince implemented were stupid, but not to the point of killing the league. I ignored the hype and watched the games for the games. I honestly think people asked themselves, "Why should you watch a league when it's own network bashes it".