[quote=""jwalters""]I havent chimed in on this in quite some time but I do think everyone should at least take the UFL survey. I think the league is too top heavy in salaries to succeed even in the spring but at least they are asking. As far as the question about whether there are enough leagues to pull old film from for an alternative football network I think there are.
Margate Entertainment/tv4u owns the rights to the old TVS, Score, and FNN broadcast of the WFL, the American Football Association, and the Minor League Football System. [/quote]
Questions I would have would be:
1 - How many WFL
tapes actually have survived to the present day? You can own the rights to something, that's great. But you have to have the actual tapes, and they have to still be broadcast quality.
2 - Is the AFA to which you're referring the minor league from the 1980s? How many of those tapes do you think survived?
3 - The Minor League Football System apparently played for two years (1989 and 1990). Same question, how many of those survived, how many are broadcast quality, and, perhaps most importantly....
4 - Someone's going to watch the Pocono Mountaineers and the New Jersey Oaks from July 18, 1989? Really? Someone's going to watch that? And games like it?
They provide many over the internet for free already
I've seen one - the last several minutes of a Jacksonville/Chicago WFL game from 1974. If there are others, I haven't seen them on their site.
so I cant see them throwing a fit if given the opportunity to broadcast again.
Let me ask you this: if you had something gathering dust in your closet...and someone thought there was an opportunity for them to make money off it...you wouldn't necessarily "throw a fit," but you'd want to be cut in, probably, wouldn't you? And the "throwing a fit" is really the smallest part of the equation here. It's more "do the tapes exist, are they broadcast quality and
would anyone watch it?"
There is also a gigantic backlog of Arena Football League games that were not covered by major networks. Those would also be available.
And I bet they'd be
awesome! Arena football...not covered by major networks...from the late 80s...people would watch that
all day long!
If you add the various other indoor leagues and some of the better semi-pro leagues and teams such as the Racine Raiders you would have plenty of material.
And again...who's going to watch it? You want to see the Racine Raiders? Really?
But what I know from working in the tv industry is that even if you have really good programming you cant always get providers to carry it.
First, you're right about that (though I still call shenanigans on you working in the TV industry), but I wouldn't call the Racine Raiders "really good programming." Use your head for a minute, would you, please?
What we see on tv is given to us because of business politics. So unless one of the big boys starts the network it wont happen. But it could happen because there is enough material.
Let me put it to you this way: There is
no way on God's green earth someone says "I can get the rights to show the Minor League Football System from 1990, let's start a network around it." No way. Won't happen. Won't
ever happen. Americans love football, but they love
NFL and college football.
Idiotic idea.
sportsaddressbible wrote:
The USFL did very well in the Spring.
And by "very well," you mean "lost millions and limped to the finish line in its final spring season."
Look at Denver with its big crowds.
There was Denver. They averaged 40k (who knows how many paid). Jacksonville drew well. Tampa Bay drew well. Others did not. The vast majority of USFL teams did not, and therefore, lost lots of money. But, hey, look at Denver with its big crowds from 28 years ago.
As another person stated, then the UFL can go into NFL cities. The USFL's big problem WAS Donald Trump.
Good luck going into NFL cities, UFL. Dumbest thing I've ever heard. And Trump was a very visible problem for the USFL and the fact too many owners listened to him was a huge part of their demise. But it wasn't as if they were doing fantastically otherwise. The revisionist history is just amazing here.
There is so much talent out there for the UFL to drawn on with NFL draft pick cuts, former NFLer cuts, and players who got passed up from the NCAA and NAIA.
And no one wants to watch them play, obviously. They're not NFL quality. Not everybody is. That's the way it just works.
Look even at the XFL, it did really good.
And lost $80 million dollars and drew some of the lowest ratings ever seen in sports television.
The XFL just tried to be too much like the WWF and then realised too late that the fans really liked the quality of play (and the cheerleaders!).
The "quality of play" was really not good in the XFL. Very few of those players went on to play in the NFL and CFL.
Why hasn't the UFL tried to go into Birmingham, Memphis (WFL & USFL strongholds), San Antonio, Oklahoma City and maybe Salt lake City.
Gotta have an owner, don't you? I mean, you don't just award teams to cities. I think at this point Birmingham and Memphis would be a bit skeptical. And justifiably so.
Heck, if the UFL finds 10-14,000 exiting, a team in NYC at the new Randall's Island facility would be a good choice, or in the Carolinas around Raleigh-Durham.
The infrastructure of Randall's Island (and it's not a good football facility) makes it unlikely that would be a good place for a UFL team. Raleigh-Durham, fine, whatever. Carter-Finley? Is that what you're thinking?
Problem with any league, you need a decent TV/Cable deal and the UFL didn't have one.
If they'd sold twice as many tickets, they'd likely have a TV deal today. But they - and people like you - keep thinking it works the other way around. As if networks, in this day and age, are just going to throw money at something because it's football, when it's been proven that they can't draw good crowds in most places.
But, hey, there's always the MLFS from 1989.