Saturday, September 30, 2006

Mission Accomplished!

Just got back from the UVA men's soccer game, which the Cavs won, 1-nil. The big news, though, is that they set the highest mark in the ACC for men's soccer attendance this year, with a final tally of 7,428. The stands at Klöckner were packed, and so was the hillside opposite the stands. Kids were playing on the lower practice field, and the teams playing at the half were kicking balls over the screen to fans after they finished.

What a great night. The next game's on Tuesday at 7, versus Liberty.

Great job, UVA and great job, Cowtown!

FYI - UVA vs. Clemson, 7 pm

It's a beautiful day - sun shining, birds singing, and the UVA mens' soccer team facing off versus Clemson tonight at Klöckner Stadium. 7 pm's the start time.

If you don't have plans for tonight, make them for this game. This is the #1 vs. #2 or the #2 (Clemson) vs. #5 (UVA) matchup in the country, depending on which poll you believe. Also, UVA is hoping to set the ACC record for attendance in soccer, which would be a nice little trophy to put on the mantle, and they're going to officially unveil the new video board (ie, HooVision) too.

Tickets are cheap - $6 for adults, $4 for kids and seniors, and $4 for faculty with UVA ID's. Plus, if you've got a kid under 18 wearing a soccer jersey, they get in for $1.

Pretty cool way to spend a night, if you ask me.

Friday, September 29, 2006

More Football Fun

What's Playing in my Head: "Radar Love", by Golden Earring

Quote of the Day:My girlfiend said to me in bed last night, 'You're a pervert!' I said, 'that's a big word for a girl of nine'." - Emo Phillips

Two more football notes before I shut up about it (at least until the Skins get waxed tomorrow):

First, there is actually a new football league starting up, a fact that I re-discovered last night thanks to Wikipedia. Unfortunately, it's a league that's setting itself up for complete failure because: a) it's a spring league, b) it's taking almost exclusively recently-graduated college players as opposed to established names, c) it's got a lousy business plan with no TV contract, and d) it's a self-admitted minor league.

I'm talking about the All American Football League, which was "founded" in July. The gimmick (spring football always seems to have a gimmick) is "Okay, people at colleges love football right? Well, lets use those college stadiums in the spring, with college players, and have a real, honest professional football league! Gee, won't that be swell?"


The problems with this concept are almost too many to go into. But I'll try.

First, the only time spring football has ever worked is in the Arena Football League, which is so radically different from actual football that it's not even the same sport. Plus, arena football took about 10-15 years to succeed, and then only barely.

Second, this league is relying on alumni from colleges to support these new teams in the spring. Basically what this means is that they expect college football fans (and donors) to buy all the tickets. Minor problem here: college football fans buy tickets and donate money based on the fact that they have a strong allegiance to the school they're paying to buy tickets for. Mostly because they're either alumni who love their school, or because they're fans of the long, storied traditions and histories at their school. Either way, a new professional league doesn't have that same sort of allegiance - no matter how much they try to associate themselves with said schools. (They've somehow got the University of Tennessee, Purdue and NC State on board with this screwball plan)

Third, this league's agreement, in getting colleges to agree to rent their stadiums, is to give all the concession and parking money straight to the schools. Big mistake. Fact is, without a major TV deal and a high profile that will bring major advertisers to the plate, all the revenue this league is going to get will come from game day ops - ticket sales, parking and concessions. Cut two out of those three out, and you've got only one major revenue source. And what happens if people don't actually, you know, come to the games?

Thank you very much.

Fourth, by admitting that it's a minor league, the AAFL's organizers have automatically limited the league's reach and potential for growth. People don't want to go see minor league sports, by and large, unless: a) there's not a lot of entertainment in their town or b) tickets are dirt cheap. If there's a high-profile alternative (ie, college sports, professional sports), they'll take it over minor league sports 99% of the time.

So what does that mean? First, they'll have trouble getting a decent TV contract. Networks don't generally televise minor league sports. Second, they'll have to keep ticket prices cheap, so they won't make a lot of money - and as a result, they won't get the caliber of players they'll need to succeed. Third, they're competing with the NFL in a way, since there is already a league that serves the NFL's player-development needs: NFL Europe. On top of that, there's the CFL (which the NFL works with) and Arena Football, to help as sources of talent. And that completely ignores that 100+ Division I-A college programs that pump talent into the NFL each year.

Point is, this whole thing is doomed to fail (which is a shame, because I really like the name AAFL - it sounds cool and 1940's-retro. Someone with imagination could really use that name to their advantage with a new league). It reminds me of a combination of the pathetic Spring Football League
and the equally-pathetic Regional Football League, both of which had bad business plans, no exposure, no TV deal, and unsurprisingly died fast, yet painful deaths. Same thing here.

--

Second point: the Arizona Cardinals's stadium has a new name. The unimaginatively-named (yet appropriate) Cardinal Stadium has been renamed
"University of Phoenix Stadium". This, as is normal for the internet, has started up a shitstorm of whining from self-styled traditionalists, because there isn't actually a physical place known as the University of Phoenix (it's a virtual, online education institution), and the stadium's actually located in Glendale, a suburb of Phoenix, AZ.

Personally, I don't think it's all that bad. Look, they could have had their stadium named something awful like VeriziChoice Field, or Paradigmatics Execucorps Stadium, or the Equibarq Centre. At least with UoP Stadium, you can pretend that the Cardinals play at a stadum at the University of Phoenix, in Phoenix, Arizona. (Which is exactly what I plan on doing, with my University of Phoenix fantasy college football team)

Of course, the irony of the Cardinals finally managing to leave a college stadium to play at - a college stadium - doesn't escape me...

Thursday, September 28, 2006

Football 201: Advanced Techniques in League Competition (aka "Can You Beat the NFL at its own Game?")

What's Playing in my Head: "Never There", by Cake

Quote of the Day: "It's only when you look at an ant through a magnifying glass on a sunny day that you realise how often they burst into flames." - Harry Hill

Okay, so I'm back from work, and on the football topic again. Saints rejoice.

We left off with the whole media/TV deal, which I figure is a pretty important part of any new league. Too many leagues have failed because they didn't lock down a decent media contract that targeted the audience they wanted to reach. The USFL, to their credit, actually got a pretty decent arrangement with ABC and ESPN when they started (their problem was more of being a spring league, and having too many teams spread out too thin).

The WFL of the '70s was a complete dud in large part because they didn't have a decent TV contract, and Arena football stayed small until they got a better deal with ESPN (and NBC). The XFL's contract was good with the NBC game of the week, but they heavily relied on secondary stations (like Channel 20 in DC) to show the other games - which rarely promoted the league in the first place. On the other hand, the AFL succeeded because they got a good TV deal with ABC, and wound up merging into the NFL.

Point being, leagues can be made or broken because of the exposure that they get from being on TV. The NFL, in fact, draws most of their power in the sports market from its media contract and smart marketing. The BFL would have to have a major contract and marketing presence to work, and to have the kind of high profile that it'd need to hope to compete with the 10,000-ton giant (aka, the NFL). So basically, the question becomes, how does the BFL get some network to give it fistfuls of cash on the promise that there will be, at some point, a reason for people to watch it on said network?

Three ways I can think of:

1.) Sign at least 2 high-profile players to each team. (Note that this doesn't mean that teams should sign the Peyton Mannings of the world to $20 million a year contracts - just sign guys who are moderately well-known and have NFL cred) Guys who need second chances at proving themselves would be perfect. A guy like Jeff Garcia, for example. Or a guy like Ricky Williams. Or Stephen Davis. You get the idea. It'd also be good for the league to set its sights on swiping 1 or 2 really big names (ie, Keyshawn Johnson, Randy Moss, Edgerrin James, etc. etc.) from the NFL. And getting players on teams close to where they're from. Central franchise ownership would be helpful in making all of this happen.

2.) Pour money into a set of funny, eyecatching ads. Don't try to be XFL II to the whole nation - the BFL can save that macho stuff for promo spots on a target network like Spike TV, which caters to testosterone-pounding raw masculinity. But also don't try to pretend that the league has got the best gameplay - it can't, and it won't. (And most importantly, casual viewers won't care) Best thing to do is to try to suck people by getting them to know the league brand without them knowing that they're being sold on something new - the ads for Major League Soccer, when it first started up, are perfect examples of this. And don't skimp on the media dollars, either.

3.) Find a media advocate in each community - one on the print side (ie, a prominent columnist), one on the radio side, and one on the TV side (ie, local stations that people listen to/watch). Obviously, this would be harder in the major markets (ie, New York, LA), which aren't hurting for news. But in places like Las Vegas, Portland, San Antonio and even Detroit, this should be do-able. (It's amazing how lazy reporters can be - feed them with buffets, inside access to players and coaches and being "The Official Station of the San Antonio Scorpions", and watch the stories roll in) The point is, the BFL needs media people to sell its teams to their local communities for it, for free. I'd even say that if the league can't find these sort of connections in a city they choose, it should drop that city and pick up another one where connections are stronger.

All of these things add value to the TV contract because people are talking about the league, and are more likely to tune in - not just for the first 1-2 games, like with the XFL, but for most of the season. If the BFL could sink its hooks into even a fifth of the football fans in this country, college or pro, it'd be well on its way to establishing a foothold.

And that's all you'd need to start. Beating the NFL at its own game will never be an overnight task - it'll take years of hard combat. But it starts with getting established and letting people know that the league exists, that it's legitimate and worth watching. Getting on TV in really visible places, and all over the media (including print and radio) is the first step in doing that.

Now...Is there anyone with a billion or two to spare in the audience?

Wednesday, September 27, 2006

Long Day, Short Post

What's Playing in my Head: "Short Skirt, Long Jacket", by Cake

Quote of the Day: "It's a long, long rope they use to hang you soon I hope, and I wonder why this hasn't happened, why why why? And I think about the dirt that I'll be wearing for a shirt, and I hope that I get old before I die!" - They Might Be Giants

First day of work at Presently Current Workplace. Long workday, lots of new people to meet, a half-dozen projects in the first 8 hours. You know, the usual.

Continuation of NFL competition post tomorrow. Sorry. Until then, enjoy this wonderful life message from former UVA student and grad Sean Polyn:



It sure i$.

Tuesday, September 26, 2006

Football 102: The BFL (Brian's Football League)

What's Playing in my Head: "Sunday Bloody Sunday" by U2

Quote of the Day: "So you get NOTHING! You LOSE! Good DAY, sir! ", Willy Wonka (aka Gene Wilder)

Lone reader Mediocre Fred replied to yesterday's post about creating some competition for the NFL. Thus spake the MF'er:

In order for this to work, I'd privilege cities that don't already have teams (since it would be easier to get a foothold there). Here's what I'd try:

EAST
New York (because you have to)
Orlando
Birmingham
Memphis

WEST
Los Angeles
San Antonio
Las Vegas
Portland

This league alignment is weak in the northeast, so if you wanted to leave off, say, Birmingham or Orlando and add Columbus (Ohio Stadium) or maybe even Philly or Detroit, I wouldn't argue.

I think he's got a generally workable league, but I'd go with the following cities myself:

New York - A given. Any new league would have to have New York to get TV networks on board and raise the value of the league TV contract. Good thing is that NYC has 20 million plus in its metro area, and only two football teams. There's room for one more. (I solidly believe that Donald Trump would have had a winner with the New Jersey Generals if the USFL would have started in the fall from the beginning) Shea Stadium's sight lines are good for football, though the place hasn't been used for it in 30 years.

Los Angeles - Another given. See New York. A big part of having a successful LA team would be in the location - the LA Coliseum would be the most central, but also would suffer from its size (it'd be almost impossible to sell out a 90,000+ seat stadium for a new league). The Home Depot Center in Carson might be a better place to start, since it's already hosted high school football games, has a smaller size (~30K, easier to sell out), and is pretty much just as far from LA as Anaheim and Orange County. Just don't even have a weeknight game there.

Washington - Here's my wild card. Ten years ago, when the Redskins were owned by The Jack, there wouldn't have been the desire or the political will to have competition come in to challenge them. Yeah, the money was there, and DC is football-obsessed, but everyone wanted to be a part of the Redskins at RFK. Now, The Danny has pissed off so many Redskins fans, even though he's selling out, there's still a large, frustrated and pissed group of fans who: a) gave up their Skins season tickets, and/or b) want an alternative. The alternative could play at RFK Stadium (with some renovations) as early as 2008, when the Washington Nationals move to a new ballpark. RFK could be sold out again, with creative promotions that challenge the establishment, plus some actual, reasonable ticket prices (ie, not pricing half the area out of the market like certain other teams in town).

Detroit - Okay, hear me out here. One, Detroit is a large metro area, with over 4 million people. Two, the Lions blow hard - if you give Detroit sports fans an alternative at this point, any alternative, it's got to look pretty good. Three, a new team could easily buy Tiger Stadium and put in some bucks for renovation, saving the stadium from demolition and creating an old-time football stadium that's close to the hearts of Detroit fans. Of course, if that doesn't work, there's always the Pontiac Silverdome...

Memphis - A small town, but one that drew pretty well with the Showboats of the USFL, and draws an average of over 40K for Memphis Tigers football (ie, college).

Las Vegas - The market the NFL won't touch. Obviously, there's money here, and if the new league could get UNLV on board with leasing their stadium on off-weekends, there's an opportunity. The team could start off by selling drastically-reduced price season tickets with game packages (ie, drinks, pre-game meals, etc.) to the major casinos, which could use the tickets as comps and rewards. Then run bus service from the Strip before every home game. Add some showgirls and get the local media behind the team, and you're in business.

Portland - Like Memphis, this is a pretty small town. But it only has one major professional sports team, and a stadium that could easily be sold out, even if it was set up in an expanded football configuration (it'd seat about 30,000). Plus, Portland has shown good support for Oregon and Oregon State football, and it's a pretty well-off city. This is definitely worth a shot.

San Antonio - The love of football in Texas is legendary. San Antonio's been angling for an NFL team for a while now, and with the Saints coming to town last year, they showed that they can at least decently support a pro team. The Alamodome desperately needs a tenant, and the local media is ripe for supporting a local football team. This is a win-win all around.

So the BFL would look like this:

New York
Washington
Detroit
Memphis

Los Angeles
Las Vegas
Portland
San Antonio

Next time, I'll go into media stuff and the TV contract. When I'm more awake.

Monday, September 25, 2006

Football 101: aka "Can You Fight NFL Hall?"

Watching Monday Night Football again, mostly to see the return of football to New Orleans. Lots of emotion, and a great storyline to follow. As with Houston, football belongs in New Orleans, and I'm glad it's back.

Getting back on topic from earlier...

The first thing a new league would have to do is establish its size and first-year cities. With a new league, I think you've gotta go after a combination of big media markets and cities that will be likely to pack the house - not one or the other. Also, you've gotta start off manageable in size - ironically, that's one of the few things the XFL did well, since they had just 8 teams to start. 8 is a good number. I like it - it's even, and it's an easier number of teams to maintain financially without worrying about a bunch of teams going bust (which other leagues, like the USFL and Arena Football League, have been plagued with).

So here's where I go football dorkish (too late). I'm going to drop a list of ideas for cities for this new league, along with available stadiums in said cities. I'll group 'em in two categories, those with stadiums that don't have football (Definites) and those that could have football, but already have teams (Maybes). Here we go:

DEFINITES
New York - Shea Stadium
Washington - RFK Stadium
Portland (OR) - PGE Park
San Antonio - Alamodome
Houston - Astrodome
Dallas - Cotton Bowl
Birmingham - Legion Field
Orlando - Citrus Bowl
Detroit - Tiger Stadium (Yes, I know it's getting torn down. But not yet.)

MAYBES
Los Angeles - LA Memorial Coliseum/Rose Bowl/Home Depot Center
Miami - Orange Bowl (U. of Miami (FL))
Boston - Alumni Stadium (Boston College)
Atlanta - Bobby Dodd Stadium (Georgia Tech)
San Francisco - AT&T Park (*)
Las Vegas - Sam Boyd Stadium (UNLV)
Nashville - Vanderbilt Stadium (obvious)
Memphis - Liberty Bowl (U. of Memphis)
Chicago - Ryan Field (Northwestern)
Philadelphia - Franklin Field (Penn)
Cincinnati - Nippert Stadium (U. of Cincy)
Seattle - Safeco Field (**)
Salt Lake City - Rice-Eccles Stadium (U. of Utah)
Louisville - Papa John's Cardinal Stadium (U. of Louisville)
San Jose - Spartan Stadium (San Jose State)

(*) Yes, I know Name-Of-The-Week Field is a ballpark. As in, a baseball park. But it hosts a college bowl game, the Emerald Bowl, every year. So it's possible.

(**) See above. Safeco Field hosted a bowl game once too - the Seattle Bowl - though it doesn't anymore.

Plus, assuming this league doesn't get off the ground for a couple of years, you've got a couple of NFL stadiums that'll be opening up as their teams move into new digs:

EX-NFL STADIUMS
Indianapolis - RCA Dome
San Diego - Qualcomm Stadium
Minneapolis - Metrodome

(Giants Stadium and Irving Stadium are both getting torn down once the new stadiums get built, so they're out)

So there ya go. The next thing is to get a big-buck TV contract, which is a lot harder than you'd think. The NFL has done a really good job of locking down all of the major network media companies in some way through their TV packages - CBS has the AFC (mostly), FOX has the NFC (mostly), NBC has Sunday Night Football, and Disney (ie, ABC's parent company) has Monday Night Football through ESPN.

ABC might want to get in on the football game on Sundays, though, to add on to their sports profile. (It's worth mentioning that the reason why they dropped MNF was because of the NFL's price tag and TV programming politics, not because they weren't interested in football.) For the right price, a new league could get them to buy in to a two-game package, with games set up by region (sorta like FOX's Saturday MLB game). Then you get a cable network (ie, Spike TV, TBS, or Versus) to do a Sunday night game and maybe a Thursday night game.

Easy? No, but it could be done. Question is, would the cash from that be enough to keep a new league going? I don't know - leave that to the accountants. But the fan support would be there.

Someone needs to do this, before the NFL makes sure it won't happen.

Kids, Avert Ye Eyes...

New DCLugi videos out!

Very adult content. You've been warned...



Free...As A Bird...

What's Playing in my Head: "Everything Sucks", by Reel Big Fish

Quote of the Day:
“If you've never seen an elephant ski, then you've never been on acid.” - Eddie Izzard

Random thought: Does finishing my last day at Formerly-Known-As- Current-Workplace and waiting to start at Future Workplace mean that I'm in between jobs?

Ba-dum-bump.

This is sort of a weird position for me to be in, because I haven't been without a job for a single day in almost two years, and for more than a week in over three years. I start at Soon-To-Be-Current-Workplace later this week, so I'm kicking my feet up for the first time in years. Sitting around without the faintest glimmer of something that I have to do is very bizarre.

I'm in a generally good mood right now, because the Skins somehow found a miraculous way to win over the lowly Texans yesterday, 31-15. Some people, like my dad, would find this entirely unremarkable, given that Houston was 2-14 last year. However, I know better. As long as I've been alive, my team has never failed to disappoint, even (especially) against pathetic teams like the Texans. (Of all people, my dad should know better, since he watched the miserable Deadskins of the 1960s contastantly disappoint when he was a kid)

What do you do if you're a Texans fan? I mean, really, I feel sorry for Houston, because you suffer through the ownership of an asshole owner, watch him blow off your city by announcing that he's moving the team a full season before he actually does it, then have to wait seven years to get your team back - and then have to suffer through five seasons of pathetic football with no real end in sight. I was horrified (but not shocked) when I saw this page a few minutes ago, listing the records of every NFL team since the AFL-NFL merger in 1970; the Texans have the worst winning percentage of every single team in the NFL. 32 out of 32.

Houston doesn't deserve that. They were always a good AFC town when the Oilers still existed, and they deserve a winner. The Texans franchise in general is solid, too...red, white & blue colors, cool logo, cool name...they just suck. Places like Carolina (22 out of 32), Arizona (29 out of 32) and Jacksonville (10 out of 32?!?) deserve that level of crappiness. Not Houston.

On a semi-related subject, the long football weekend got me to thinking about something that I go back to every fall: what if the NFL had competition?

The fact that the NFL hasn't had any serious competitors since the AFL in 1969 is jarring (no, the XFL doesn't count. As anything. Including a league.) Since football overtook baseball as the real national pastime in this country, the NFL has enjoyed a total dominance of the sport that no other league has been able to in this country in the modern era. Their market power is staggering as a result.

Even so, I think there's an opening for competition if it was done right. The popularity of football and network/cable TV in this country means that there's potential support out there for a new league. NBC and Turner realized this back in the late-90s, in trying to get their proposed league off the ground, but were stopped by the cheaper- and ultimately failed XFL. (How different and infinitely more interesting would the sports landscape have been if the NBC-Turner league existed and the XFL didn't?)

Of course, the potential of a league like this depends on a lot of factors, like working out a big-dollar TV deal that gives a lot of exposure, finding open facilities that can generate revenue without costing a lot in lease rates, and picking markets that have relatively few sports that tend to like football. Some of that is a crap shoot, but smart planning would go a long way in figuring out what's likely to work.

More on this later.