USFL Wk.3 game threads

[PetermansRedemption]

Why have I heard of Taamu? Did he have a cup of coffee in the nfl somewhere?

[Mr. WEO]

22 minutes ago, Buffalo Timmy said:

My bigger point is that we are a football crazy country, this AA level football gets more viewers than basketball can get for some playoff games. I will state that if the QB play does not improve it won't last 

history has proven over and over that this football crazed country has no appetite for non NFL pro football. 

[Steptide]

They should litterally kick Pittsburgh out of this league for running this much 

[Albany,n.y.]

5 minutes ago, PetermansRedemption said:

Why have I heard of Taamu? Did he have a cup of coffee in the nfl somewhere?

He was one of the XFL's best QBs and was on some NFL practice squads including KC.

[PetermansRedemption]

20 minutes ago, Mr. WEO said:

history has proven over and over that this football crazed country has no appetite for non NFL pro football. 

If college football wasn’t so large here, these lesser leagues might have slightly more of a chance. But when college football ends up being a better product, there’s almost no chance for a lesser league. 

[PromoTheRobot]

29 minutes ago, PetermansRedemption said:

Why have I heard of Taamu? Did he have a cup of coffee in the nfl somewhere?

 

Chiefs. Also played for St. Louis in the XFL.

24 minutes ago, Steptide said:

They should litterally kick Pittsburgh out of this league for running this much 

This is easily the worst game of the four.

[KingBoots8]

37 minutes ago, PetermansRedemption said:

Why have I heard of Taamu? Did he have a cup of coffee in the nfl somewhere?

 

[Mr. WEO]

10 minutes ago, PetermansRedemption said:

If college football wasn’t so large here, these lesser leagues might have slightly more of a chance. But when college football ends up being a better product, there’s almost no chance for a lesser league. 

College ball has been around far longer than the NFL

[Warcodered]

 

[LeGOATski]

2 hours ago, PetermansRedemption said:

If college football wasn’t so large here, these lesser leagues might have slightly more of a chance. But when college football ends up being a better product, there’s almost no chance for a lesser league. 

Well, that's why the play in the spring. It's their best chance.

 

The formula for this league is better than what the AAF or XFL v.1 tried. Draw on the popularity of a former league, only pay for one small stadium, and get a good TV contract. They might barely complete season 1 because of those smart decisions.

 

The lawsuit is obviously concerned, but I'm not sure why anyone thinks the old USFL reps have a case. When the story broke, it seemed like FOX had a significant upper hand in the case because the old USFL was officially abandoned.

[LeGOATski]

13 hours ago, Rochesterfan said:

 

We will see - opening arguments are expected today in the original USFL suit - with preliminary findings pointing to the original USFL having a case against Fox and either the league needing to change its name and the teams names and logo’s or pay fees to the original league for use of the names.

 

By 7pm tonight it could be the 2 unnamed teams versus each other in bland uniforms for the new Fox Sport league.

 

I will laugh so hard if the Fox loses and the USFL gets a significantly bigger settlement from this than the anti-trust lawsuit they won against the NFL.

 

It was incredibly stupid of Fox to reuse the names and team names from the USFL and with limited fan support already, below average play, and crappy weather - this looks to be a potential washout.

 

They rushed a product to try and beat the XFL and similar to other rushed endeavors - a poor ending is likely.

 

 

The thing is that there was no USFL. It was officially abandoned in the eyes of the law and FOX knew that. I haven't seen any recent news on the lawsuit, but definitely interested in what the outcome is. I think if anyone looks dumb here, it's the original USFL owners for giving up all rights to their league and now trying to cash in as soon as someone else picks it up.

 

On FOX's end, it was smarter to draw from a well that was already dug, rather than dig a new well. It's hard enough to get these new leagues started, so you need to cut corners wherever you can.

[Locomark]

This league sucks. 1) the talent is awful. 2) when all the games are played in Birmingham why bother? Might as well name a team the Iraq Bombers just to create a villain team. There are really no cities truly involved and that eliminates the excitement of a real crowd outside of the Birmingham team itself. Just silly. Honestly, I would watch arena football again over this. 

Edited April 19, 2022 by Locomark

[Rochesterfan]

6 hours ago, LeGOATski said:

The thing is that there was no USFL. It was officially abandoned in the eyes of the law and FOX knew that. I haven't seen any recent news on the lawsuit, but definitely interested in what the outcome is. I think if anyone looks dumb here, it's the original USFL owners for giving up all rights to their league and now trying to cash in as soon as someone else picks it up.

 

On FOX's end, it was smarter to draw from a well that was already dug, rather than dig a new well. It's hard enough to get these new leagues started, so you need to cut corners wherever you can.

 

That is the issue in the eye of the law.  Fox specifically chose to draw from the nostalgia - using a similar Logo, team names, etc - so they were not beginning at zero, but in doing that - they still needed permission.  
 

The owners gave up the main trademark, but are still making money off nostalgic gear and after the 30 for 30 had a bit of a revival.

 

It will most likely cost Fox quite a bit of money to keep the Logo or they are going to be forced to rebrand everything - costing them time and money.

 

It was a calculated risk, but considering exactly how hard it is to start these - this is going to hurt and could have been avoided - since you are not playing in the home stadiums - by simply changing up the names of the teams and making the USFL Logo different.

 

 

[Rochesterfan]

10 hours ago, PromoTheRobot said:

 

 

Week one draws a lot of the curious. It will definitely fall from there. By week 6 you'll see where the league will land ratings-wise.

 

Also keep in mind that the NHL regularly draws under a million viewers, as does most NBA and college basketball and MLB games. A million viewers still puts you in the top ten most weeks.

 

10 hours ago, Buffalo Timmy said:

My bigger point is that we are a football crazy country, this AA level football gets more viewers than basketball can get for some playoff games. I will state that if the QB play does not improve it won't last 

 

9 hours ago, PromoTheRobot said:

 

It's unrealistic to play 4 games a week in a market the size of Buffalo and expect to people to show up for every game. So far fans turned out for the home team. If the ratings stay at around a million and the sponsors get on board, they will move to their home cities. (Though I'm not convinced every city will welcome them.) As for the XFL they are going to have a very difficult time catching up. The fact they put things off till 2023 tells me they don't have the funding.

 

The issue is the size of the football teams versus the size of an NBA team.  The cost to run an NFL team, pay the players, feed the players, have the staff needed to attend to these players, equipment, insurance, televise the product, have referees to police the product, maintain the stadium, etc - is astronomical versus like the NBA.  
 

Having viewership at NBA levels will not bring in enough money to break even - it has been shown over and over.  The NFL is successful because their viewership is 7-10 times the viewership of everything else.  Therefore - the NFL gets huge money from sponsors and TV deals.  
 

The USFL is basically getting free TV - which will be ok on plain Fox, but their ratings on things like FS1 are going to be a fraction of the original.  The are playing without home fans - so they are not getting any crowd money and it plays terrible on TV.  They rushed everything to beat the XFL, but the quality of play and players shows the rush job.  
 

I think the XFL does have issues with funding, but I also think they are smarter to wait and put together a plan.  This version of USFL with old coaches and inadequate players - all being played in Alabama is set-up to fail.  The play is bad, the video is bad and the games being played on many channels is bad.  It is filler TV with to many players to make money.

 

 

[Steptide]

These minor football leagues always do everything the wrong way. Imo they could make an exciting product, but they try too hard to emulate the NFL. 

 

They need to shorten the quarters to 10 minutes. The level of talent on these teams doesn't warrant a 15 min quarter. I'd also get rid of running plays all together. Make everything passing. Watching these teams run non stop is horrible. It's worse than nfl pre season football. I'd also get rid of punting. Every team has 4 downs to get a first down, if they don't get it, the ball gets turned over on downs (can still kick field goals Ofcourse). 

[PromoTheRobot]

7 hours ago, Locomark said:

This league sucks. 1) the talent is awful. 2) when all the games are played in Birmingham why bother? Might as well name a team the Iraq Bombers just to create a villain team. There are really no cities truly involved and that eliminates the excitement of a real crowd outside of the Birmingham team itself. Just silly. Honestly, I would watch arena football again over this. 

 

Hmmm.

 

 

 

[Mr. WEO]

12 hours ago, LeGOATski said:

Well, that's why the play in the spring. It's their best chance.

 

The formula for this league is better than what the AAF or XFL v.1 tried. Draw on the popularity of a former league, only pay for one small stadium, and get a good TV contract. They might barely complete season 1 because of those smart decisions.

 

The lawsuit is obviously concerned, but I'm not sure why anyone thinks the old USFL reps have a case. When the story broke, it seemed like FOX had a significant upper hand in the case because the old USFL was officially abandoned.

 

This is a bad decision for 2 reasons:

 

1. if only people in and around Birmingham come to the games, the cities the teams are ostensibly "from" have no real fan base.  No reason to follow the team.

 

2. if the league is depending  on people in and around Birmingham filling the stands for every game every week, there will be endless images of nearly empty stadiums on TV for entire games.  This will affect the impression of all but the most hopeless football junkie in that fewer people will continue to watch bad football played in front of a noiseless/nonexistent crowd.   Ratings have to plummet and who wants to buy ad space for that?

 

1 hour ago, PromoTheRobot said:

 

Hmmm.

 

 

 

 

This has been proven meaningless during the last (XFL) fiasco.  Local ratings aren't going to keep any league afloat.  Plus, networks pay for content--lots of programming slots to fill.  NBA brings 82 games a year for every team.  Plus every team has fans/viewers outside of the home town viewing radius.  

[Billy Claude]

4 hours ago, PromoTheRobot said:

 

Hmmm.

 

 

 

 

They seem to have forgotten to mention that the Detroit Pistons were the third worse team in the NBA this season.   No one wants to watch a team if they are fairly certain to lose even before the game starts, not even Sabres fans.

Edited April 19, 2022 by Billy Claude

[LeGOATski]

1 hour ago, Mr. WEO said:

 

This is a bad decision for 2 reasons:

 

1. if only people in and around Birmingham come to the games, the cities the teams are ostensibly "from" have no real fan base.  No reason to follow the team.

 

2. if the league is depending  on people in and around Birmingham filling the stands for every game every week, there will be endless images of nearly empty stadiums on TV for entire games.  This will affect the impression of all but the most hopeless football junkie in that fewer people will continue to watch bad football played in front of a noiseless/nonexistent crowd.   Ratings have to plummet and who wants to buy ad space for that?

It didn't work for the AAF or XFL, but you're suggesting they repeat those same mistakes. 🤔

[What a Tuel]

1 hour ago, Mr. WEO said:

 

This is a bad decision for 2 reasons:

 

1. if only people in and around Birmingham come to the games, the cities the teams are ostensibly "from" have no real fan base.  No reason to follow the team.

 

2. if the league is depending  on people in and around Birmingham filling the stands for every game every week, there will be endless images of nearly empty stadiums on TV for entire games.  This will affect the impression of all but the most hopeless football junkie in that fewer people will continue to watch bad football played in front of a noiseless/nonexistent crowd.   Ratings have to plummet and who wants to buy ad space for that?

 

 

This has been proven meaningless during the last (XFL) fiasco.  Local ratings aren't going to keep any league afloat.  Plus, networks pay for content--lots of programming slots to fill.  NBA brings 82 games a year for every team.  Plus every team has fans/viewers outside of the home town viewing radius.  

 

Im not sure this true. Anecdotal but as someone looking for a team to root for, I didnt really care where they played and almost settled on Pittsburgh due to proximity, but eventually rested on Houston Gamblers due to the Jim Kelly connection.

 

If there was a Buffalo team it would've been a no brainer. 

 

It is a good way to keep the league's expenses down in the beginning too. 

 

 

[LeGOATski]

1 minute ago, What a Tuel said:

It is a good way to keep the league's expenses down in the beginning too. 

This is absolutely what they have to do. They've seen the other leagues waste money and go bankrupt mid-season. If they're ever going to succeed, they need to establish a following through media first. The attendance would be embarrassingly low regardless of where they played the games.

[Mr. WEO]

1 hour ago, LeGOATski said:

It didn't work for the AAF or XFL, but you're suggesting they repeat those same mistakes. 🤔

no this league is doomed anyway.  But this decision is going to hasten the end.  Empty stadiums in the middle of the Deep South without a penchant for pro football with empty stands in every camera shot 4 games in a row every weekend.  
 

the advertisers should be running to the network ad sales offices

[LeGOATski]

21 minutes ago, Mr. WEO said:

no this league is doomed anyway.  But this decision is going to hasten the end.  Empty stadiums in the middle of the Deep South without a penchant for pro football with empty stands in every camera shot 4 games in a row every weekend.  
 

the advertisers should be running to the network ad sales offices

You think they're doomed anyway, but criticizing them for saving money. Can't say I'm surprised.

 

I do agree that it's an uphill battle for any of these leagues, failure seems imminent. But their model is the most cost effective so far.

[Orlando Tim]

54 minutes ago, LeGOATski said:

You think they're doomed anyway, but criticizing them for saving money. Can't say I'm surprised.

 

I do agree that it's an uphill battle for any of these leagues, failure seems imminent. But their model is the most cost effective so far.

I would be interested in what the acceptable loss is this year from Fox sports? If they are anywhere near break even they will obviously be thrilled but lowering costs will be huge for viability in getting off the ground.

[Mr. WEO]

3 hours ago, LeGOATski said:

You think they're doomed anyway, but criticizing them for saving money. Can't say I'm surprised.

 

I do agree that it's an uphill battle for any of these leagues, failure seems imminent. But their model is the most cost effective so far.

I criticized them for adapting a sure fail format of showing games in the middle of nowhere in front of no one.

 

You called that a smart plan because it saves money.

 

I laughed at that suggestion 

 

You said  that’s criticizing them for “saving money”.

 

Lol

 

Considering the massive uphill climb each of these leagues have (over and over),  pinching pennies on inauguration sounds more like hedging losses than saving money.  
 

Do you think potential advertisers are eager to buy ad time for this level of ball played in front of empty stadiums?

Do fans at home feel like it’s a legit watch if free tickets won’t even get people to go? 

 

simple questions.

[Warcodered]

6 hours ago, Mr. WEO said:

2. if the league is depending  on people in and around Birmingham filling the stands for every game every week, there will be endless images of nearly empty stadiums on TV for entire games.  This will affect the impression of all but the most hopeless football junkie in that fewer people will continue to watch bad football played in front of a noiseless/nonexistent crowd.   Ratings have to plummet and who wants to buy ad space for that?

I mean after 2020 people might not care about this as much.

[Mr. WEO]

22 minutes ago, Warcodered said:

I mean after 2020 people might not care about this as much.

about Spring football?  Exactly…

[PromoTheRobot]

https://www.espn.com/xfl/story/_/id/33765857/xfl-pitches-league-player-agents-attempt-counteract-usfl-source-says

[PromoTheRobot]

Week 2 

MATCHUP DATE/TIME NETWORK/STREAMING

-----

Michigan Panthers at New Jersey Generals

Friday Apr. 22, 8 p.m. ET

USA, Peacock, fuboTV

-----

Pittsburgh Maulers at Philadelphia Stars

Saturday Apr. 23, 12 p.m ET

Fox, fuboTV

 

Birmingham Stallions at Houston Gamblers

Saturday Apr. 23, 7 p.m. ET

FS1, fuboTV

-----

New Orleans Breakers at Tampa Bay Bandits

Sunday Apr. 24, 3 p.m. ET

NBC, Peacock, fuboTV

Edited April 20, 2022 by PromoTheRobot

[PromoTheRobot]

Apparently the chipped balls were messing with the kickers.

 

 

[PromoTheRobot]

 

[Orlando Tim]

If these offenses do not improve then this league will not last. 10-6 sucks as a football score.

[PromoTheRobot]

2 hours ago, Buffalo Timmy said:

If these offenses do not improve then this league will not last. 10-6 sucks as a football score.

 

That game was brutal. But it still came down to the final play. 

[Brianmoorman4jesus]

A few things

 

this reply isn’t that bad. If you ignore the crowd, it’s actually pretty decent. It’s probably already better then watching college football. They should have put the games indoors and used camera tricks to hide the crowd. Put it in a dome and do things like they did during Covid bubble times to make the backdrop look cool. If you didn’t see an empty stadium, this thing would look a little more legitimate on TV. But the football itself is really not bad.

 

[LeGOATski]

5 hours ago, Buffalo Timmy said:

If these offenses do not improve then this league will not last. 10-6 sucks as a football score.

21-16 is looking a bit better

Edited April 23, 2022 by LeGOATski

[Albany,n.y.]

1 hour ago, Brianmoorman4jesus said:

A few things

 

this reply isn’t that bad. If you ignore the crowd, it’s actually pretty decent. It’s probably already better then watching college football. They should have put the games indoors and used camera tricks to hide the crowd. Put it in a dome and do things like they did during Covid bubble times to make the backdrop look cool. If you didn’t see an empty stadium, this thing would look a little more legitimate on TV. But the football itself is really not bad.

 

They're pumping in fake crowd noise.  I'm not sure if it's just on the broadcast or over the PA at the stadium.  Either that or all people on the sidelines have been instructed to make a lot of noise since there are more members of both teams combined than fans in the stands.  

[PromoTheRobot]

25 minutes ago, LeGOATski said:

21-16 is looking a bit better

 

This might be a USFL scoring record.

7 minutes ago, Albany,n.y. said:

They're pumping in fake crowd noise.  I'm not sure if it's just on the broadcast or over the PA at the stadium.  Either that or all people on the sidelines have been instructed to make a lot of noise since there are more members of both teams combined than fans in the stands.  

If you mic that stand of fans it'll sound like something.

 

I'm interested in seeing the game tonight. The Stallions are playing. I want to see if they get 17K again.

Edited April 23, 2022 by PromoTheRobot

[Brianmoorman4jesus]

If they were only going to play in 1 place, I think they should have picked a dome in an area with a ton of people. It would have just looked a little better on tv. Maybe like a 30k seat dome in one of the most populated cities in America or something. The football itself is ok.

Edited April 23, 2022 by Brianmoorman4jesus

[Orlando Tim]

16 minutes ago, Brianmoorman4jesus said:

If they were only going to play in 1 place, I think they should have picked a dome in an area with a ton of people. It would have just looked a little better on tv. Maybe like a 30k seat dome in one of the most populated cities in America or something. The football itself is ok.

Next year they should go to a city with a 15000 seat dome like the Fargodome. Obviously if they could find it in a city that is much larger that would help also. Last week I went to the UCF spring game and it is just too hot to sit for 3 hours in the sun.

[PromoTheRobot]

Congratulations, USFL. Your first over.