Vince McMahon cashed out $100 million worth of stock to allegedly create the XFL, version 2.0. The thing is, McMahon didn't tell anyone what he was going to do with the money except that it has to do with "football."
Let's have some fun and spend Vince McMahon's Money....
First of all, a bunch of haters were bashing on Mr. McMahon on ESPN, I don't think they realize how vulnerable the NFL is right now. The most popular sport in America is ripe for the picking in a way other leagues are not. The NBA, NHL and MLB all have practically no off seasons.
Major League Baseball starts Spring Training at the end of February and the World Series finishes the season the first week of November. Leaving the rest of November, December, and January baseball free. Between Spring Training, the Regular Season, and the Playoffs, good teams could play 200 games in a year.
The NHL exhibition season starts in September and the Stanley Cup is in June. That leaves July and August hockey free.
The NFL, on the other hand, breaks training camp in July, then starts charging regular season prices for exhibition games in August. The NFL has extended the season out to the first week in February, but one of their biggest scams is extending football out across the entire year by making the Draft, the Combine, and NFL Free Agency all events. If you're an old dude pretending you're a GM, that's fine. If you just want to watch an actual football game you're out of luck. I think this is how the Global Football League (GFL) could work.
Step 1: Find your niche apart from the NFL. Start your season 2 weeks after the Super Bowl, then end your season the second or third week of August. Because you are playing in August, make the Global Championship, or whatever you want to name it, set that date at the beginning of the year and market that date throughout the season. Make the Championship a must-see prime time viewing event.
Step 2: Forget about Network TV. If you get a local TV contract, that's great. But if Vince McMahon wants to grow a league, he needs to tap into the underused sports platform of streaming video. Just this week, Netflix released a $90 million stinker called Bright that critics are calling the 'worst of the year'. Within 2 days Netflix had greenlit a sequel. Some companies simply have money to burn on original content. Could Vince McMahon get, say, a 2 year - $200 million live streaming contract from someone like YouTube, Facebook, or Netflix for exclusive, original content?
Step 3: Focus on the Global. You are now using the NFL instead of the NFL using you. Bring football to the markets that the NFL has flirted with, but wouldn't commit to. Don't put teams in historic NFL markets. Forget about the Clevelands, Green Bays, and Pittsburghs. First chose 2 or 3 cities OUTSIDE of the United States. I would chose London or Frankfurt and Mexico City. Then you need NFL castoffs, San Diego, St. Louis, and Oakland. Try to only have one or 2 redundant cities with the NFL, maybe the large markets like New York and Chicago.
Step 4: You need an original gimmick. The Arena League has a number of quirks, from the walls, to playing the ball off of the netting. What's a good gimmick for outdoor football? How about this, market the game as "throwback football." Cut the play clock to 30 seconds between snaps, limit substitutions, cut the radio feed to the QB, etc. Manipulate the game so that the product on the field is back in the players' hands. Limit the number of coaches, too. Make the GFL a league that average players would want to play in, instead of their fall counterpart.
Step 5: Don't build new stadiums. Rent college stadiums or intimate soccer stadiums when possible and focus on production value. Speaking of soccer, I know nobody watches it, but the MASL (indoor soccer) streams all of their games from existing venues. There should be lots of empty stadium options in the spring for football.
Since you're Vince McMahon, keep some of your old gimmicks like cameras everywhere, including in the locker room, and remind people that the NFL stole things, like unique camera angles, from you.
West:
Portland
San Jose
San Antonio
San Diego
Salt Lake City
Mexico City
Oklahoma City
East:
New York
Chicago
St. Louis
London
Raleigh
Orlando
Columbus
Don't forget, spring football can work. It was beginning to gel when the USFL was working the Dixon Plan. New technologies exist today that make the parts of the Dixon Plan obsolete. The wheels of the USFL came off the wagon when New Jersey Generals owner Donald Trump....
We are going to stop there. We are not going to turn this into a missive on President Trump.
Vince McMahon made a boatload of money in the WWE despite not owning any venues. Wrestlers often work weeks on end on the road, working up to 200 shows a year. If you begin with a 14 team league and each team plays each other once, that's about a 200 game production schedule. A production schedule well within McMahon's expertise. Again, if you work the plan of controlled labor costs and a philosophy to market the game of football, while avoiding the NFL, it is a feasible gamble if you can incorporate new streaming technologies into the mix.
Of course this is all big picture stuff, there's lots of smaller, moving parts that would need to be incorporated. What I'm saying is that the general public seems to be tiring of the NFL's team of billionaire owners strangling the life out of their cash cow and the NFL players worrying about everything except for football.
