USFL innovative first down measurements in action

[herns]

Fox has said their the sole owner and have invested $150 million. NBC is paying for broadcasting rights. Luis Perez came from their list of guys to bring in due to injury. Stop complaining about stuff that aren’t actually issues because the logo isn’t your preference and root for one of these to work regardless of the logo. It’s fine to criticize but let’s not ignore stuff to fit arguments

Didn't the USFL mention something a couple of months back about them having "13 secret backers" or something like that? The fact is that this wasn't originally a Fox solo effort. This was Brian Woods's league and Brian ran out of money (again).

The logo has nothing to do with it. The business model has everything to do with it. Fox Corporation is a publicly traded company and the shareholders are not going to let the company throw away dozens of millions of dollars for TSL-level ratings.

We have seen enough alternative football leagues over the past 25 years to know what works, and what doesn't.

The XFL showed that WWE-style sports entertainment doesn't work in football, but that playing in the post-Super Bowl season can be a great starting point.
Arena football proved that being too gimmicky can hurt you.
The UFL showed that a smaller league can lead to a much greater concentration of name-brand talent, but that it's foolishness to buy airtime from second-tier cable channels, you can't bank on your competition having a labor dispute, that there's virtually no room for another league in the fall.
The Alliance proved that knockoff leagues rushed to play without due diligence are doomed to fail, but it reiterated the market for winter/early spring football.
XFL 2.0 proved that you can get everything right—strong talent, right season, good media coverage and robust financial backing—and still have an X-factor (coronavirus) ruin everything.

So what does the USFL have?
It has media backing. Good. Fox owns a stake. NBC, we don't know the arrangement with them. I doubt Fox is buying airtime from a competitor, or vice versa, but that's that.
Its talent level is below the UFL and XFL, maybe on par with the AAF. Not good.
It's playing from April to June. That's a huge unknown, since we haven't had a league like that since the 1980s. The college sports fan may be their target audience, but compare Saturday Night Football ratings on ABC to Monday Night Football on ESPN, and you're taking a step back.
It is playing in a single, small market with a history of attendance that rapidly declines as a season progresses. HUGE red flag.
Where's the money coming from? We don't know. HUGE red flag, for reasons I stated above.

They don’t have 13 secret backers TSL did, but since this is not TSL and just had the TSL former owner involved with football ops it is backed by fox and NBC is googling some amount and not some secret group as TSL was. Regardless of how it started fox is the sole owner now. We do know NBC is paying fox for the right to air games but we don’t know how much. I do agree the calendar is a big unknown as is their marketing strategy of focusing on tv ads rather than social media. As for the talent level I’ll just say you’re looking at the UFL through rose colored glasses, and some of the xfl best went undrafted. And again they don’t care about attendance that’s not how they’re making money, they’re planning on making money through the TV side of things and ad spots sales. You seem to not understand the business model which is fine but I can tell you they aren’t relying on ticket sales that’s just a plus to the TV money

[4th&long]

Fox has said their the sole owner and have invested $150 million. NBC is paying for broadcasting rights. Luis Perez came from their list of guys to bring in due to injury. Stop complaining about stuff that aren’t actually issues because the logo isn’t your preference and root for one of these to work regardless of the logo. It’s fine to criticize but let’s not ignore stuff to fit arguments

Didn't the USFL mention something a couple of months back about them having "13 secret backers" or something like that? The fact is that this wasn't originally a Fox solo effort. This was Brian Woods's league and Brian ran out of money (again).

The logo has nothing to do with it. The business model has everything to do with it. Fox Corporation is a publicly traded company and the shareholders are not going to let the company throw away dozens of millions of dollars for TSL-level ratings.

We have seen enough alternative football leagues over the past 25 years to know what works, and what doesn't.

The XFL showed that WWE-style sports entertainment doesn't work in football, but that playing in the post-Super Bowl season can be a great starting point.
Arena football proved that being too gimmicky can hurt you.
The UFL showed that a smaller league can lead to a much greater concentration of name-brand talent, but that it's foolishness to buy airtime from second-tier cable channels, you can't bank on your competition having a labor dispute, that there's virtually no room for another league in the fall.
The Alliance proved that knockoff leagues rushed to play without due diligence are doomed to fail, but it reiterated the market for winter/early spring football.
XFL 2.0 proved that you can get everything right—strong talent, right season, good media coverage and robust financial backing—and still have an X-factor (coronavirus) ruin everything.

So what does the USFL have?
It has media backing. Good. Fox owns a stake. NBC, we don't know the arrangement with them. I doubt Fox is buying airtime from a competitor, or vice versa, but that's that.
Its talent level is below the UFL and XFL, maybe on par with the AAF. Not good.
It's playing from April to June. That's a huge unknown, since we haven't had a league like that since the 1980s. The college sports fan may be their target audience, but compare Saturday Night Football ratings on ABC to Monday Night Football on ESPN, and you're taking a step back.
It is playing in a single, small market with a history of attendance that rapidly declines as a season progresses. HUGE red flag.
Where's the money coming from? We don't know. HUGE red flag, for reasons I stated above.

They don’t have 13 secret backers TSL did, but since this is not TSL and just had the TSL former owner involved with football ops it is backed by fox and NBC is googling some amount and not some secret group as TSL was. Regardless of how it started fox is the sole owner now. We do know NBC is paying fox for the right to air games but we don’t know how much. I do agree the calendar is a big unknown as is their marketing strategy of focusing on tv ads rather than social media. As for the talent level I’ll just say you’re looking at the UFL through rose colored glasses, and some of the xfl best went undrafted. And again they don’t care about attendance that’s not how they’re making money, they’re planning on making money through the TV side of things and ad spots sales. You seem to not understand the business model which is fine but I can tell you they aren’t relying on ticket sales that’s just a plus to the TV money

Correct
Its a TV network owner - its all about the tv rating - and in lieu of Gate $$ they more than offset that with local expenses and travel costs.
I agree its not ideal from fan perspective but its the right model in YR 1 to get to YR 2- which we all want.

[johnnyangryfuzzball]

And again they don’t care about attendance that’s not how they’re making money, they’re planning on making money through the TV side of things and ad spots sales. You seem to not understand the business model which is fine but I can tell you they aren’t relying on ticket sales that’s just a plus to the TV money

Well, how much money do they expect to make on TV advertising, though?

Let's say they get about a half-million viewers a game on average, in line with what TSL got. That's less than the NHL, which NBC gave up on earlier this year. Now let's consider how much money it's going to cost to run a full season—somewhere around $100 million is a pretty safe guess based on how much past leagues cost. NBC was paying the NHL $200 million for upward of 100 regular season games and all of the playoffs. The numbers just don't seem to add up. The cost per viewer hour is going to be far greater for the USFL than even the unsuccessful NHL contract.

Part of the reason why the XFL was successful on TV was that it had vested interest in local teams. The Battlehawks were huge in St. Louis. The Defenders were popular in Buffalo because of the Bills and UB alumni on that squad. The USFL, without the benefit of home teams, is at a major disadvantage in that department. They're trying to make up for it—having Michigan draft a Michigan QB first overall, signing known Birmingham and New York commodity Perez in time for the inaugural game—but we have no idea how successful that strategy is going to be. There are a lot of unknowns, very little strategy that has been proven successful in the past, and a lot of things that don't look like they're going to be helpful.

[herns]

And again they don’t care about attendance that’s not how they’re making money, they’re planning on making money through the TV side of things and ad spots sales. You seem to not understand the business model which is fine but I can tell you they aren’t relying on ticket sales that’s just a plus to the TV money

Well, how much money do they expect to make on TV advertising, though?

Let's say they get about a half-million viewers a game on average, in line with what TSL got. That's less than the NHL, which NBC gave up on earlier this year. Now let's consider how much money it's going to cost to run a full season—somewhere around $100 million is a pretty safe guess based on how much past leagues cost. NBC was paying the NHL $200 million for upward of 100 regular season games and all of the playoffs. The numbers just don't seem to add up. The cost per viewer hour is going to be far greater for the USFL than even the unsuccessful NHL contract.

Part of the reason why the XFL was successful on TV was that it had vested interest in local teams. The Battlehawks were huge in St. Louis. The Defenders were popular in Buffalo because of the Bills and UB alumni on that squad. The USFL, without the benefit of home teams, is at a major disadvantage in that department. They're trying to make up for it—having Michigan draft a Michigan QB first overall, signing known Birmingham and New York commodity Perez in time for the inaugural game—but we have no idea how successful that strategy is going to be. There are a lot of unknowns, very little strategy that has been proven successful in the past, and a lot of things that don't look like they're going to be helpful.

I do agree with you that those are fair complaints/real unknowns. As for how much they’re expecting to make from tv no one really knows but the MLS is reportedly near getting a $300 million dollar tv deal from ESPN and they average under 300k viewers so doing correlation that’d likely mean ESPN is making more than what they’re paying mls or see the the value being higher than what they’re paying. If around a 300k average is worth 300 million I’d be willing to make a guess fox is expecting to make money due to viewership history of past leagues and even what TSL got with no promotion when on fox (420k)

[laxtreme56]

And again they don’t care about attendance that’s not how they’re making money, they’re planning on making money through the TV side of things and ad spots sales. You seem to not understand the business model which is fine but I can tell you they aren’t relying on ticket sales that’s just a plus to the TV money

Well, how much money do they expect to make on TV advertising, though?

Let's say they get about a half-million viewers a game on average, in line with what TSL got. That's less than the NHL, which NBC gave up on earlier this year. Now let's consider how much money it's going to cost to run a full season—somewhere around $100 million is a pretty safe guess based on how much past leagues cost. NBC was paying the NHL $200 million for upward of 100 regular season games and all of the playoffs. The numbers just don't seem to add up. The cost per viewer hour is going to be far greater for the USFL than even the unsuccessful NHL contract.

Part of the reason why the XFL was successful on TV was that it had vested interest in local teams. The Battlehawks were huge in St. Louis. The Defenders were popular in Buffalo because of the Bills and UB alumni on that squad. The USFL, without the benefit of home teams, is at a major disadvantage in that department. They're trying to make up for it—having Michigan draft a Michigan QB first overall, signing known Birmingham and New York commodity Perez in time for the inaugural game—but we have no idea how successful that strategy is going to be. There are a lot of unknowns, very little strategy that has been proven successful in the past, and a lot of things that don't look like they're going to be helpful.

I do agree with you that those are fair complaints/real unknowns. As for how much they’re expecting to make from tv no one really knows but the MLS is reportedly near getting a $300 million dollar tv deal from ESPN and they average under 300k viewers so doing correlation that’d likely mean ESPN is making more than what they’re paying mls or see the the value being higher than what they’re paying. If around a 300k average is worth 300 million I’d be willing to make a guess fox is expecting to make money due to viewership history of past leagues and even what TSL got with no promotion when on fox (420k)

MLS also plays a 32 game regular season plus has most games streamed on ESPN+. The USFL will have a grand total of 43 games telecast. Since they're making close to zero money on ticket sales and local sponsorships you'd assume they'd need to average North of 1 million viewers to get close to breaking even

[herns]

Well, how much money do they expect to make on TV advertising, though?

Let's say they get about a half-million viewers a game on average, in line with what TSL got. That's less than the NHL, which NBC gave up on earlier this year. Now let's consider how much money it's going to cost to run a full season—somewhere around $100 million is a pretty safe guess based on how much past leagues cost. NBC was paying the NHL $200 million for upward of 100 regular season games and all of the playoffs. The numbers just don't seem to add up. The cost per viewer hour is going to be far greater for the USFL than even the unsuccessful NHL contract.

Part of the reason why the XFL was successful on TV was that it had vested interest in local teams. The Battlehawks were huge in St. Louis. The Defenders were popular in Buffalo because of the Bills and UB alumni on that squad. The USFL, without the benefit of home teams, is at a major disadvantage in that department. They're trying to make up for it—having Michigan draft a Michigan QB first overall, signing known Birmingham and New York commodity Perez in time for the inaugural game—but we have no idea how successful that strategy is going to be. There are a lot of unknowns, very little strategy that has been proven successful in the past, and a lot of things that don't look like they're going to be helpful.

I do agree with you that those are fair complaints/real unknowns. As for how much they’re expecting to make from tv no one really knows but the MLS is reportedly near getting a $300 million dollar tv deal from ESPN and they average under 300k viewers so doing correlation that’d likely mean ESPN is making more than what they’re paying mls or see the the value being higher than what they’re paying. If around a 300k average is worth 300 million I’d be willing to make a guess fox is expecting to make money due to viewership history of past leagues and even what TSL got with no promotion when on fox (420k)

MLS also plays a 32 game regular season plus has most games streamed on ESPN+. The USFL will have a grand total of 43 games telecast. Since they're making close to zero money on ticket sales and local sponsorships you'd assume they'd need to average North of 1 million viewers to get close to breaking even

Those are the numbers that I wish one of these networks/leagues would make public. I don’t think it needs to be over a million but in 700k range I think is what was the rumored target. What will be interesting is what playoff numbers look like since e haven’tseen a spring league playoff before we don’t really know.

[johnnyangryfuzzball]

OK, I did find this article from the Wikipedia references.

https://yellowhammernews.com/potential- ... -proposal/

The plan is:
—Fox will start with a $200 million investment, with intent to sell $250 million in equity to other investors.
—Target audience of 1.4 million viewers on broadcast, 700,000 on cable. More than TSL, about the same as what the XFL was drawing midseason. Doable, but it's a long shot... and the dependence on selling stakes to other investors troubles me.

[herns]

OK, I did find this article from the Wikipedia references.

https://yellowhammernews.com/potential- ... -proposal/

The plan is:
—Fox will start with a $200 million investment, with intent to sell $250 million in equity to other investors.
—Target audience of 1.4 million viewers on broadcast, 700,000 on cable. More than TSL, about the same as what the XFL was drawing midseason. Doable, but it's a long shot... and the dependence on selling stakes to other investors troubles me.

Y they’ve got the plan laid out. The first 3 years are funded after that it’s kinda who knows and where they want teams sold to help with costs. I do think for both xfl and USFL the goal has to be to sell franchises, I believe a redbird exec said awhile ago it is what they need to do for the xfl as well. It’s the only long term way it’ll work imo

[SamTheRam28]

Fox has said their the sole owner and have invested $150 million. NBC is paying for broadcasting rights. Luis Perez came from their list of guys to bring in due to injury. Stop complaining about stuff that aren’t actually issues because the logo isn’t your preference and root for one of these to work regardless of the logo. It’s fine to criticize but let’s not ignore stuff to fit arguments

Didn't the USFL mention something a couple of months back about them having "13 secret backers" or something like that? The fact is that this wasn't originally a Fox solo effort. This was Brian Woods's league and Brian ran out of money (again).

The logo has nothing to do with it. The business model has everything to do with it. Fox Corporation is a publicly traded company and the shareholders are not going to let the company throw away dozens of millions of dollars for TSL-level ratings.

We have seen enough alternative football leagues over the past 25 years to know what works, and what doesn't.

The XFL showed that WWE-style sports entertainment doesn't work in football, but that playing in the post-Super Bowl season can be a great starting point.
Arena football proved that being too gimmicky can hurt you.
The UFL showed that a smaller league can lead to a much greater concentration of name-brand talent, but that it's foolishness to buy airtime from second-tier cable channels, you can't bank on your competition having a labor dispute, that there's virtually no room for another league in the fall.
The Alliance proved that knockoff leagues rushed to play without due diligence are doomed to fail, but it reiterated the market for winter/early spring football.
XFL 2.0 proved that you can get everything right—strong talent, right season, good media coverage and robust financial backing—and still have an X-factor (coronavirus) ruin everything.

So what does the USFL have?
It has media backing. Good. Fox owns a stake. NBC, we don't know the arrangement with them. I doubt Fox is buying airtime from a competitor, or vice versa, but that's that.
Its talent level is below the UFL and XFL, maybe on par with the AAF. Not good.
It's playing from April to June. That's a huge unknown, since we haven't had a league like that since the 1980s. The college sports fan may be their target audience, but compare Saturday Night Football ratings on ABC to Monday Night Football on ESPN, and you're taking a step back.
It is playing in a single, small market with a history of attendance that rapidly declines as a season progresses. HUGE red flag.
Where's the money coming from? We don't know. HUGE red flag, for reasons I stated above.

I don't mean to go back to a topic that's already been discussed, but I disagree that the talent level is below that of the XFL and UFL. Like herns mentioned, many top XFL players went undrafted or have been cut. They may not have the names at QB, but I think they have the talent.

Former BattleHawks and now Bandits center Bruno Reagan seems to agree. He tweeted that "The level is about the same tho play wise."

https://twitter.com/BrunoReagan/status/ ... 00_-g&s=19

[Tank55]

I mean, I definitely think it’s fair to say XFL II worked the QB market harder (and paid more). Cardale Jones passed on NFL opportunities to sign.

On the whole, I’m sure the talent level is comparable. That’s just the nature of the distribution of pro football talent.