Rock and Garcia in Washington

[GDAWG]

Conspicuously absent, Daryl Johnston.

He has said on his Weekly Radio show that during the NFL season, he's 100% on Fox NFL Sunday.

Sure, but this meeting took place during a week day. I'm sure Gerry Cardinale and The Rock are just as busy, if not more than Daryl Johnston. Also absent are any NBC reps

The Rock's primary source of income was shut down for months. Sure he has his businesses, but he would not have those businesses without the primary source of income.

[GDAWG]

A couple of reasons Johnston may not have been there:

1) There's a lot of prep work that goes into a NFL telecast. It's quite possible the meeting(s) were held on a day Johnston needed to be with the broadcast crew. It's also possible that if he wasn't there physically he could have carved out a few hours via zoom.

2) The head of Fox Sports was there, and any meeting about the merger could have been more owner-centric. I know Ross Brandon was there also, but he's supposedly been the point man in the negotiations.

In the end, I suspect the DOJ had a few questions about the merger or some loose ends they wanted cleared up before final approval. May not have taken more than a few hours. It could have been scheduled for a day when the Rock was supposed to meet with Senators about military recruitment, or the other way around.

I think the fact that DG put the picture out there yesterday instead of late last week (when she posted the senatorial meeting) might be the tell that the approval has now gone through and an announcement may be imminent.

He has stated on his radio show that is the reason behind him saying his 100% focus on NFL during the NFL season.

[GregParks]

A couple of reasons Johnston may not have been there:

1) There's a lot of prep work that goes into a NFL telecast. It's quite possible the meeting(s) were held on a day Johnston needed to be with the broadcast crew. It's also possible that if he wasn't there physically he could have carved out a few hours via zoom.

2) The head of Fox Sports was there, and any meeting about the merger could have been more owner-centric. I know Ross Brandon was there also, but he's supposedly been the point man in the negotiations.

In the end, I suspect the DOJ had a few questions about the merger or some loose ends they wanted cleared up before final approval. May not have taken more than a few hours. It could have been scheduled for a day when the Rock was supposed to meet with Senators about military recruitment, or the other way around.

I think the fact that DG put the picture out there yesterday instead of late last week (when she posted the senatorial meeting) might be the tell that the approval has now gone through and an announcement may be imminent.

He has stated on his radio show that is the reason behind him saying his 100% focus on NFL during the NFL season.

I get that August-January is probably mostly a dead period for the USFL since they don’t kick off their season til April, but I’m not sure it’s the best optics to have the president of what is trying to be the second-biggest football league in the world (and according to some reports, the guy who will be in charge of the merged league) basically saying it’s a six-month-a year job.

[mnrlgrey]

A couple of reasons Johnston may not have been there:

1) There's a lot of prep work that goes into a NFL telecast. It's quite possible the meeting(s) were held on a day Johnston needed to be with the broadcast crew. It's also possible that if he wasn't there physically he could have carved out a few hours via zoom.

2) The head of Fox Sports was there, and any meeting about the merger could have been more owner-centric. I know Ross Brandon was there also, but he's supposedly been the point man in the negotiations.

In the end, I suspect the DOJ had a few questions about the merger or some loose ends they wanted cleared up before final approval. May not have taken more than a few hours. It could have been scheduled for a day when the Rock was supposed to meet with Senators about military recruitment, or the other way around.

I think the fact that DG put the picture out there yesterday instead of late last week (when she posted the senatorial meeting) might be the tell that the approval has now gone through and an announcement may be imminent.

I doubt anyone in that room is any less busy than Daryl Johnston

[laxtreme56]

According to Mark Perry, the holdup is on the amount of teams. The government supposedly wants 12-14 but the league/s want 8. Not sure how much credence I'd put in this, but it's as good as any other rumor. Also seems like we may not hear anything until mid December. It is telling the USFL isn't selling season tickets for Canton yet. Perhaps we get the 3 USFL teams, and 5 XFL teams sans Orlando, Vegas and Seattle. Not ideal, but from a money saving perspective would be beneficial.
https://xflnewshub.com/xfl-news/xfl-usf ... ons-ahead/

[mnrlgrey]

According to Mark Perry, the holdup is on the amount of teams. The government supposedly wants 12-14 but the league/s want 8. Not sure how much credence I'd put in this, but it's as good as any other rumor. Also seems like we may not hear anything until mid December. It is telling the USFL isn't selling season tickets for Canton yet. Perhaps we get the 3 USFL teams, and 5 XFL teams sans Orlando, Vegas and Seattle. Not ideal, but from a money saving perspective would be beneficial.
https://xflnewshub.com/xfl-news/xfl-usf ... ons-ahead/

Yeah that's what they were just saying on Ried Johnson's channel today - government wants more teams but the ownership wants 8 is what they've heard the holdup is.

8 teams was also one of the very first rumors we heard about the structure of the league. I personally hope for 12 but expected we'd see at least 10 but maybe not. The 8/4 split reported by James Larsen a couple months ago seems silly at this point though when even Canton isn't getting promotion or the sale of tickets at this point and none of the other 3 hubs are selling hub tickets either.

If nothing else I could see one hub team remaining in an 8 team league but possibly rehoused somewhere. They could do the practice hub in Arlington and fly out to play pretty much anywhere. And if you're doing that then a market like St Louis, or any of them honestly, is a better option from an attendance standpoint than Canton is.

[XFLUSFLGUY]

I don't see this merger happening with anything less then 10 teams. Compromise regarding league size is paramount to the success or failure of the merger at this point.

[GregParks]

According to Mark Perry, the holdup is on the amount of teams. The government supposedly wants 12-14 but the league/s want 8. Not sure how much credence I'd put in this, but it's as good as any other rumor.

Is this standard operating procedure for governmental approval on mergers? Because this seems like one of the more bizarre rumors to come out about the merger. Why would the government care whether there are eight or 12 teams in this league? I could see if these were full-fledged teams, each with huge staffs working for them behind the scenes and tons of jobs on the line, but that's not the case here. Plus, what gives government the right to tell a private business how to operate in this way? Maybe if this was a merger of multi-billion dollar companies the government would get deeper into the weeds to make sure things were on the up-and-up, but this is the USFL and XFL, two companies that are just trying to survive (even though their financial backers are flush with $$).

[4th&long]

According to Mark Perry, the holdup is on the amount of teams. The government supposedly wants 12-14 but the league/s want 8. Not sure how much credence I'd put in this, but it's as good as any other rumor.

Is this standard operating procedure for governmental approval on mergers? Because this seems like one of the more bizarre rumors to come out about the merger. Why would the government care whether there are eight or 12 teams in this league? I could see if these were full-fledged teams, each with huge staffs working for them behind the scenes and tons of jobs on the line, but that's not the case here. Plus, what gives government the right to tell a private business how to operate in this way? Maybe if this was a merger of multi-billion dollar companies the government would get deeper into the weeds to make sure things were on the up-and-up, but this is the USFL and XFL, two companies that are just trying to survive (even though their financial backers are flush with $$).

I'm with Greg P on this, makes no sense for gov to get into the weeds on something this small. Could it be the investors are having a disagreement on # of teams? Maybe, at least its feasible. But the government? Come on.
Could the gov be dragging feet on approval due to general malaise? Again quite feasible but why not just say awaiting Gov approval.

What ever it is - they need to get it wrapped so they can start promoting 2024 what ever it is.

[Rmbay]

I agree it seems a bit odd, although when one of the parties fancies themselves as a league of opportunity and pushes the "Player 54" narrative I guess I can see why the government might have a few questions when a merger could cut those opportunities in half. The fact that it may need to be done out of necessity rather than profit motive may have been something that needed to be explained.

I'm just not sure I understand where they may be headed from here. If approval is being held up due to the number of teams, then it either happens or it doesn't, and I would think something like that would have been rectified early enough. They've had plenty of time to work through scenarios and numbers.

And maybe this was bad information, but I thought the original application for a merger sent to the government laid out the proposed league as having "10-12 teams"?