FXFL was comparatively small, but the problem was that Woods simply didn't have the resources of someone like Vince McMahon (or even Bill Hambrecht) to get the league off the ground.4th&long wrote: ↑Sun Apr 18, 2021 5:56 pmYes he has - he's learned alot. FXFL was a good concept but even there he over spent. It should have been a local league with NY, CT, Philly, NJ and just SNY and CSN-Philly. Instead of the travel and a far flung TV network. Live and learn. His TSL cost are even lower.
This is why I disagree with the "go big at first approach" for alternative FB (see my post in the "From AAF to XFL to Collaspse thread)
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The FXFL came off the heels of the slow-bleed death of the UFL, which was good football but just could never get the TV exposure or consistent revenue they needed to survive and, one could easily argue, overpaid at the lower end. But the FXFL, while it did a few things right, did a couple of things very wrong. The first was that it explicitly positioned itself as minor league/preseason-caliber football. People only watch preseason football because it's their first taste of football after months without it, and they don't really care who's on the field. Without their home team's rooting interest, no one cared. Landing franchises in New York City and Boston was a positive step, and it likely helped establish their syndication presence. Omaha, well, they were a successful UFL market and that's why the FXFL took a shot there (and to tell the truth the Mammoths were a success by FXFL standards, but they just couldn't find a way to shoehorn it into the rest of the league). The second was that it banked everything on landing a minor league affiliation with the NFL, which didn't happen and will likely never happen. They eventually corrected some of those mistakes, but by that time Woods had already expended most of his startup money.
The stroke of genius Woods had was that he could get professional-caliber talent to play for him without paying anyone. The gamble was that players would be desperate enough for a shot at the Big Show that they'd play for free and even pay their own expenses. That, more than anything, is why TSL has survived.
