Spring Football in Akron -

[Zipmeister]

I really hope only a few die hard Zips fans are reading this or else Zipsnation might look silly. The quality of players in the Big Ten is extremely high. What has brought the prestige down is the drop in Michigan's elite status caused by a coaching carousel resulting from an embarrassing loss to Appy State. Yep, that one thing crippled Michigan (and we almost broke their other leg), but they will return. Penn State, of course, is the Sandusky fiasco. Those two things have hurt the Big Ten in a big way, However, Northwestern is on the rise despite their record last year. Wisconsin, Michigan State, Nebraska, Iowa, and Minnesota are tough. Purdue and Indiana seem to always struggle, but this happens in a conference. To say the Big Ten is a crappy league coming from a MAC forum sounds silly at best. Not as elite as it used to be due to perennial powerhouse struggles - OK, but only temporarily.

One thing we can agree on is the Akron/Toledo game last year was a fine football game. Now let's get some more blue shirts for 2014 damn it!

I believe your hope has been realized.

[johnnyzip84]

The Blaze fails to ignite, falling to Southern Michigan 21-0. Akron is now 0-2, which really burns my butt

[johnnyzip84]

SMU's June Jones is a proponent of GP1's plan, but the 5 non-power commissioners are not interested

[GP1]

SMU's June Jones is a proponent of GP1's plan, but the 5 non-power commissioners are not interested

When I see the words "5 non-power commissioners" I immediately think of the Keystone Cops.

"We have no interest in doing that and have no plans to discuss or look into it," Aresco told ESPN. "Our position is clear. We are an integral part of the fabric of FBS college football. ------ Nonsense. The Bowl part of FBS isn't going to be around much longer. Declining attendance and the placement of the importance of making the new playoff will make bowls irrelevant and less financially viable.

"Our conference is and will be extremely competitive and our goal is to play at the highest level, compete for playoff and host bowl spots and challenge the Power Five. We want to be in the power conference conversation and, sooner than later, be regarded as the sixth power conference." ----- You won't dummy. The other conferences aren't going to want to share their money with you, but please don't let that stop you from bankrupting the schools in your conference with the "building process".

"I have not reviewed this concept with our membership but I cannot imagine we would support such a concept," Steinbrecher said. "We look forward to competing in the fall." ---- You owe it to your membership to at least review the option with an open mind to explore the potential for this great idea that could back the Brinks Truck of television revenue up to your schools.

Jones told the Tampa, Florida, radio station if they moved to the spring that in "five-to-seven years, possibly, the public would demand to have the two leagues play, just like I think the USFL had in mind, originally, of the winner of the USFL playing the winner of the National Football League." ---- Think again dummy. That's not fair. Learn the history of the USFL before you make a stupid statement that will become part of lazy internet search journalism forever. The public was not demanding the USFL to play the NFL. Most owners of USFL teams knew it was a bad idea and didn't want to move to the fall. Donald Trump and a couple of other owners had the bad idea to play in the fall.

There obviously would be a myriad of obstacles to overcome with moving to the spring, including the recruiting and academic calendar, uncertainty of bowl games for non-Power Five leagues, not participating in the new College Football Playoff and NFL draft preparation. Those leagues would also lose the tradition of playing in the fall. ----- Recruiting would still be the same. Scholarships are limited so kids who want to play in college will go somewhere. The academic calendar?....When did they start worrying about that.....Just ask a college baseball player who goes to the regional or CWS. Uncertainty of bowl games...Bowl games are going to become a relic of the past in a few years. Non participation in the college football playoff?....Funny, you aren't going to be allowed in before too long. Draft preparation?....Don't worry, NFL teams know who good players are and where they are without you deciding when you play your games. The tradition of playing in the fall?....Sort of like the tradition of playing college football on Saturday afternoon (Thanks for our four Tuesday/Wednesday night games this year jerks.).

"You make your own rules at that point," Jones told WDAE. "Football is the No. 1 sport on television right now and the advertisers want live programming. They don't want Hollywood shows because you can TiVo out the commercials. Live programming is a hot topic right now and I think there's a market for bigger numbers for the non-BCS teams." ---- I've said this I don't know how many times on this board. Can I get an Amen!

This article provides an example of the real threat to non-BCS schools. The treat is the enemy within...conference commissioners and Athletic Directors at non-BCS conferences who want to hold those jobs at BCS conferences so they will not rock the boat.

[GP1]

SMU's June Jones is a proponent of GP1's plan, but the 5 non-power commissioners are not interested

One other thing about the power commissioners. When TV executives from some of the new sports channels desperate for programming in the spring and early summer start to call on individual ADs around the country and show them the pile of money they have in their Brinks Truck, how fast will it take these moronic commissioners to sing a different tune?

[UA1987]

Does anyone else see the folly that the USFL is being used as an example of how this Spring plan would work? Did it work for the USFL (ah -no)? Not one person I've talked to is interested in this switch. I smell money for a select few in this situation (greed) corrupting this conversation. There's plenty to watch and do in the Spring and Summer without having a minor league college football conference playing on TV.

[ZippyRulz]

The NCAA won't allow it. The Power-5 conferences need the NP5 schools for filler home games in the fall.

[Dave in Green]

Does anyone else see the folly that the USFL is being used as an example of how this Spring plan would work? ...

It's certainly an awkward example. That's not to say that everything that fails the first time won't necessarily someday succeed. But the smart thing is to be wary of blissfully jumping into something that's failed before and has no guarantees to succeed the next time. Spring football is a big gamble with no guarantees of success. Under Coach Bowden the Zips are just starting to claw their way out of a dark era of failed football and finally starting to taste success and gain respectability. Odds are in favor of the Zips continuing to show increasing success in traditional fall football. It's highly risky to gamble on throwing that away in pursuit of an experiment that so far has only been proven to fail.

[GP1]

The USFL would have been a success if a couple of owners hadn't let their ego get in the way. Looking to the 1980s to predict a more modern world is silly. There are always knee jerk reactions to new ideas. It's all about supporting the building process with TV money. The big boys know it. Our leadership is too stupid to figure it out. Someone else will need to figure it out for them, meaning TV executives. If Jones said it, there are many, many more thinking it.

[Spin]

I see college football heading more and more toward a 32 team league, probably with paid players. Traditional bowl games will be gone. So will the conferences (seriously, does anyone really believe the Indianas and Kentuckys and Colorados are REALLY going to be allowed in just because they were in a legacy conference???). There's going to be mass realignment when those left out are going to finally look at geography and travel expenses when the big boys leave.

I think it's kind of fun thinking about a conference/division made up of Akron, Can't, Miami, Ohio, Cincinnati, Pittsburgh, West Virginia, Marshall, BG, and Toledo. Dang that would be fun, something Akron could grow into and one day seriously compete for the whole thing. Hell we might even play on cable systems other than TimeWarner

To the east there would be about 10 schools to make up another conference. To the west, a midwestern division amde up of the remnants of the B1G and MAC. I would guess tOSU, Michigan, NWern, Nebraska, and maybe Wisconsin of Penn State sucked up into the superleague.

That's how I see it playing out. The moral of the story is there are several ways this brave new world could work out, and none of them include Akron or any other MAC school being invited. If you're building for bowl games and the money schools lose at most of them,. and an invite to a legacy conference someday, that's all going to be gone.

What will be left are the real college football programs, without the professionalized "college" football programs. The real college programs are going to pick up a lot of fans turned off by the NFL's minor league.

If that's the scenario, a 32 team superleague (minor league NFL), then I don't see any reason to jump to spring football.

If they do keep the conferences intact, including the ragtag Illini and Demon Deacons, leaving the MAC, WAC, CUSA, and Mountain West, that would be a different story,..

[Dave in Green]

The USFL would have been a success if something hadn't gone wrong. History shows that something goes wrong with most new businesses, which is why most new businesses fail. Those who fail to learn from history are bound to repeat it. The knee jerk reaction that some have to something new is that it must be better because it's new. Spring football is not guaranteed success just because it's no longer the 1980s.

[GP1]

Those who fail to learn from history are bound to repeat it.

Since I've actually taken the time to do some research on the USFL, I have learned something. There was a major television network willing to throw a large sum of money at it in the 1980s, which tells me spring football is a viable product. It seems to be a lesson many conveniently ignore.

The USFL was not a failure and to classify it as such is intellectually lazy. The NFL lost a great deal of money in their early years. The Dixon Plan was written by the guy who brought the New Orleans Saints to NO and that plan even estimated years of financial losses for the USFL before making a profit. All sports leagues lost money early on. The USFL lost money, but the league was well funded and settling into upcoming markets that would have made it more financially stable. The league basically folded due to deviating from the Dixon Plan and owner disgust with other owners rather than for financial reasons. Not a single team ever filed for bankruptcy. It was only in business for 5 years and was becoming more financially stable. Given a few more years and more tv money, it could have easily survived.

Lastly, let's not pretend our football programs are a money maker for our schools at the MAClike level. Most are albatrosses around schools necks. This has been going on longer than five years. If the USFL lost $150 million in five years, my guess is MAClike schools lose at least that much over five years as well.

Like always, the only thing that could stop this from working is the enemy within and we know who they are.

[Dr Z]

Since I've actually taken the time to do some research on the USFL, I have learned something.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d85gq0tHwPk

[Dave in Green]

The USFL would have been a success if a couple of owners hadn't let their ego get in the way.

The USFL was not a failure and to classify it as such is intellectually lazy.

Pick A (it was not a success) or B (it was not a failure). You can't have it both ways.

I was around for the USFL. I attended USFL games because I got free tickets. Spring football was a gimmick, and I didn't miss it when it died. The USFL played 3 seasons in the spring/summer before giving up on that time of the year and planning a 4th season at the traditional football time in the fall. I read all about it when it actually happened, and different people gave different accounts. They still are because different people have different perspectives and everyone is pushing their version.

It really doesn't matter to me why the USFL ceased to be a viable business and folded its tent. The fact that it went out of business means that it was not a success but a failure. If TV wanted to put big money behind spring football all along, they've had nearly 30 years to use that money to lure someone to come up with some form of spring football to replace the USFL. Spring football is not a hot commodity.

[Spin]

The USFL did have teams go out of business. I remember specifically the San Antonion Gunslingers having their jerseys repossessed and they were sneaking into a high school training facility after dark to practice. Several teams had trouble making payroll.

But like you said, all start-up leagues have those issues. The NFL has lost something like 60 franchises maybe? Including Akron (the first champs), Canton, Portsmouth, Hammond, Rochester, Dayton, Muncie, Rock Island. The Chicago Bears started out as the Decatur Staleys. Green Bay was independant until the NFL's second year.

What killed the USFL (the same thing that kills most leagues, including the NHL almost) was rampant spending on player contracts. A couple owners decided to go into a bidding war for college grads and then NFL free agents. The same thing killed otehr leagues like the NASL, WFL, ABA, MISL-1, that and overexpansion killed the IHL (home of the Cleveland Lumberjacks). If you go back to the Federal League, it's killed leagues in every sport.

The decision to go to the fall was the last straw. Attendance was increasing in most markets, ratings were edging upward. But the attendace didn't jump with the player salaries. Some, like Donald, thought going head to head with the NFL would force a merger. it worked for the AFL, ABA, and WHA, right?

Wrong. They did win an anti-trust case against the NFL and was awarded $3.76.

[Captain Kangaroo]

If we played in the spring, then we'd also have a Blue-Gold Scrimmage in the fall?

Knowing us, we'd probably schedule it on a November, Tuesday night.

[Spin]

If we played in the spring, then we'd also have a Blue-Gold Scrimmage in the fall?

Knowing us, we'd probably schedule it on a November, Tuesday night.

Hmmmmm, then Freshmen could get in...

[LZIp]

How is the Rivals Professional football league doing?

[Spin]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d85gq0tHwPk

Good video. I missed it when it was out.

Funny watching the end zone celebrations, knowing the No Fun League has clamped down even more on them.

And after watching that, Trump is still a doush nozzel.

[GP1]

If we played in the spring, then we'd also have a Blue-Gold Scrimmage in the fall?

Knowing us, we'd probably schedule it on a November, Tuesday night.

Yes. They are planning a 24 hours of football so ESPN can promote itself. We will start our game at 2AM so the AD can put on his resume he added another nationally televised game to our football schedule.

[GP1]

What killed the USFL (the same thing that kills most leagues, including the NHL almost) was rampant spending on player contracts. A couple owners decided to go into a bidding war for college grads and then NFL free agents. The same thing killed otehr leagues like the NASL, WFL, ABA, MISL-1, that and overexpansion killed the IHL (home of the Cleveland Lumberjacks). If you go back to the Federal League, it's killed leagues in every sport.

The good thing about college football is the costs are fixed to the cost of a scholarship, which is only a cost on paper anyhow, some equipment and the staffs. Our staffs are wildly under paid compared to the rest of college football. The majority of their labor is free, which is why they push back so hard on giving player some type of stipend. The stipend cuts into their profit. Essentially, college football has a monopsony over the employees. Here is a blog spot on monopsony in college athletics. My biggest complaint with this blog spot is it refers to the NCAA and membership as separate. We need to get our country to understand there is no difference between the ncaa and the membership. It is one in the same.

In any school that has an athletic director that is against athlete-students making additional money somehow, those athlete-students should look and treat that AD as what it is, the enemy.

[GP1]

Pick A (it was not a success) or B (it was not a failure). You can't have it both ways.

The fact that it went out of business means that it was not a success but a failure. If TV wanted to put big money behind spring football all along, they've had nearly 30 years to use that money to lure someone to come up with some form of spring football to replace the USFL. Spring football is not a hot commodity.

I guess if someone limits their thinking to an either/or proposition, then either A or B are the only choices. It's sad. Jim Lovell, one of the Apollo astronauts, called Apollo 13 a "successful failure". My guess is he is a pretty smart guy.

Networks have experimented with football beyond the fall. The experimentation continues. Last night, there was a CFL game on ESPN2, not ESPN 6,000. Some years ago, ESPN gave up on the CFL and now they have brought it back (tea leaf alert, one must read them) as they claim there is a year round appetite for football in the US. I would claim there is a year round appetite for quality football and non-BCS provides that. Certainly much more than the CFL or the horrible MLS (people want quality soccer, not just soccer and US teams don't provide that....nice job against Manchester United. I wonder if chief US Soccer apologist Alexi Lalas could even apologize this one away?).

In the SPRING, ESPNU televises spring practices. Networks just haven't found the sweet spot yet, but they know the market is there. What TV executives do know is it is extremely cheap to put a live event on television, whether sport or some other event, compared to other types of programming. This is why our society becomes increasingly stupid with reality TV. College football fills up 3.5 hours of television time with a limited support staff paid much cheaper than what the same amount of "on air personalities" and support staff gets paid on other programming. Additionally, the financial risks for college athletics are limited because the majority of football players are not paid on anything other than paper and their support staff is limited. When costs overrun, which they always have in non-BCS sports, the costs are absorbed by the taxpayers of those institutions. I don't even want to think about what college football has cost American taxpayers over the past 50 years.

The USFL provides an interesting case study, but much has changed in the US since the 80 and there is a big difference in the dynamics between college and pro football. There has been a 12% increase in American claiming football to be their favorite sport since 1985 and it continues to become more popular. The USFL was a private business and college football is a taxpayer supported business so there is limited financial risk. Quite honestly, the financial risk MAClike schools have right now should scare the heck out of a fan of those schools. It worries me. The BCS guys are about to take all of the money and run with us holding nothing but our wieners in our hands. Now is the time to get in front of this in lieu of always following behind like MAClike schools do.

[Dave in Green]

GP1, I really don't care whether or not there's some form of spring football. It's easy enough for people like me to ignore it as a gimmick while people like you who can't get enough football in season try to fill more of your year with it. The only thing I object to is moving Zips football from the fall to the spring. I'm a season ticket holder and look forward to Zips football every fall. I'd be much less likely to attend Zips football games in the spring, and will continue to voice my opposition to such a move.

To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven. Fall is the season and time for football.

[zen]

Spring football would need to be in the majority of media markets for it to gain credibility with casual football fans.

A guy in St.Louis is going to scoff at a Spring football league just as hard as a guy in New York would, if the only teams in the 8 team league were Philadelphia, Pheonix, Miami, Portland, Mobile, Traverse City, Parkersburg, and Ogden. heh.
The appeal of the NFL is that it's got a history behind teams that people in just about any market can appreciate. You can't build up to that unless you start something that is manageably solvent for many years (which is what I think the point of the Dixon plan), or better yet, you get commitment from investors in many major markets.

I would watch spring football. In fact, it would great if their playoffs and championship were occurring right now.
It's weeks before the first pre-season game, and yet at lunch ESPN was going solid on NFL topics. I don't want to hear 24/7 NFL junk right now when I have to wait 6 weeks for some action.

[GP1]

Spring football would need to be in the majority of media markets for it to gain credibility with casual football fans.

I would watch spring football. In fact, it would great if their playoffs and championship were occurring right now.

It's weeks before the first pre-season game, and yet at lunch ESPN was going solid on NFL topics. I don't want to hear 24/7 NFL junk right now when I have to wait 6 weeks for some action.

Google non-BCS schools and look at the maps. You might be pleasantly surprised how close they are to major cities. The Pacific NW would be the biggest challenge, but not everything can be perfect. This isn't really about attendance. If it was, MAClike schools would have gone under long ago. Taxpayers are more than willing to pay for their state universities to have football programs. It's really about meaningful television coverage and television rights ($).

As much as I love football, a break would be a good thing. I don't watch football even when it is on every day in the fall. Give me one between the Super Bowl and the week after the NCAA Final Four. Give me another between Independence Day when my college national championship would be played and Week 1 of the NFL.