Football (North America: NFL, CFL, Arena Football, minor leagues)

[apeman33]

Memphis tried for decades to get its own team. Then the whole fiasco with the Tennessee Oilers/Titans plan to camp out there for two years soured things (and forced the Oilers/Titans to go ahead and move the rest of the way to Nashville a year early and play at Vanderbilt's stadium).

Columbus is all about Ohio State and the NFL wouldn't allow it with the Brown and Bengals both in the state.

Portland would have to build a stadium and it just got through converting the old facility to a soccer-specific stadium for the Timbers, which ended up forcing the minor-league baseball team to move.

San Antonio, see my post above. Sacramento would have similar issues with the Raiders and perhaps the 49ers.

Of the three remaining, I'd think Omaha would be the only one that could pull it off. But it's not just about the size of the city, it's the size of the market. El Paso as a city is fairly large. As a TV market, it's smaller than Green Bay. (Green Bay is market No. 70 and also has a boost from Milwaukee. El Paso is No. 91). It's also a smaller TV market than Wichita, Flint, Springfield, Mo., Portland, Me., Cape Girardeau-Paducah and Colorado Springs, to name only a few (Omaha is No. 74, four spots below Green Bay).

There aren't many places left for major league sports to go. Once Los Angeles gets an NFL team (or two), where does another team threaten to move to? Oklahoma City and maybe Birmingham? That's where the talk of putting a team in London comes from. The U.S. is pretty much filled up.

[DeaconG]

The Tampa Bay Bucs just unveiled their new unis to complement their new (well, revamped) helmets:

http://nfl.si.com/2014/03/03/new-tampa-bay-buccaneers-uniforms/?eref=sihp

Ok, I can sort of get into the unis for the most part (the addition of the orange as a shout-out to their first unis was nice) but those NUMERALS...NONONONO!!!

CLOCK LED NUMERALS??????

Oh, hell no...

[jbnv]

Yuck. Apparently someone forgot to tell them the XFL folded a decade ago.

[Big John]

MLS teams had the LED numerals until they changed the font last year.

[1995hoo]

Regarding the NFL talk above, San Antonio doesn't exactly have the most outstanding pro football history. The Gunslingers were a disaster, but then the USFL deserves some blame for putting a team there when all their analysts' reports emphatically stated San Antonio could not support a professional football team. The WLAF's Riders didn't draw well either, though part of that was due to the stadium they played in for their first season not allowing beer sales, with the result being they played their second and final season at a stadium 45 miles outside the city. Two years later, the CFL's Sacramento Gold Miners moved to San Antonio and became the Texans, playing at the Alamodome (unique in that it fit the full CFL-sized field with no adaptations). The Texans drew reasonably well in their lone season, but after that year the CFL terminated all the US franchises except for the Baltimore Stallions, who moved to Montreal.

In fairness, those teams all played 20 to 30 years ago in what most Americans considered to be "minor leagues," and there's no question San Antonio has grown a lot since then. The biggest issue they'd face would be the territorial issue with the Dallas and Houston franchises.

[jbnv]

You forgot the 2005 season, when the Saints played in San Antonio following Hurricane Katrina. Before Katrina, one popular rumor was that Tom Benson would move the Saints to San Antonio if the state failed to properly kiss his posterior.

[1995hoo]

I didn't forget. I didn't list them because they weren't a true San Antonio team, that's all.

[DeaconG]

And the NFL free agency free-for-all has begun!

[Stephane Dumas]

I spotted that article from April 2013 from the Chicago Tribute about the death of American football
http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2013-04-24/news/ct-met-kass-0424-20130424_1_future-football-players-nfl-draft-the-nfl

With all that college beef on parade this week, the NFL draft is a wonder of sports marketing, a televised pageant for the multibillion-dollar American football industry.

But there's something football fans should know:

Football is dead in America.

Even through all the chatter and cheerleading and media hype, football as an American cultural institution lies in final spasm. It's as dead as the Marlboro Man.

And if the professional game survives at all, it will be relegated to the pile of trash sports, like mixed martial arts or whatever is done in third-rate arenas with monster trucks and mud. It won't be as American as apple pie. Instead, football will become the province of people with face tattoos.

Lawyers are circling football now. For years they've had their wings locked, cruising overhead, but lately they've swooped in low, landing and hopping over to take chunks out of the great billion-dollar beast.

But it's not the lawyers who are the death of football. Blaming lawyers misses the point. Like their counterparts in nature, lawyers are merely the cleanup crew. What finishes football are the parents of future football players.

And now, Mark Cuban, current owner of the Dallas Mavericks of the NBA predicts a NFL implosion in 10 years.
http://www.latimes.com/sports/sportsnow/la-sp-sn-mark-cuban-nfl-implosion-20140324,0,4490962.story#ixzz2wuX9LlKx
Edit: interesting to read some reactions posted by various fans on ESPN http://espn.go.com/dallas/nba/story/_/id/10662203/dallas-mavericks-owner-mark-cuban-says-greedy-nfl-10-years-away-implosion

Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban knows what it takes to run a successful business.

Apparently the billionaire also knows a bit about farm animals.

At least that's the analogy he kept falling back on Sunday night when predicting the eventual downfall of another professional sports league.

"I think the NFL is 10 years away from an implosion," Cuban told reporters before the Mavericks' game against the Brooklyn Nets. "I'm just telling you, pigs get fat, hogs get slaughtered. And they're getting hoggy. Just watch. Pigs get fat, hogs get slaughtered. When you try to take it too far, people turn the other way.

"I'm just telling you, when you've got a good thing and you get greedy, it always, always, always, always, always turns on you. That's rule No. 1 of business."

[Henry]

There aren't many places left for major league sports to go. Once Los Angeles gets an NFL team (or two), where does another team threaten to move to? Oklahoma City and maybe Birmingham? That's where the talk of putting a team in London comes from. The U.S. is pretty much filled up.

I could see OKC as a possibility (what with the success of the NBA there, even if it had to be a team that once belonged to Seattle), but Birmingham would have an issue, seeing that the Falcons and Titans are the closest two teams to it.

[Stephane Dumas]

I dust-off this topic. In the CFL, the Ottawa Redblacks (aka Rouge & Noir in French) won the East division championship and will go against the Edmonton Eskimos.  Interesting to note then it's the 1st time since 1981 since CFL teams from Edmonton and Ottawa meet. http://news.nationalpost.com/sports/cfl/ottawa-redblacks-advance-to-grey-cup-with-stunning-late-touchdown-pass

The Redblacks replaced the short-lived Renegades (2002-05) who themselves tried to fit the void left by the departure of the Rough Riders in 1996. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ottawa_Redblacks 

I think lots of folks will cheer for Ottawa due to their image of underdogs.

[texaskdog]

Pretty cool for Ottawa to make it in only their 2nd year.

[Stephane Dumas]

The Eskimos won the Grey Cup......I hope Ottawa will be back next year.

[Stephane Dumas]

After the "deflategate", here comes the "hormonegate" with suspicions then Peyton Manning had received human growth hormone (HGH) from an Indianapolis-area clinic in 2011. http://www.tsn.ca/manning-calls-hgh-allegations-complete-garbage-1.414348

[texaskdog]

Anyone hear about the MLFB?  Think they will make it?

[Buck87]

Anyone hear about the MLFB?  Think they will make it?

I hadn't until you posted this, but after reading up on it a bit I think it's an interesting idea and I hope they can make it work.

Supposedly they are going to start this spring, but they haven't even announced the 8 franchise cities yet (although their website says they're "getting closer" to announcing them)

[Pete from Boston]

Huh.  Is this at all related to the New USFL?

[Buck87]

Huh.  Is this at all related to the New USFL?

No, looks like it's a similar idea that's likely going to beat the New USLF to the punch (I see that the NUSFL organization has been around for years but keeps pushing back their projected start date)

Here's a video of the MLFB President giving a speech to a group of prospective players:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PGkGLMy-kFQ

[Stephane Dumas]

I saw this article from the USA Today about College Football playoffs ratings.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/ncaaf/2016/01/01/tv-ratings-for-college-football-playoff-down-36-percent/78178798/

[triplemultiplex]

^^
Of course, those games were boring blowouts.  I can't imagine anyone bothering to stick around for the second half when one team is up 3 touchdowns.

[texaskdog]

^^
Of course, those games were boring blowouts.  I can't imagine anyone bothering to stick around for the second half when one team is up 3 touchdowns.

Or 4, like TCU

[mgk920]

^^
Of course, those games were boring blowouts.  I can't imagine anyone bothering to stick around for the second half when one team is up 3 touchdowns.

They were also on a day when sports are not first on most peoples' minds.

Mike

[Stephane Dumas]

Another possible reason of a curse toward the Buffalo Bills: "Cigarette Man" from the X-Files who said as long as he's alive, the Bills will never win the Super Bowl.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Dh2lkzkPnY

[Buck87]

So in the NFL final 4 we have...

- one team whose geographical name is that of a city
- one team whose geographical name is that of state
- one team whose geographical name is that of a two state area
- one team whose geographical name is that of a six state area

[TravelingBethelite]

-?
-?
-Carolina Panthers
-New England Patriots (     )

What are the ?