Springtime Pro Football: Only for Football Board Games?

Many of us in our hobby (myself included) are fans of alternative pro football leagues. There's a sense of excitement out there among fans eager to embrace a new brand of professional football, either because they can't get enough of it during the six months that the NFL season lasts, or they're weary of the established league and are yearning for something new to root for, "for the love of football," or similar.

But it's been a rough couple of years for alternative pro football. After much hub-bub, the 2019 AAF flopped quickly. (We finished the season for them on our YouTube channel!). And, after a promising start, the 2020 XFL was done in by COVID.

Even so, the allure of spring football endures. We have the "new" United States Football League, which is planning to hit the field in the spring. Then, in 2023, a second re-boot of the XFL directed by Dwayne The Rock Johnson and his ex-wife Dany Garcia. These two upstart leagues, USFL and XFL, are providing hope for alt-football fans everywhere.

And, frankly, I'm kind of getting weary of the whole thing. Maybe spring football is something that's only going to happen on a sports simulation gamer's tabletop.

Let's start with the new USFL. With a new spring football season starting in, what, 90 days? You'd think we'd have daily news flashes--coach and player signings, team try-outs, uniforms and logos revealed, schedules announced, rule book reviews and highlights, and so on. But we're seeing none of that. Instead, there are scattered, mostly local news reports about the league headquartering in Birmingham, Alabama. Reportedly, all the league's games will be played there--if they're played at all, which judging by the tenor of the news reports, is not all that certain. The USFL launched its online shop a couple weeks ago--take a look, it speaks volumes about the level of professionalism for which this league appears to be aiming.

I suspect the next announcement we hear from the USFL will be that players without NFL training camp experience will have to pay out of their own pocket to participate. In other words, this is going to be a re-branded version of The Spring League, which executed exactly that format. To that league's credit, they did complete the season and got a modest level of screen viewership from die-hard football fans. But come on. To call this "professional football" is a stretch. Certainly not to the level of the original USFL, which made a bona-fide effort to be a REAL alternative to the NFL, with rosters graced by a number of players who are now in the pro football Hall of Fame.

I have a little more optimism with the XFL, having just read that they've hired a league president (former Buffalo Bills CEO Russ Brandon) and an executive team. There's a new photo of Dany Garcia holding an XFL football. It would seem that stuff is happening. But IS it?

When The Rock and his ex-wife bought the XFL in 2020 (for $15 million), they talked about how important it was to not lose the momentum gained by the COVID-canceled season, and a spring 2021 re-entry was planned. Then that changed to a "let's be smart and do this right" mantra, delaying the re-launch until 2022. After that came the talks with the Canadian Football League, which created a lot of buzz but no results. Now they're talking about a 2023 start date. Every six weeks or so, we've gotten a "tease" from one or both of the XFL honchos posted to social media and rapidly re-tweeted or re-posted. A couple of weeks ago, it was "high-level league meetings in New York City!" But the specifics are always vague.

Here's what I think: Both The Rock and Dany Garcia are SMART people. I'm beginning to believe that their primary purpose for purchasing the XFL was as a means to advance their own brands to football fans. For example, in the aforementioned social media post about the league meetings, there was The Rock on his private jet, smiling, pen in hand, heading to New York. Prominently positioned on his tray table? A can of ZOA energy drink, for which he is the celebrity pitch man. Fact is, alternative/spring football fans--and there are at least a couple dozen million of them--are now perking up their ears every time The Rock speaks. What a great platform for him, and a bargain at $15 million. I wonder how big the ZOA sales bump was, after that tweet. Sorry, I'm being cynical again.

Even if the XFL does take the field in 2023 (even money, though, that they don't), what will it look like? What kind of football will it be? I think it's an important question.

We can look back at the various alternative spring football leagues of the past 40 years (USFL, WLAF, XFL 1.0 and 2.0, AAF) and if we're smart about it, we can learn a few things. Here's what fans want in a spring time pro football league: high-quality play with at least some contingent of recognizable, pro-level players and coaches; interesting rules innovations; colorful, exciting branding; consistent, easily-accessed, quality TV coverage. Here's what they don't want: minor league football, done on the cheap, presented as a "feeder league" to the NFL. Unfortunately, I have a feeling that The Rock is going to give us less of the former and more of the latter. In other words, another spring football league that we don't want.

So, where does that leave alternative football fans? Is there ANY hope for a legitimately professional spring football league?

I think there are two possible paths forward that have the potential to capture a slice of the NFL's pie with a solid business model. (And a solid business model is one ting that I think pretty much every alternative football league, save for the original USFL, has failed to have.) One path could, I think, reasonably be put together and up and running within a year, with an excellent chance of long-term success. The other path is further "out there," but could create cultural earthquake like professional sports has never seen.

I'll outline these two paths, and offer a tabletop football presentation of one of them in an upcoming blog post! To be continued!