Waldo
06-25-2007, 03:13 PM
Go Matt, make us all proud this year.
http://forums.scout.com/mb.aspx?S=112#S=112&F=1786&T=655740
sackman
06-25-2007, 04:02 PM
The story mentioned that there are rumors that this may be the last year for the league. I hope that's not the case.
Waldo
06-25-2007, 04:14 PM
The story mentioned that there are rumors that this may be the last year for the league. I hope that's not the case.
Does Mark Cuban have an inside track for his new league? Monopolies on pro-sports are hard to break.
sackman
06-25-2007, 04:35 PM
Does Mark Cuban have an inside track for his new league? Monopolies on pro-sports are hard to break.
Monopolies in pro sports are nearly impossible to break. I can only think of a few times it's happened. The AFL went into cities that weren't served by the NFL and was able to carve out a niche that they eventually parlayed into full inclusion in the NFL. Of course, if the Jets hadn't beaten the Colts in SB3, there may have never been a merger at all.
The old ABA did much the same thing, but not all of the teams from the ABA made it into the NBA. Denver, San Antonio, Indianapolis and the Nets were the only ones if I remember correctly.
The moral of the story is that if you want to break a pro-sports monopoly, you need to find 8-10 large cities that are not served by a local franchise. Oh, and they need the facilities, too. In this country, all we have is Los Angeles, Orlando, Memphis, Oklahoma City and Las Vegas as potential pro-football cities. Each of those cities would be a difficult place for a "competing" league to survive. LA because unless their teams are winning, their fans are awful. Orlando because there are three other NFL teams already in the state, plus the defending national college champion is about a 30 minute drive North. Las Vegas doesn't have a good facility, Memphis is too close to Nashville, St. Louis and New Orleans, all of which already have teams, and OKC is too close to Dallas.