Lockout!

Well MLB has entered lockout mode.  The League says that the union has never wavered from its original positions demonstrating an unwillingness to bargain for a new CBA.  The Union says that the league wants the players to relinquish currently held rights and benefits.  And the beat goes on…  As is always the case, this confrontation is about money first, money second and everything else after that.  Here is how all this boils down:

• MLB is a business enterprise that generates approximately $10B per year in revenues.
• MLBPA wants a greater fraction of that money to flow to its members.

Until that gulf is bridged, this lockout will continue and according to reports that means:

• No free agent signings
• No trades
• No Rule 5 Draft
• No arbitration figures exchanged ergo, no arbitration hearings
• No players allowed in team facilities
• No Spring Training
• No start of the regular season on time
• …

There will be crafted messaging from both sides of this matter over the next days/weeks/months; try not to take them literally and do not believe that either side will be expressing the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth in their messaging.

Next up …  The USFL will come back from the dead and begin play again in April 2022.  Initially, this will be an 8-team league with franchise names that will be familiar to football fans who were around in the mid-1980s when the original USFL was alive and well.  Folks may not remember the fortunes of and many of the players for teams like the Philadelphia Stars or the Tampa Bay Bandits or the New Jersey Generals, but they should recall the team names.

There is an interesting planning aspect for the first season of the USFL’s relaunch that I do not fully understand.  The league will play all its games in Birmingham, AL; there are 8 teams, and the season will be 10 games long so that means 40 games will take place there.

The league plans to put on games on Saturdays and Sundays in the Spring; that means there will need to be multiple game venues in the Birmingham area to stage these games.  I have never been to Birmingham so I am abjectly ignorant as to the football facilities there, but I wonder if some of the game venues will be held in the moral equivalent of a high school football field.  We shall see…

Another aspect of putting all the games on in Birmingham confuses me.  The idea would be to have some or all of the USFL teams play their 2023 home games in the cities that match the team names.  That makes a lot of sense – – but how are fans in those cities supposed to develop a meaningful attachment to a team that never plays “at home” in 2022?

The USFL has a “broadcast partner” in FOX.  In fact, two folks who are prominent in FOX football telecasts – – “Moose” Johnston and Mike Pereira – – have positions in the USFL league office.  [Aside:  Johnston has been involved in Front Office duties with teams in the AAF and XFL 2.0 in the past.]  From the outside, it seems that the folks at FOX and FOX Sports may be more than merely “broadcast partners”.

There has been a recent blossoming of “Spring Football Leagues” in the US.  Two years ago, the AAF launched and folded its operations about halfway through the season.  Last year we saw the XFL come back from the dead only to cease operations after a few weeks thanks to COVID-19.  Interestingly, XFL 2.0 as a business entity still exists; it was purchased at auction by a consortium led by Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson; and if you believe the statements coming from whatever exists as a management structure there, XFL 3.0 will start up in 2023.

The original USFL had a practice that increased its local popularity and one that has not been replicated in any of the other Spring Leagues that I am aware of.  Back in the 1980s, the USFL had a territorial aspect to its player draft; that let various teams seed their roster with players that local fans already had some familiarity with.  Obviously, the league cannot make the draft entirely territorial; that would give teams in Alabama, Florida, Texas and Michigan a significant advantage over a team in Northern New Jersey.  However, the idea of seeding the Michigan Panthers’ roster with a couple of players from Michigan and/or Michigan State is a good promotional idea to assemble a fanbase.  I have not read any report that the relaunched USFL will do the same thing.

From a promotional standpoint, the USFL should try to entice Steve Spurrier to return to the USFL and coach the Tampa Bay Bandits as he did back in the 1980s.  Spurrier is a colorful and charismatic guy who will draw attention to the league; in the early days of a relaunched USFL, public attention is a very good thing.  The barrier here is that Spurrier is now 76 years old and may not want to reassume his public persona as “The Ol’ Ball Coach” – – but if he is willing…

One of the team names in the USFL next spring will be the New Orleans Breakers.  I think that is a bad team name.  The last time New Orleans experienced “breakers” was when Hurricane Katrina did a number on the city.  There are so many other images one can associate with New Orleans; is coastal flooding the one you want for your new league?

Finally, Dwight Perry had this observation in the Seattle Times regarding new revenue streams opening in the sports world:

• “The Washington Capitals became the first NHL team to sell advertising on their jerseys, and now the door is wide open:
• Molson Canadiens?
• STP Oilers?
• Bud Light Sabres?”

But don’t get me wrong, I love sports………