The calendar has just turned

to March.  For much of America, spring is

just around the corner.

For those of us living in the deep South, signs of the season are here as the weeds are in full bloom.  The tree pollen is sprouting and is getting thick enough to change the color of my dark blue car to green. 

Yes, it’s officially wheezing and sneezing season!

It is also time to start thinking about college basketball and the NCAA March Madness men’s college basketball tournament.  Let’s take a look at the college basketball landscape as the ball dribbles down the home stretch of the season:

* The traditional blue bloods are still looking good.  Kansas is currently #1 and is loaded with talent.  The current #2 team is Gonzaga.  Could this finally be the year for the Zags?  Also in the hunt are #6 Kentucky, #12 Duke, # 14 Villanova, and #16 Michigan State.  * But who are these guys?  On the other hand, would anyone have thought that teams #3, 4, and 5 would be the Dayton Flyers, Baylor Bears, and San Diego State?  Me, either.* What about last year’s champion?  Virginia is lurking at #22 this week and has been on a late-season winning streak.  UVa’s suffocating defense makes for low-scoring games and gives them a chance to win every game remaining.* Don’t believe the media hype!  There are far too many (eight!) Big Ten teams in the AP Top 25 right now (#9 Maryland, #16 Michigan State, #18 Iowa, #19 Ohio State, #20 Penn State, #23 Illinois, #24 Wisconsin, and #25 Michigan).  Compare that with perennial contenders from the Atlantic Coast Conference.  Only four ACC teams are currently ranked (#7 Florida State, #10 Louisville, #12 Duke, and #22 Virginia).  More on that in a moment.* Don’t forget these mighty mites!  Lurking outside of the AP Top 25 are small school vote-getters like Butler (20-9), Stephen F. Austin (27-3), East Tennessee State (27-4), Northern Iowa (25-5), New Mexico State (24-6), St. Mary’s (24-7), Vermont (24-7) and Belmont (24-7).* Whatever happened to…?  The University of North Carolina!  The once-mighty Tar Heels are mired in last place in the ACC with an overall record of 13-17.  The Heels have only missed the NCAA Tournament just once in the past ten years.  Roy Williams’ team has lost more than its share of close games this season.  Despite years of success, there are more and more fans calling for the 69-year old coach to step aside.  Good grief.

As we prepare for that annual ritual called the March Madness bracket challenge coming in the next few weeks, I took a look back at the last twenty years of NCAA men’s basketball champions.  It is quite instructive to review this list a little closer before you make your annual charitable donation at work.

As they say, stats don’t lie.

If you want to pick a winner,

the “average” NCAA March Madness winner was ranked as a #1 seed 14 out of 20

years (70%).  There have been two #2

seeds win it all, three #3 seeds, and one #6 seed become champions.

Since you have to win six straight

post-season games in the NCAA tournament to win the title, the average winning

team has already posted an average of 28 wins before tipping off in Game

#1.  The average winning team lost only 5

games during the season (a low of two with a high of nine). 

Suggestion – do NOT pick a

team with ten or more losses heading into the NCAA tournament to win it all.  Based on our 20-year historical review, I

would avoid selecting Big Ten teams such as Iowa (20-10), Wisconsin (19-10),

Tony Romo continues to lead a charmed existence.  

The former Dallas Cowboys quarterback-turned-CBS Football analyst just signed a new contract to continue in the booth with Jim Nantz for a whopping $17 million per year.

$17 million per year to talk

about NFL football is nearly double the average pay he received as quarterback

of the Cowboys while ducking 300-pound linemen trying to take him down every

play.

Nice job, Tony!

He seems to be the ultimate “right place, right time” guy.  Coming out of high school in Wisconsin, Tony Romo made the all-state team and also played basketball, golf, and tennis.  Though he wasn’t a highly recruited college quarterback, Romo signed to play with Eastern Illinois University (Division 1-AA – now the FCS division).  

Tony Romo’s career at Eastern

Illinois saw him set several school and conference passing records.  He was the Ohio Valley Conference player of

the year three times at Eastern Illinois.

Despite such great success in

college, Romo wasn’t drafted by a single NFL team in 2003.

However, his football career

at Eastern Illinois was noticed by another well-known graduate of the same school,

Sean Payton.  At the time, Payton (who is

currently the head coach in New Orleans) was the quarterback coach for the

Dallas Cowboys.   Sean Payton brought

Romo into training camp, and Romo signed a free agent contract (for $225,000

annually) with the Dallas Cowboys. 

How’s that for good timing?  Wait, it gets better.

In Romo’s first season in

Dallas, he earned the third string spot behind two other less-than-stellar NFL quarterbacks.  With apologies to Cowboys fans, Quincy Carter

(who was later kicked out of the NFL for recurring drug problems) and a former

professional baseball player, Chad Hutchinson (who had a 2-7 record as an NFL

starter) were the two quarterbacks in Tony Romo’s way to the top. 

Tony Romo quickly progressed

up the ladder and grabbed the Dallas Cowboys’ starting quarterback job in just

a couple of years.  He played his entire

career for Dallas and earned NFL All-Pro honors four times. 

Unfortunately for Dallas

Cowboys fans, the Romo years were filled with several winning seasons but

without a return to the Super Bowl, either. 

By the time he retired from

the Cowboys at age 37 after the 2016 season, Romo’s final contract with the

Dallas Cowboys had climbed to $18 million per season. 

Tony Romo has always been a

hit with the ladies, too.  He had dated high

profile Jessica Simpson.  During that

time, Cowboys fans called her “Yoko Romo” as Tony’s on-field performance fell

off.  He married Candace Crawford (a

former Miss Missouri winner) in 2010, and the couple now has three sons.

The likeable Romo was offered a contract (valued at $4 million per year) to join CBS’s Jim Nantz in the booth beginning in 2017 as the color analyst for NFL football games on the network.  With his recent NFL knowledge of the game, Romo gained immediate recognition for his ability to predict key plays which were being run by teams on the field.

Jim Nantz had previously been paired with another former NFL quarterback, Phil Simms, for nearly 20 years.  Simms, still under contract to CBS,

John Beilein was a successful head basketball coach for his entire career. 

He won more games than he

lost at every stop along the way – until his last job.  After four years at the junior college level

in Erie, PA, John Beilein moved on to become the head basketball coach at traditional

four year schools like Nazareth (1 year), LeMoyne (9), Canisius (5), Richmond

(5), West Virginia (5), and the University of Michigan (12).

In his final two seasons as the head coach for the Michigan Wolverines, the likeable 66-year old coach tallied 33 and 30 wins.  His Michigan teams made the NCAA tournament field eight times during his stay with two teams reaching the final game (finishing second twice). 

His overall record as a college basketball head coach was a sterling 754-425 (.640). 

So, why would this lifelong teacher of basketball to young men decide to try his hand coaching the overpaid superegos of the NBA’s Cleveland Cavaliers?

Perhaps it was money.  Beilein’s paycheck at Michigan called for him

to earn $3.8 million per season for coaching college student athletes.   Reports were that the NBA’s Cleveland Cavs

deal paid him about $6 million per season beginning this year.

As it turned out, his big

payday job just ended, too.

Last week saw the latest successful

college sports coach, John Beilein, resign as the head basketball coach of the NBA’s

Cleveland Cavaliers.

As you might guess, Coach

Beilein’s Cleveland team was pretty bad – even by NBA Eastern Conference

standards. 

When the coach quit last

week, Cleveland’s record was a putrid 14-40. 

By the NBA’s All-Star break during his first season as a professional

basketball coach, John Beilein had already lost more games than during his last

three seasons (39) at the University of Michigan. 

How do you explain what

happened to a man who never had a losing

program as a college basketball coach?

Let’s first mention the one

thing that the sports media has been tossing about recently.  In a recent film session with his Cleveland

Cavaliers NBA team, the coach apparently said that his team wasn’t hustling

enough.  The team believes that the coach

called them “thugs”, while the seasoned coach said he thought he said, “slugs”. 

Either way, the NBA team in

Cleveland had lost plenty of games before this recent issue became the latest excuse

for this putrid NBA team.

There are many reasons why

only a few successful college basketball coaches have tried their hand at the

NBA and succeeded. 

The NBA “crash and burn college coaches” list is quite long.  Iowa State’s Fred Hoiberg (Chicago Bulls), Kentucky’s John Calipari (NY Knicks), former Louisville coach Rick Pitino (Boston Celtics), New Mexico State’s Reggie Theus (Sacramento Kings), Illinois’s coach Lon Kruger (Atlanta Hawks), Stanford’s Mike Montgomery (Golden State Warriors), and the University of Miami’s Leonard Hamilton (Washington Wizards). 

Even UNLV’s Hall-of-Fame coach

Jerry “The Shark” Tarkanian (San Antonio) made it through just 20 games as an

NBA coach before getting fired.

One of the NBA’s best guards (C.J. McCollum of the Portland Trail Blazers) voiced his thoughts as to why John Beilein’s tenure with Cleveland was likely doomed from the start:

It’s almost here!  The annual race to the finish line in college basketball is coming soon as the NCAA “March Madness” basketball tournaments (men and women) will select the field in the coming weeks.

Prior to the field being set,

college basketball’s landscape of conferences will enter into their annual

tournaments, too.

For a large conference like

the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC), Southeastern Conference (SEC), or Big 12,

there’s no doubt that some college basketball teams will improve their

likelihood of getting into the Big Dance by a late burst.

These are the so-called

“Bubble Teams”. 

At this writing, they currently include a faltering LSU Tigers (18-8), Oklahoma (16-10), and Texas Tech (16-9).  A small committee of basketball gurus, coaches and administrators will convene over the final weekend of conference tournaments to determine which teams will get “at-large” bids to play in the tournament.

All 32 basketball conferences (including those which feature less-known schools like the Summit League or Southland Conference, for example) are awarded at least one spot in the March Madness basketball field.

Since college basketball began back in November, college basketball teams have competed playing their non-conference games and will soon conclude their remaining conference schedules.

With half of the field of 64 teams (actually, it’s now 68 teams with the four schools participating in two so-called “play-in” games in Dayton, Ohio) coming from each of these basketball conferences, it’s very important for the smallest conferences to send their very best team into the NCAA tournament in order to have a chance to win on the biggest stage.

For the regular season conference champions of a conference, they may receive a first-round or second round bye in their season-ending basketball tournament.  The team will still, though, need to dispatch at least two of their conference foes one final time in order to gain the conference’s automatic bid to the NCAA March Madness field.

Unfortunately, the regular

season conference champion doesn’t always win this season ending basketball

tournament.  When that happens, the

regular season champion is often left out of the NCAA’s field of teams.

The regular season champion’s so-called “strength of schedule” will be used (in part) by the NCAA’s committee to determine whether the regular season champs (who just lost in their conference tournament) will still make the field.

Unfortunately, the truth is that most of the smaller basketball conferences will get one and only one bid to the Big Dance. 

Why would these conferences waste four months of basketball competition just to (possibly) send another of its teams which happened to get “hot” enough to win the season-ending conference basketball tournament into the NCAA’s field of 64? 

Money, of course.

Just like the incredible

number of relatively meaningless college football bowl games, these conference

basketball tournament games are now shown on television.  ESPN loves to televise these conference championship

games to the nation.

The smaller basketball conferences reap a shining moment of “exposure” with a single televised game at the end of February or early March. 

It certainly makes for better

theatrics (and ratings) to show a competitive conference championship game with

excited fans in the stands pulling for one of these two teams as they slug it

Mary Katherine  “Mickey” Wright passed away Monday at the age of 85.   Most people who follow sports probably do not know very much about this pioneer of women’s professional golf.

It’s not a stretch to suggest that Mickey Wright was the ladies’ version of Jack Nicklaus.  She absolutely dominated the field nearly every time she teed-off in a professional golf tournament.

Betsy Rawls, a 55-time LPGA winner, said, “Mickey’s shots were something to behold.  She was the longest hitter of her era, but it was more the character of her shots that separated her from the rest. Her shots were always high, with tremendous carry.  She contacted the ball at precisely the right point in the arc of the swing and with such clubhead speed that no shot was impossible for her.” 

Sounds a lot like how Jack

Nicklaus played men’s golf, doesn’t it?

Despite retiring from professional golf at the youthful age of 34, Mickey Wright is still the second-leading winner in the history of the Ladies Professional Golf Association.  She won an amazing 82 times on the LPGA Tour – primarily during the 1950’s and 1960’s. 

Mickey Wright also won 13

major golf tournaments – including a record four U.S. Opens.

Patty Berg won 15 majors during the 30’s, 40’s, and 50’s.  Annika Sorenstam is holding onto third place with ten major victories in her stellar golf career. 

I was fortunate enough to see

Mickey Wright play golf in person at the Shreveport Kiwanis Club Invitational

held at Palmetto Country Club in the late 1960’s.  My Dad, who wasn’t a golfer, knew how much I

liked playing golf, so he took me to walk the course for Sunday’s final

round. 

It was amazing to see how far

this 5’9” ladies golfer could drive a golf ball.  Mickey Wright routinely drove the golf ball well

over 250 yards (at a time when 225 yards was considered the tour average for

women), but she was also deadly with an iron in her hands going for the greens.    

In other words, Mickey Wright

was a factor to win nearly every LPGA event she entered. 

Born in southern California, her

father (Arthur) recognized Mickey’s interest in golf at age 11 and took his daughter

to lessons with local golf professional Johnny Bellante. 

One of his first lessons was

to break

off a limb of a eucalyptus tree.  He

handed it to Mickey and said, “Make this

branch sing!”

She

recalled, “To make a loud noise when I

swished the branch through the air, I had to apply as much speed as I could,

smooth but forceful. What a wonderful first lesson that was. It taught me the

sensation of swinging through the golf ball, not at it.”

Men’s golf legend Ben Hogan, whose swing is beloved by many for its efficient, repeating beauty, said, Mickey Wright “had the finest golf swing I ever saw.”

Mickey

Wright went to Stanford University for one year and then left school to join

the fledgling LPGA tour (which began in 1950) in 1955 at age 20.  

She

won at least one golf tournament every season for 14 years from 1956-1969.    

During

a four-year stretch beginning from 1961-1964, Mickey Wright won an incredible

44 times (including 8 major championships) on th...

The Houston Astros will be facing very hostile crowds in every ballpark they visit in 2020 after this week’s less-than-stellar “apology” press conference session.

As you recall, the Astros recently confessed to stealing signs from the opposing catcher to the opposing pitchers in Houston’s home games during the team’s 2017 World Series championship season. 

A few posts ago, I showed how

the Astros were banging on a trash can in the dugout to signal the incoming

pitch (https://swampswami.com/2020/01/16/astros-now-hearing-the-drumbeats/). 

Earlier this week, Houston

Astros’ team owner Jim Crane spoke to the media. 

In a prepared statement, he said,

“I want to say again how sorry our

team is for what happened. I want to also repeat this will never happen again

on my watch. We’re apologizing

because we broke the rules.”

Unfortunately, the Astros owner didn’t help his team’s cringe-worthy apology session when a reporter asked if the sign-stealing provided his baseball team with an unfair advantage.

“Our opinion is this didn’t impact the game,” Crane said.

“We had a good team. We won the

World Series, and we’ll leave it at that.”

Many baseball fans across the country have howled (in laughter or anger) and contend that Major League Baseball should require the Astros to forfeit the 2017 World Series for their cheating misdeeds.  

The New York Yankees and Los Angeles Dodgers fans are particularly miffed as their teams lost pivotal games in Houston during the 2017 American League championship and World Series, respectively. They feel cheated out of a possible world championship in 2017.

Fans of the other major league baseball clubs are irked at the Astros, too.

I believe that a humorous and healthier alternative should be used to vent fans and players’ frustration at the Houston Astros when the ‘Stros play in their city this season.

In order to provide a little music therapy for frustrated baseball fans of the other 29 MLB teams, I have researched and put together a list of my top 10 songs which might be played over the P.A. system when the Astros visit their city to play baseball this season. 

In fairness to the Astros, I believe this playlist should only be used for the 2020 season.  Have some fun with it this year, but let’s call things “even” after this season after fans around the league have a chance to give some good spirited payback to the Astros.

With tongue firmly planted in cheek, below is a possible playlist of taunting tunes which could be used to help “Jeer the Astros” in the opposing team’s stadium in 2020 between innings when the Astros are coming to bat or even as “walk-up” music for a player coming to the plate.

Without further ado, let’s reveal the SwampSwami.com Top 10 “Taunting Tunes“, and let the countdown begin! 

10.  I Know What You Did Last Summer – Shawn

Mendez & Camila Cabelo

  9. 

Liar – Three Dog Night

  8. 

Cheatin’ – Sara Evans

  7.  New

World Order (N.W.O. wrestlers entrance theme)

  6. 

Cheater, Cheater – Joey and Rory

  5. 

Darth Vader March – John Williams

  4.  I’m

In our last visit, we discussed the increasing number of woes which have befallen golf and, in particular, the PGA Tour.

In the past 15 years, television ratings for men’s professional golf and even the four annual major tournaments (The Masters, PGA, US Open, and British Open) have dropped precipitously.

The Yellow Highlighted boxes indicate a Tiger Woods win or 2nd place finish

The Masters Tournament in April is the ratings king for golf.  It is highly promoted by CBS and marks America’s annual look at springtime in Augusta, Georgia with one of the world’s most beautiful golf courses and an annual field of select golfers plus past champions.

But even the Masters has seen televised ratings drop by 25% since Tiger Woods won the tournament in 2005.  Yes, the ratings drop includes last season’s dramatic victory by that same Tiger Woods!

America’s

love affair with televised golf is waning, and golf has itself to blame.

In

an effort to sell more and more golf equipment the past 40 years, golf

manufacturers have worked hard to outdo each other to produce the longest,

straightest, and most “perfect” drivers, irons, putters, and golf balls.

Despite a hundred years of relatively few significant golf equipment changes, the 1980’s saw the introduction of a stainless steel “wood” made with aluminum shaft (instead of steel).  Oversized clubheads soon followed as stainless steel heads gave way to titanium. 

By

the early 2000’s, a persimmon head #1 wood (or driver) in golf had given way to

an oversized metal creature which looked more like a loaf of bread on a stick.

Golf balls were also part of this sales-oriented revolution, too.   Today’s golf balls fly much longer and straighter than the golf ball which Jack Nicklaus played for most of his career.

Nicklaus

has long called for the PGA Tour to reign-in the excessive distances generated

by today’s golf clubs and golf balls in order to keep golf courses at

relatively similar length and tests of skill. 

Between

the increased distance provided by today’s high-tech golf clubs and balls, professional

golfers have caused many of the world’s most famous golf courses to become

drive, pitch, and putt courses. 

I remember watching golfers play the tough 440-yard 18th hole at the Colonial Country Club in Fort Worth, Texas with a driver and long iron (a 4 iron or more) into a tricky green guarded by water on the left side.  It made for a dramatic finishing hole.

Today’s

golfers, who are generally the same physical size of 40 years ago, will play

Colonial’s 18th hole with a driver (or 3-wood) and have only a

9-iron or pitching wedge into the green. 

It

takes a lot more skill to hit that 18th green with a long iron from

200 yards away than a 140 yard shot with a 9-iron today.   That’s especially true when the wind is

blowing in north Texas.

Unfortunately,

modern golfers are now playing these same courses more than an hour slower than

golfers of 30-40 years ago, too.

Why

is that?

It

is primarily,

For those few who are

following professional golf over the past year, the sport has developed a bad

case of the yips.

What are the yips?

According to the Mayo Clinic, the yips are involuntary wrist spasms that occur most commonly when golfers are trying to putt.

The yips can cause a golfer

to lose confidence in his ability to perform on the putting green.  This can spiral into a loss of confidence in

the golfer’s overall ability to play a high level.

The dreaded shank can develop

as a golfer loses confidence in his swing.

What are the shanks?

According to one source, the shank is one of the most embarrassing mishits in golf.  It happens when the golfer hits the ball on the innermost portion of the clubface.  Even worse, the golf ball misses the clubface entirely and solidly connects with the rounded hosel (the shaft of the club itself) and the golf ball shoots out to the right (for a right-handed golfer) at a severe angle.

In the golf movie, Tin Cup, the pro golfer (Roy) asks Romeo (his friend and caddy) why he is hitting the ball sideways.  Romeo responds, “The shanks are like a virus. They just show up.”

Right now, professional golf has

developed the yips and is advancing to the shanks.

The sport is having a

full-fledged meltdown right before our eyes. 

The Professional Golfers Association (PGA) Tour has suffered in recent years for a variety of reasons.  After peaking with the tidal wave of popularity with Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson, both golfers are now in the twilight of their careers.

Golf’s slump began with Tiger’s

personal and marital problems about ten years ago.  As Woods left the Tour in shame to deal with

his problems for a few years, the trajectory of the sport started to slide as

well.

Golf’s popularity among

younger people started to wane.  The cost

of playing golf has always been a significant impediment in golf’s ability to

connect with younger people.   You need golf clubs ($500-$1000), balls

($15-30 per dozen), shoes ($100) and then must pony-up from $25-75 or more to

play at your local municipal golf course. 

For creative cheapskates like

me, you can spend less in all categories, but you get the idea.  You must make a significant financial

commitment just to earn the right to tee it up at your local golf course.

As a result, America’s golf participation peaked at 30 million during Tiger Woods’ dominant time in the early and mid-2000’s and has steadily declined 20% to about 24 million US golfers in recent years. 

That was incredibly bad

timing for golf course developers.  While

this decrease in golfers was occurring, another 500 golf courses were being

added to the American landscape. 

When you have an oversupply

of golf courses and a significantly decreased demand from golfers, it’s easy to

see why golf courses are closing shop all around the USA in the past few years.

Good ol’ supply and demand,

eh?

But wait, there’s more.

With the increased cost of playing golf, many golfers have begun to emulate their professional counterparts and play at a

The National Football League

season is over, but three of the NFL’s future Hall-of-Fame quarterbacks are now

available on the open market for your favorite football team.

Tom Brady (Patriots), Drew Brees (Saints), and Philip Rivers (Chargers) are 42, 41, and 38 years of age, respectively.  Both Brady and Rivers have played their entire careers for the same franchise, while Brees has spent the majority of his career in New Orleans. 

However, the three NFL free

agents are being mentioned in any number of social media-fanned rumors as to

their next work location in 2020.

Let’s start with Tom Brady.  He has won six Super Bowl championships as

the quarterback for the New England Patriots since joining the team as a

sixth-round draft pick in the year 2000. 

He is widely considered to be one of the greatest players of his

generation.

Brady has been the ultimate team player and forfeited significant pay increases in order to allow his team to have more money to sign quality players.  He “only” made $23 million in 2019, which ranked him as the 14th highest paid quarterback in the NFL.

Unfortunately, the Patriots’ wide receiver corps in 2019 was far below average.  New England’s All-Star tight end, Rob Gronkowski, had already opted to retire after his ninth season in the NFL in 2018. 

The team took a chance to

sign talented-but-troubled wide receiver Antonio Brown at the beginning of the

season, but Brown’s off-field issues caused the team to cut him after just one

game last season.

Other than mainstay Julian

Edelman, the Patriots deployed a number of unknowns at the wide receiver spot

to start the season.  After Antonio Brown

came and went, New England made a mid-season deal to acquire Atlanta back-up

receiver Mohammed Sanu.

In 2019, it was too little,

too late for the Patriots.  The defending

Super Bowl champs lost at home to the underdog Tennessee Titans and the season ended

with a rare thud.

Tom Brady’s ability to throw

the ball downfield is likely diminished, but the 42-year old free agent has a

long-line of suitors.

Former Dallas Cowboys wide receiver Michael Irvin speculated recently that Brady would end-up in Dallas after suggesting that the Cowboys will jettison current QB Dak Prescott (who is seeking a new contract and wants to be paid at the top levels).  Needless to say, Cowboys fans would love to see Brady wearing a blue star helmet this season.

The rumors have Tom Brady playing

for the Denver Broncos, Miami Dolphins, and Indianapolis Colts. 

As for me, I’ll say it’s

still 51% likely that Brady will remain with the Patriots to finish his

career. 

Not so for Philip Rivers,

though.

After 16 seasons with the San Diego/Los Angeles Chargers, the 38-year old Rivers has moved his family to Florida and would like to play somewhere else for at least two more years.

“I can say for certain that if I’m playing, it’s a two-year maximum,” Rivers said. “Whoever the suitors are, I think that would be their hope as well. “

He is honest, though,

If you watched any of the first weekend of the rebooted XFL (version 1 came and left in 2001) Saturday and Sunday, the level of professional football seems a lot like the failed spring professional football leagues of the past.

The 2020 XFL features eight new teams with unique nicknames and color schemes, a roster of mostly no-name players and retread coaches, and stadiums which were half-filled with very enthusiastic fans. 

Last year at this time, we were evaluating the first week of the now-defunct Alliance of American Football (AAF).   Like the new incarnation of the XFL, the AAF fielded eight teams. 

This week, the XFL’s four

home games had an average attendance of about 17,500 fans.  The 2019 AAF teams averaged about 15,000 fans

per home outing.  That is not a

significant difference. 

Both leagues feature game ticket

prices as low as $20 for end zone seats.

This week’s first XFL game attracted 3.3 million television viewers for ABC.  Fox and ESPN handed the other three games.  Last year’s AAF first week featured a game on CBS which garnered 2.9 million viewers.  Again, this is not a significant difference.

Week #2, though, is where we’ll

get a better indication if the XFL has the secret sauce that the AAF (and other

spring leagues before them) lacked.

It’s all about television at

this point. 

Week 2 of the AAF saw the

league banished primarily to cable television’s CBS Sports Network and the NFL

Network.  The CBS Sports Network and the

NFL Network are not seen in a significant number of American households

compared to ESPN and FS1, for example.

Television ratings for the 2019 AAF tumbled beginning in week 2 as the games were banished to those lesser-known cable networks. 

This weekend, Week 2 of the new XFL will again have all four of its football games televised on major networks ABC/ESPN and Fox/ FS1.    

The XFL is owned by Vince McMahon.  Yes, that’s the same Vinnie Mac who runs the WWE wrestling organization. 

The WWE’s 2-hour “Smackdown”

television program is now seen every Friday night on the Fox television.  Like most WWE wrestling programs, the

televised events draw a large number of young male viewers. 

Young male viewers. 

It is the foundation of the

WWE’s success and exactly what the XFL is hoping to attract and keep for its

ten-game winter/spring football season.

Did you know that the XFL’s

TV partner networks will not pay the XFL anything for the broadcast rights as

the league will apparently “sell” its own share of commercials in a barter-type

broadcast arrangement.  From the

networks’ perspective, the potential for losses are minimized while the upside

is generous. 

The television production of the new XFL had a similar look and feel to WWE’s wrestling shows, too.  This weekend’s XFL games featured energetic announcers who were covering the action while also selling the new brand’s moniker “For the love of football”.   

They have to do that, because the majority of players are unknown to television viewers.  The XFL is trying to capitalize on the opportunity for “The Little Guy” to earn their first (or second) chance to play in the NFL.