# Major League Football, will you watch? **URL:** \ **Category:** The Game Room\ **Created:** [March 3, 2016, 3:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/major-league-football-will-you-watch/747831 "2016-03-03T15:33:39Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 18\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Peremensoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ce7236/32.png) [@Peremensoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peremensoe)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2016, 4:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/major-league-football-will-you-watch/747831/21 "2016-03-04T16:01:07Z")
> [@kunilou](#): > > Here’s a serious question. Why even have “home cities”? Why not just have four games each week at one-shot locations – particularly places that don’t have NFL teams like San Antonio, Oklahoma City, Memphis, St. Louis, etc. Instead of lackluster crowds of maybe 3,000, you’d have “events” that might get 15,000 fans. It’s not an “event” unless people have a reason to be interested. ---
**Author:** ![Barkis\_is\_Willin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a183cd/32.png) [@Barkis\_is\_Willin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Barkis_is_Willin)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2016, 5:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/major-league-football-will-you-watch/747831/22 "2016-03-04T17:26:48Z")
> [@xizor](#): > > I think the only way a spring league works if the NFL uses it as a minor league to develop talent, and players could actually get “called up” to an associated NFL team. > If not, then it is really just like opening a restaurant on the site of several previous failed restaurants. I was kind of thinking the same thing. Even if it’s not a minor league system, per se, just getting on the NFL Network and the publicity that comes with NFL media coverage would be huge. I think the NFL could benefit, too. ---
**Author:** ![Saint\_Cad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saint_cad/32/18907_2.png) [@Saint\_Cad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saint_Cad)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2016, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/major-league-football-will-you-watch/747831/23 "2016-03-04T17:54:27Z")
Here’s my take: I love watching minor league baseball. Relaxed atmosphere, cheap tickets plus the thrill of watching a talent develop thinking I may see him in the majors. If this were billed as Minor League Football and NFL was willing to fill their lineups with MinLF players (like when the Cowboys were down half their team) or invite standouts to training camp then I would be a lot more interested. ---
**Author:** ![ekedolphin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ekedolphin/32/10003_2.png) [@ekedolphin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ekedolphin)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2016, 10:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/major-league-football-will-you-watch/747831/24 "2016-03-04T22:03:41Z")
I like how MLF is one letter removed from being MILF. Other than that, I couldn’t care less. ---
**Author:** ![TonySinclair](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/49beb7/32.png) [@TonySinclair](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TonySinclair)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2016, 11:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/major-league-football-will-you-watch/747831/25 "2016-03-04T23:23:02Z")
> [@Omar\_Little](#): > > Players will earn $3,000 per game, for games won, and $2,000 per game, otherwise. I think that’s the saddest thing I’ve ever heard. ---
**Author:** ![Zakalwe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zakalwe/32/270_2.png) [@Zakalwe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zakalwe)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2016, 1:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/major-league-football-will-you-watch/747831/26 "2016-03-05T01:16:44Z")
> [@JSexton](#): > > There’s tons of players who are almost but not quite good enough for the NFL who could make a decent living doing this. Max of 30K per year (when you are playing a sport with a very non-negligible chance of a life changing injury) is a decent living? One would hope that most of these guys actually got college degrees while playing. The median salary one year out of college was $45K in 2014 ([cite](http://time.com/money/3829776/heres-what-the-average-grad-makes-right-out-of-college/)). ---
**Author:** ![russian\_heel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f05b48/32.png) [@russian\_heel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/russian_heel)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2016, 4:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/major-league-football-will-you-watch/747831/27 "2016-03-05T04:27:40Z")
No one will care, no one will watch, and whoever invests will lose lots of money. ---
**Author:** ![Accidental\_Martyr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ce7236/32.png) [@Accidental\_Martyr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Accidental_Martyr)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2016, 4:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/major-league-football-will-you-watch/747831/28 "2016-03-05T04:52:50Z")
> [@Omar\_Little](#): > > Players will earn $3,000 per game, for games won, and $2,000 per game, otherwise. > [@TonySinclair](#): > > I think that’s the saddest thing I’ve ever heard. In 2005 I worked on a documentary about the Birmingham Steel Dogs, the Arena Fooball League 2 (af2) team in Birmingham, AL. The af2 was the league below the Arena Football League. The players were paid $200 per game with a $50 winning bonus. The league also provided hotel rooms and food. ---
**Author:** ![Jim\_s\_Son](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e19adc/32.png) [@Jim\_s\_Son](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jim_s_Son)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2016, 1:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/major-league-football-will-you-watch/747831/29 "2016-03-05T13:41:45Z")
Minor league baseball salaries are very low, although some players chosen in higher rounds get large bonuses. They range from $1150 a month for short season to $2150 a month for AAA. Neither mlb or their future union reps mlbpa really seem concerned for them. Hey, they aren’t paying us dues and we have the ability to dump on them (and front office personnel) so let’s do it. > **[Minor League Salary - Sports Law Blog](https://sportslawblogger.com/baseball/salary-information/minor-league-salary/)** > > Until a minor league player is placed on a 40-man roster, monthly salaries are $1150 for the short season teams, $1300 for low A and $1500 for high A. For players repeating a year at the same level, the salary goes up $50 each year. For AA, the... ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2016, 4:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/major-league-football-will-you-watch/747831/30 "2016-03-05T16:40:32Z")
> [@That\_Don\_Guy](#): > > This league is going to have the same problems that the WFL, USFL, WLAF/NFL Europa, and XFL had …Donald Trump? 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![furt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/439d5e/32.png) [@furt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/furt)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2016, 3:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/major-league-football-will-you-watch/747831/31 "2016-03-06T03:52:38Z")
> [@DCnDC](#): > > Here’s the problem: all of the college-eligible talent is still in college, and everyone else with even marginal professional-grade football talent is in the NFL. It’s not like the NBA where there’s only 360 - 450 active players at any given time; at 53 players per team, plus 5 practice squad guys, there are well over 1800 active NFL players. That pretty much sucks up all of the viable talent available. No. During the springtime, (i.e. when this league would be in season) NFL rosters are at 90, meaning the best 2880 players are taken. _That_ is the problem: any players in the league are going to be guys who aren’t even good enough to be invited to NFL training camp. Nor will they even be young guys right out of college and trying to make their way up, which is part of the attraction of other minor league sports. In the NFL, a young guy who just misses making a roster will spend his fall staying in shape and then will sign on with someone when rosters go back to 90 in the offseason and try again in the fall. This is why all the guys in the OP have career highlights from five or six years ago: they all went through two or three NFL camps, and never stuck. Now they’re all mid-late-20s, which for the NFL means “no longer a prospect.” ---
**Author:** ![russian\_heel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f05b48/32.png) [@russian\_heel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/russian_heel)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2016, 5:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/major-league-football-will-you-watch/747831/32 "2016-03-06T05:12:30Z")
> [@Accidental\_Martyr](#): > > In 2005 I worked on a documentary about the Birmingham Steel Dogs, the Arena Fooball League 2 (af2) team in Birmingham, AL. The af2 was the league below the Arena Football League. The players were paid $200 per game with a $50 winning bonus. The league also provided hotel rooms and food. Less than NFL is extremely low rent. Even the Canadian Football League average salary is $80,000 a year, ($50k for a rook) which at first glance doesn’t sound bad, except remember you have to move to Canada with almost no chance of getting noticed by the NFL, and basically abuse your body for a few years; if you have a college degree thanks to a football scholarship, its almost worth it to just parlay that into a real career going in the States. Arena 1 is only $40-50k a year btw. I have a buddy of mine who graduated and was offered a chance to try out in the CFL, he made the same decision; he was offered a good $50k+ a year sales job right out of school with a good company, and passed up CFL “glory” for that. ---
**Author:** ![jsquire](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ce73a5/32.png) [@jsquire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jsquire)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2016, 1:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/major-league-football-will-you-watch/747831/33 "2016-03-07T01:31:36Z")
I would be interested except that it’s my busiest time of year–I’m heavily involved in organizing track and field for my local high school league plus I work college meets, and there’s no time left. I suspect the generic sports fan have a bit of the same reaction. They’ll will look at baseball starting up and the NBA and NHL getting down to the real nitty-gritty and find no time to watch unexciting, unfamiliar football. I have free time in July and August, and I am not as obsessed with baseball as I once was. I watch the early-season CFL games for these reasons, plus the fact that CFL rules are just weird enough to be entertaining. ---
**Author:** ![Omar\_Little](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/omar_little/32/269_2.png) [@Omar\_Little](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omar_Little)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2016, 4:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/major-league-football-will-you-watch/747831/34 "2016-03-07T16:07:29Z")
> [@Zakalwe](#): > > Max of 30K per year (when you are playing a sport with a very non-negligible chance of a life changing injury) is a decent living? > > One would hope that most of these guys actually got college degrees while playing. The median salary one year out of college was $45K in 2014 ([cite](http://time.com/money/3829776/heres-what-the-average-grad-makes-right-out-of-college/)). It’s $30k for about 3 months work. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2016, 2:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/major-league-football-will-you-watch/747831/35 "2016-03-10T14:49:05Z")
I can’t imagine the league will have enough revenue to pay its players $30K a year, unless they’re running very thin squads. But I am always jonesing for pro football in April and I’ll watch all three games that are played before the league folds (the [UFL](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Football_League_%282009%E2%80%9312%29) made it through four weeks). ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2016, 4:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/major-league-football-will-you-watch/747831/36 "2016-03-10T16:24:59Z")
> [@xizor](#): > > I think the only way a spring league works if the NFL uses it as a minor league to develop talent, and players could actually get “called up” to an associated NFL team. That’s what I was going to say… the big problem with NFL Europe from what I could tell was that it was in Europe. I’d think that an NFL D-league based in second-tier US cities- like say… San Antonio or Austin that are large cities but without an NFL team nearby might do better than people might think. But having a standalone league without any ties to the NFL might be problematic- like you said, putting a restaurant on the site of several other failed restaurants. It might even be beneficial to do some sort of farm team scheme to tie d-league teams to specific pro teams in their region (i.e. have San Antonio be the Cowboys’ farm team, or something). I’d think you’d have to make the draft earlier, so that recent draftees could go into that year’s D-league season almost immediately, as well as have several more rounds so that pro teams could pick up enough college players to fill out the rosters, and then work out the major league team each fall based on the d-league results, at least for marginal players. No team in their right mind is going to take a Derrick Henry and risk him in a D-league, but they might try out someone like Carson Wentz in a d-league in the spring, to see if he’s worth a roster spot come fall. I’m pretty sure the player development aspects would be secondary; there probably aren’t enough diamonds in the rough to warrant serious financial subsidy from the major league teams. But if they get that, AND the teams are financially self-sufficient through ticket sales, TV and merchandising, then it’s a great bonus. ---
**Author:** ![dalej42](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/67e7ee/32.png) [@dalej42](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dalej42)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2016, 8:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/major-league-football-will-you-watch/747831/37 "2016-04-03T20:31:43Z")
First season has been cancelled. [Major League Football pulls plug on inaugural season - ProFootballTalk](http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2016/04/03/major-league-football-pulls-plug-on-inaugural-season/) ---
**Author:** ![Snooooopy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ee7513/32.png) [@Snooooopy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snooooopy)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2016, 5:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/major-league-football-will-you-watch/747831/38 "2016-04-04T05:32:21Z")
I went to the website to peruse the rosters and was taken aback to discover just how hard it was to find anyone who seemed even remotely familiar. I mean, I knew it was going to be slim pickings given the quality of the so-called “franchise” players listed in the OP. But even when I searched for players from schools that I’ve either rooted for or paid attention to because they were in the coverage area of a newspaper that I worked for, it was pretty rough sledding. I was, however, really amused by the part of the website where it gamely tries to play up the drama of building the rosters. “If a coach knows he has to have a guy on his team,” it boasts, “he’ll get him at any cost.” Can’t you just feel the excitement? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/major-league-football-will-you-watch/747831.md?page=1)