The XFL 3.5 and 2023 Plans

We will know in a few days. The weather is slightly better in more of the country, and like today about 12C in Philadelphia with the sun out people are out a whole lot more.

This or alternatively at times, heavy rain, has been a real issue with spring football in the areas without live games. I think it will be even more of an issue this year for that hub league.

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Well it went from 2 games on ABC and 2 on ESPN with a simulcast on FX to 2FX games with one on espn and one on the deuce. I’m sure if you put the Super Bowl on the Hallmark channel ratings would drop drastically too. It was FX top rated show last week and #2 on ESPN2

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With this being the 5th consecutive year of spring football being broadcast in the USA - 2019 AAF, 2020 XFL 2.0, 2021 TSL, 2022 USFL 2.0, 2023 USFL 2.0/XFL 3.0. That is a lot of Alt Football broadcast data points. I can’t imagine that either Fox or ESPN was not able to run those existing data points through some kind of TV ratings software and get a pretty good idea of what the ratings were going to look like.

That said I would guess that the numbers that the XFL is getting are probably pretty close to what they were expecting. I can’t imagine that any network executive was expecting NFL numbers or to just crush it with the XFL 3.0.

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Don't want to derail the thread but I have a question relating to what @jhn924 posted about soccer being a marginalised sport in the US, given how poor MLS ratings are.

Is soccer really marginalised or is it more the case that "soccer fans" does not equal "MLS fans"?

So, for example, somebody watching an English-language broadcast is far more likely to be watching Premier League and/or Champions League than MLS, or a Latino viewer is far more invested in the Liga MX and/or South American football and has little interest in MLS full-stop?

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I would be one example of this… I enjoy Premier League and Champions League, but MLS is simply crap soccer so I don’t bother with it.

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This is a great question and more would be welcome in the European Super League thread along with similar questions on the global game.

I am not so sure there is terribly much crossover otherwise for springtime screen viewing between spring gridiron football and spring soccer. The latter have been generally a quite dedicated fan base for decades now.

I am cross-linking my response to that thread too.

I was around before the MLS started play in 1996 and was an early fan of MLS via DC United when living there and an amateur player on the local scene like so many at the time.

It was a great scene for a few years until about the time of 9/11, and then things just changed not for the better as some sides failed, though many years later of course began have what we have today with more sides than ever if not too many sides in MLS.

Once Premier League and then Champions League became more mainstream in the US finally about 2010 or so, with fan pockets long preceding that timeframe for mainstream TV coverage for decades, no doubt they took a huge slice out of some MLS.

I figure the biggest slice was taken in particular from amongst the youngest of fans but not only them, and this all developed only after the major American media deferred for some time amidst high interest always on the ground in soccer circles especially for amateur players and the parents of kids starting out.

The answer to your first question is YES. For your second question, the answer to the first part is also YES.

As far as those of Latin backgrounds, many of those from Mexico have always taken interest in Liga MX and that has not changed. Those games have always aired on Spanish-language television including often on broadcast. It draws quite well. For sake of MLS, there are some niche fans in some major cities like Houston and Los Angeles, but I have not kept up with that MLS scene. I know there was more interest when MLS started including in Washington DC and later in Chicago.

All the same the interest amongst Latin audience in Champions League has always been at hand and more recently there is heavy interest in Premier League, with those games also on Spanish-language broadcast as I often watch as well, for years now because Premier League has become the top league in the world over the last decade or so even though not with a champion in the Champions League every year.

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Def
Heck watch when we (and US) host World Cup in 2026

Suddenly all those proud US flags come down (we unfortunately have no equivalent with Canadian flag) and all the other flags go up for UK / Italy / Brasil / etc

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The EPL was ahead of the curve in marketing also they have 5 or 6 big clubs that any given year can make a run and win it. The Spanish League is a two horse race - Real Madrid and Barca - Italy never chased the north American Market - If you are watching the Bundisliga you are watching to see who gets second place. The French are 20+ years behind on soccer broadcasting - PSG gets the same broadcast money as the bottom teams in the EPL. The French are pretty much like the Germans in that you are looking to see who gets second place.

This part is simply not true and I know it well in following Serie A much of my life, which has more exposure now in the US than ever.

But to your point the Premier League is king in global exposure, and there is no close second place any more now but perhaps in much of Latin America and in the Middle East where La Liga retains quite a following. Globally it’s a two-horse race via La Liga for sake of the fanbase, but in the league itself historically it’s been three sides at it.

Of course I don’t want this to turn into a soccer thread now. The rest of your points stand fine.

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I gotcha - and that is my view as a non soccer person who sort of follows and watches soccer. And my comments on Serie A come from a non soccer perspective and they seem to be in the shadow to some degree in regard to the EPL their exposure in North Amerca and world wide. But I will defer as this is not my zone of expertise.

@GridironGirl - Take note Paolo and I are playing sort of nice in the sandbox - no need to send us to the sin bin. @Jon what does it take to revive the Chicago thread? Is that at all possible? /s

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There’s another USA expansion thread if you want to post something that is “mindbending” or “contraversial”.

I think the only way to open the Chicago thread is to present Jon with a new idea or new information. The trick is to do it during a night of enebriation. I have to think you have a better chance with GG. Although, I haven’t seen her on much lately.

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I agree with your idea. It’s also a strange off-season ritual on this forum to create expansion threads or to add far more to them.

That Chicago thread had a great run, but it ran its course and had to be driven off a cliff to its ultimate destruction.

The termination was performed in the spirit of our higher standards of entertainment and amusement here on the off-season CFL Forum.

Oles-at-the-wheel GIFs - Get the best GIF on GIPHY

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But your odds of catching her anebriated are pretty good, tho :rofl:

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Like Ted said, there would have to be a good reason to do so.

It was my idea to close it but I ran it by the other mods first. The thread was initially about expansion to Chicago or other northern US cities. I can’t imagine that there is a new argument for or against that concept and I’m guessing that any arguments have been made multiple times. There are those who believe the US doesn’t have the fans or interest while the same might be said about Canada and they certainly don’t have the stadiums. Rinse and repeat. I also don’t like reading similar posts in two or three different threads, which is a waste of everyone’s time in my opinion.

If the CFL actually started looking
into expansion to Chicago then it would become fresh again, but even then I would prefer to see a new thread. I have combined numerous threads over the last few weeks including adding two new XFL threads to this one. Sometimes the site generates duplicate threads such as 3 in a day or two on McBeth so I combined them.

There are several other expansion related threads and I thought that was plenty. I’m also not a big fan of threads carrying on for years unless they are unique because times change and for example, an expansion discussion or an XFL discussion today will be different than one even three years ago. I think that it is a good idea for threads such as off season discussion or NFL or NHL seasons to include the year and have a new thread for every new year/season. It makes it easier to search for them as well. In that vain I noticed that the Hamilton CFL Discussion (non Ticat) thread is getting pretty ripe. As well, to be clear, there is no problem having similar threads in a team forum to those in the general forum.

That’s my rationale anyway. If you have an argument or reason I have overlooked feel free to let me know.

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I nominate Jon for Zombie-thread kill of the week.

Rule #1 Cardio

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this should be part of fanduel sports betting ad lol

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They’d never do it… the odds are just too one-sided for the company to hedge.

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@Jon is not afraid to double tap those zombie threads just to make sure they don’t come back to life.

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It was also good for me on a personal level. In the beginning, I figured CFL expansion would be a positive but as time went on, I came to the conclusion that any expansion right now would be risky. It made me ask myself "How diluted is the CFL product with the spring leagues going on? How diluted will it be in 2024 if the USFL intends to expand as they have said? How diluted would it be if the CFL expanded as well?

I leave it to greater football minds than myself to answer these questions but if the hardcore fans like @Hit.em.hard are struggling with their interest level then it might be something that the CFL shouldn’t dive into at the moment.

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Speaking of hardcore and interest level, did you know I saw bottles of scotch for sale this weekend for which the price varied according to any given model of car?

Several of these bottles were securely encased in an exquisite display, and I obviously was in the wrong section because I am not into scotch or such price points.

At that point I knew I had finished my wine and rum run, and that it was time to go.

Anyway, I digress, but as that @Hit.em.hard is hardcore about many such matters including scotch, I figured to offer the additional context.

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