Spring vs Fall
Spring vs Fall. When it comes to creating a new football league in America, there is no doubt that there is a potential audience for such an idea.
After all, it could be said that football is America’s current pastime. It could be seen in the fact that an average of 17.1 million viewers watched an NFL football game during the 2021 regular season. On top of that, the Super Bowl might as well be a national holiday. Folks gather together like it’s Thanksgiving or Christmas to watch the big game. This can be seen in the fact that the most recent Super Bowl had an average audience of 112.3 million viewers.
However, there is one major question that should be addressed when it comes to creating a new football league in the U.S. Is it best to have the league run during the fall or the spring? We will explore that in this piece.
In terms of attempting to start a new pro football league during the fall in the U.S.A, the answer is simple: Don’t even bother trying.
As mentioned before, the NFL is head and shoulders above any and all football leagues in the world right now. They have lucrative TV contracts with ABC, CBS, ESPN, FOX and NBC. On top of that, they will now be showing Thursday Night Football Games on Prime Video. On top of that, the NFL has over 40+ sponsors and have nearly 2 billion dollars in sponsorship deals.
Given the aforementioned TV ratings, the NFL has the undivided attention of it’s massive football audience during the fall season.
Any pro football league that attempts to start during the fall would be drowned out in terms of attention from the audience. They wouldn’t be able to get sponsors and they would not get any major media deals.
Simply put, the NFL owns the fall season with regards to football. No other pro football league would be able to compete with it at all.
The spring season offers a greater opportunity for a pro football league to be established in the U.S. After all, the NFL is in it’s off-season and there will still be an audience of diehards that crave football.
However, there is a growing history of notable spring football leagues that have failed. The NFL notably failed in 2001. It was resurrected in 2020 and then folded as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.
In 2019, a spring league known as the Alliance of American Football shut down it’s operation after eight weeks.
Recently, the United States Football League (USFL) has shown that there is an audience for football in the spring. However, it’s a much smaller audience than the NFL. The league averaged 715,000 viewers per game and 1.25 million viewers in it’s championship game.
If a spring football league started in the U.S today, it would have to compete against the USFL as well as the third reintroduction of the XFL. The XFL is slated to start in February 2023. Additionally, a spring league would have to compete indirectly with the NBA and NHL playoffs as well as the start of MLB.
However, it is possible that a spring football league with significant funds and strategies that differentiate significantly from other leagues in the past can achieve success.
Overall, a new pro football league that starts in the spring would stand a better chance of success as opposed to one that starts in the fall.
Spring vs Fall
