League vs League, Teams ducking smoke, and more in this pre-season state of Minor League Football.
3 min read
Press Box Report
Brien Mitchum
In the World of minor league sports, specifically minor league football, there are a lot of leagues around each state that have laid claim to ” How do it right” or “#1 league.” In regard to Indiana, Ohio, Illinois, Michigan, Kentucky there are 6 leagues that I can count and maybe a few more not sure. Most recently a couple of leagues have had teams jump to other leagues and or cease operations leaving the schedules that have already been made, left open causing League officials to run around to fill those gaps in the schedule.
It is a time of league vs league, were the bickering and he said she said is back and forth. Would it make sense to have leagues join forces to cross schedule games one big meeting of league owners and team owners to sit down and hash out a schedule? That would give more competition and a better platform to promote the sport, however the problem I see with that, (and again this is my opinion and mine alone before anyone ask), egos crush ideas like this or anything that players or outsiders suggest about forming one super league like the days of the old, I like the idea of cross scheduling games with leagues if the travel works out for all involved, however creating one super league not so sure that would be something that would work, each league is different with different policies some leagues have a strict process that happens before teams can join, some don’t, some have rules that others don’t. I see players bitching all the time about how one league did this, and another league didn’t do that.
To many big egos from the players to deal with let alone you add in the league officials or team owners who think they can do it better than the next guy. We have seen leagues work together to bring Minor League football back to what it once was here in the Great Lakes but in the end will it further the efforts of those who want to see it change? I have not done much research into other areas across the United States that have Minor League Football but seems like they do not have the issues this area has, but of course they could have the same.
Brings me to my next thing, at the end of the day owning a team is a business, if you don’t run it like that then you will fail, teams that have been around for a long time and I am talking about more than 10 years such as Detroit Ravens, Racine Raiders have done it, I am sure it takes a lot of work and effort and a combination of having the right people that are behind the scenes to make it work, kudos to those teams that have been doing it for year.
Teams Ducking Smoke
Now the whole premise behind pre-season is to see what you have on the team, see what you need to improve on, but it has come to light that a lot of teams don’t schedule preseason games and those who actually want to play them cannot find teams that are not “afraid” to play them. Is it that? Is that the reason teams cancel, don’t show up? We will never know the true reasons, but I don’t think it’s a matter of one team being so scared to play a team that is better than them, but there has been a lot of teams not showing and canceling at the last-minute leaving organizations game less.
Seasons are scheduled to kick off in the next month for leagues in the area, MCFL kicks off 5/13, BCFL 5/20, PFA/MEFA 5/6, TPFL 5/13 and last the UFL kicks off its second season on 6/3. Press Box Report will be covering all those leagues as best as possible, and will have week one breakdowns closer to the season start.
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