I'm really not trying to rub salt in the wounds of anyone who enjoyed this league, but I never saw this ending any other way. Spring football has been tried over and over with the same results. The public interest just isn't there. The majority of sports fans are deep into March Madness, preparing for the NBA/NHL playoffs, or watching the return of baseball. Football just isn't on the national radar, nor will it ever be.
Meanwhile, 45 million people watched the NFL Draft last April across 3 major networks. And almost every major university sells out 100k seat stadiums for spring scrimmage games.
The league wasn't shuttered due to lack of interest in football or ratings. The TV ratings were actually respectable, not in NFL terms but in terms of niche sports leagues. Attendance was light but that's to be expected in year 1 of something like this.
Clearly, if you've read anything over the last few days, the league was shuttled due to a lack of available capital and the fact that they apparently let a wolf in the door, who lied about stabilizing the league's finances and apparently just bought them to strip them down and steal their proprietary tech advancements.
Why the league didn't have a more secure five-year financial plan in place to start and even needed to go to a guy like Dundon after 2 weeks of the season, is probably fair game to criticize. But just blindly chalking it up to "people don't wanna watch da futbawl when its warm out" is pretty misguided.
Close to 50 players have signed with the NFL since the league shut its operations. They have however, prevented players from signing with the CFL.
that's great for those guys getting a chance in the NFL again, but sad for the CFL
Michael Wilbon and Tony Kornheiser said the same thing about the overall lack of interest on ESPN this week. The Draft and spring NCAA "games" ( fancy practices ) are isolated days that are still part of sports that take place during their regular seasons. They don't try to coexist with or replace spring sports. People have been trying spring football for decades and there's always a myriad of excuses as to why all of those leagues didn't work. Yet the central truth is that the thirst for football this time of year just isn't enough to create a sustainable league, nor is there a large market for professional football outside of the NFL.
Fans have other sports interests. They move on after the Super Bowl. Time and time again that's been confirmed, but billionaires keep trying the same failed experiment hoping for different results. From the polls that I've seen, the general public's interest in non-NCAA/non-NFL football is less than it was when the USFL failed.
If you're quoting talking head morons like Wilbon and Kornhesier, you've already lost the debate.
But you seem to just be doubling down, without providing much at all to back up the accusation that people dont like Spring football other than your personal feelings on the matter. The league clearly didnt fail due to lack of interest, look at the TV ratings and even the dollar activity in Las Vegas. It failed due to being undercapitalized. This is in each and every autopsy article they've done about it.
Also its funny that you mention the USFL. They were actually really successful in the beginning when they played in the Spring. It wasn't until they tried to change their schedule to compete directly with the NFL in the Fall that they fell apart.