[OC] Lost Leagues- Part III: History of the FXFL

For those that wanted minor league football in the fall, the demise of the United Football League was sad. However, the UFL always wanted to compete against the NFL, despite what they said otherwise. They made players that left the UFL to join the NFL pay a buyout fee, they scheduled games at the same time as Thursday Night Football, and they were looking to go directly against the NFL. They had an identity crisis, along with a bunch of other things, and eventually, the league died without people even knowing it existed towards the end.

But what about the opposite approach? What about a league that wants to be a minor league to the NFL, and doesn’t want to compete? This is the story of the Fall Experimental Football League, or the FXFL. What started off as a modest idea quickly became a joke of a league that, unlike the UFL (which at least had some glimmer of hope at one point), never had a fighting chance. The inaugural season was a near-disaster, and the second season (because somehow it was around for a second season) was a complete mess that didn’t even finish.

So how did they get to that point? How did they get from a league that had a TV deal with ESPN3 to a league that had a team playing in a stadium that was deemed too unsafe for football? This is the FXFL.

Part I: Developing the League

Stop me if you heard this one before. An upstart league wants to have a certain number of teams in the league, but is only able to get 4 teams in the league when all is said and done because they didn’t have enough owners. It happened to the UFL, it happened to the short-lived SFL, and, no surprise, it happened to the FXFL. I’ll give the XFL credit- for as colossal of a failure as that was, they at least delivered on all of their promises leading into the first season, and then some.

What made the FXFL a bit different, though, was that it flat out said they were not trying to compete against the NFL. In fact, they never had any intention of competing against the NFL. Their ambitions were so low that it’s almost admirable how low they set the bar. The goal of the FXFL was to be a developmental league for the NFL. The commissioner of the league was Brian Woods, whose only experience running a sporting event or league was running the failed Medal of Honor Bowl. He didn’t exactly have the greatest resume to run this league. However, he stated about the FXFL:

Given the current Division I landscape in football and the CBA the NFL has with the union, there is more than ever a need for another platform out there—a platform like for basketball and baseball players. The NFL has the practice squad, but it does not develop players because they don’t get into games. You don’t develop if you aren’t getting on the field.

The FXFL’s goal was to become a glorified practice squad for the NFL. The league even made it so that the rules were pretty much exactly the same as the NFL, and coaches had to play NFL-style offenses. If a team wanted to play like Navy or Georgia Tech and run the triple option all the time, they could not do that. While I definitely understand the premise behind that, what’s with the name FXFL? How is it an experimental football league if there’s no experimenting going on?

When I think of an experimental football league, I think of rules like always having to go for 2, no punting, an A11 offense… stuff like that. I don’t think of a league that runs exactly how football is played already. The FXFL had an identity crisis with that name. The only difference was that extra points were 35 yards and kickoffs were at the 25-yard line. Other than that? Nothing new.

On May 7 of 2014, the FXFL was formed, and would begin play later that fall. In a matter of about five months, the league would go from just a figment of someone’s imagination to actually staging games. The original plan was to have the sites of the franchises named later that month, but that announcement didn’t come until late June.

The plan was to have 6 teams in the league. The FXFL would have teams based in Brooklyn, Boston, Omaha, Portland, Austin, and somewhere in Florida. How many would the FXFL end up starting with? Three and a half. The Brooklyn Bolts, Boston Breakers, and Omaha Mammoths all went on as planned, but Austin and Portland were gone due to cost measures, and the Florida Blacktips became a traveling team only about a month away from the start of the season.

You can already tell where this is going. A four-team league is too small at the start. Commissioner Woods, who forced half the teams to play a 4-3 defense and the other half to play a 3-4 defense, said that while they wanted to have more teams, they couldn’t because they wanted to minimize costs. Want to know how you minimize costs? Don’t place your teams on the East Coast and then place a team in Omaha. Don’t place teams in markets where you have to fly to get to the games.

The market selection for the FXFL was absolutely terrible. Omaha, while a good football market (as evidenced by the success of the Omaha Nighthawks in the UFL), was in the middle of nowhere compared to the other teams in the league. Brooklyn played in a market that not only had 2 football teams, but had a team in every other sport. The same thing happened with Boston. Miami would’ve been in the same problem, but they became a traveling team. Don’t place minor league teams in cities that already have other sports. Go for the big markets that don’t have a whole lot of competition, like Portland or Sacramento. Going for Boston is just incredibly stupid.

Commissioner Woods might be the most brain-dead commissioner in the history of any professional football league. Aside from placing teams in cities that didn’t need football teams, he basically said the only way the FXFL could survive was if the NFL bought them out. This was before the season even started. In this ESPN article, writer Kevin Seifert stated, “By Woods’ own admission, the league’s future likely is tied to arranging a formal affiliation with the NFL.”

The end game was to get the NFL to notice them. Why did he think this could ever work? The NFL is an organization bringing in eleven figures per year. They’ve got so much money and power that Roger Goodell might be the most powerful commissioner of any annual domestic league in all of sports around the world. If the NFL wanted a minor league, they’d do it themselves. They don’t need the help of the FXFL. The FXFL was trying to create a solution to a problem that the NFL didn’t even have or want to fix. Maybe the NFL will create a minor league soon, but they’ll do it themselves. They won’t do it with a league that’s so bad that they’d have to relocate every team (minus Omaha) so that they’re not playing in the same market as an NFL team, and they won’t do it with a league that played almost every game in a baseball stadium.

The only thing the NFL ever used the FXFL for was as a training ground for officials. In terms of players from the FXFL to make it to the NFL? That pipeline was nonexistent. Tickets for the league went on sale three weeks before the start of the 2014 season, and the FXFL received a grand total of $0 for television rights. Aside from a Mike & Mike interview in September, there was minimal promotion for this league.

This league seemed doomed to fail from the start. So how did the first season get on?

Part II: The Inaugural Season

The 2014 season started on October 8 with four teams- the Brooklyn Bolts, the Omaha Mammoths, the Boston Breakers, and the Florida Blacktips. Good idea for the league to play their first game in Omaha, seeing as the city welcomed the Nighthawks a few years beforehand with open arms. As for what the league was thinking by naming the team as the Mammoths, I have no idea. Their other options were the Channel Cats and the Drive, so the option for the Mammoths was clearly the best one… but what’s with the reasoning? Commissioner Woods stated, “We developed a team brand that accurately depicts the type of team that the Omaha community will want to see on the field: big, strong, and unstoppable.” Yep, Mammoths are unstoppable… except for the time where they were extinct and all that.

Once again, Omaha had the best team in the league in terms of fan support. Unfortunately, that wasn’t saying a whole lot. The attendance at the first game that the Mammoths had was significantly less than the sold out crowd that the Nighthawks got in their first game. About 3,000 fans showed up, which was one of the highest attended games of the season.

Commissioner Woods stated that the turnout was a number that would be very good for a minor league baseball team, even though it wasn’t huge. Let’s analyze that number, shall we, because if Woods and other pundits are comparing this to Triple-A baseball, let’s see what the attendance would be stacked up against Triple-A. In 2014, Omaha’s number would’ve ranked last in the International League by about 1,000 fans. Only one team in the IL drew less than 4,000 fans per game, and that was the Syracuse Chiefs. So, that’s not too good. In the Pacific Coast League, Omaha’s number would’ve ranked last by about 2,000 fans.

If we go down to Double-A, in the Eastern League, Omaha’s number would’ve ranked 10th out of 11, only ahead of the Binghamton Mets. In the Texas League, Omaha’s number would’ve ranked dead last by more than 1,000 fans. And in the Southern League, Omaha’s number would’ve ranked 8th out of 11. So, to answer your comment, Commissioner Woods, that number of 3,000 fans is not even good for a minor league baseball team. He was a diluted commissioner who was in over his head, and comments like that showed exactly why.

But we’re only one week into this disaster. After Omaha won the first game 41-18 over the Boston Breakers, the next games were scheduled for one week later on October 15. For the record, this was some footage of the inaugural game, so you can judge for yourself whether or not this would’ve been a good minor league attendance. Omaha won 20-19 over the Florida Blacktips in a game attended by half the crowd of the original game (about 15,000), while the Brooklyn Bolts won their inaugural game in front of less than 2,000 fans. The following week, Boston played their inaugural home game in front of less than 1,000 fans at Harvard Stadium (which seats 30,000). I think this picture says it all. That same week, Brooklyn played a home game against Omaha, and maybe 2,000 people showed up; while they never released an attendance figure, keep in mind that MCU Park seats 7,000.

In the middle of the season, the league got a glimmer of hope when they announced Nivea as a sponsor. But that was about all that went right in 2014 for the FXFL. The Boston Breakers were a joke of a franchise, outside of the fact that there was already another professional soccer team called the Boston Breakers that played at Harvard Stadium. For their second and final home game against the Brooklyn Bolts, they didn’t even announce an attendance. There are no shots of the crowd from any highlight videos of the game, but let’s just say that playing a game on Halloween isn’t a smart idea if you’re a minor football league.

The best attendance of the season came one week later when the Omaha Mammoths drew 4,000 fans in a thrilling 10-8 victory by the Mammoths where they turned the ball over 5 times and had 95 yards of offense in the first 58 minutes of the game. In the highlights, you’re seeing near-empty bleachers at TD Ameritrade Park. Keep in mind that this was the highest FXFL attendance of 2014. Brooklyn drew maybe 2,000 fans per game. Omaha drew roughly 3,000 fans per game. Boston drew less than 1,000, and the Blacktips were a traveling team. Attendance was not on the league’s side.

After Brooklyn defeated the Florida Blacktips of Miami and Route 66 by a final score of 26-13 on November 7, the league cancelled the remainder of their games. The proposed championship game the day before Thanksgiving? Cancelled. They just declared Brooklyn the first ever champion of the league and called it a day. And yet, the league was satisfied with their mini season.

I can’t believe how low the FXFL set the bar. They had a 9-game regular season and couldn’t even finish that, they drew maybe 2,000 fans per game (and that’s a high estimate; this article said that Omaha drew 2,000 fans per game, and they were the highest attended team), and they’re satisfied? How can you genuinely say you’re satisfied when you cancelled part of your season?

One month later, the FXFL realized that having teams fly to every game because of how spread apart they are was a bad idea, and was left in a bit of a pickle. Of the four teams, Commissioner Woods expected Brooklyn (a team where the Cyclones controlled all the operations except for the football operations) to return, as well as Omaha, and he wanted to expand the league to places such as Memphis, Austin, Oklahoma City, and Florida (even though they already technically had a Floridian team). Again, doesn’t make a whole lot of sense when they want to lower their costs yet they want teams in Brooklyn and Oklahoma City.

The first season was pretty much a trainwreck. Was the second season any better?

Part III: The 2015 Season

The FXFL wanted to expand from a 4-team league. By the start of the 2015 season, it had 3 teams. Any sympathy you might have for Commissioner Woods is going to be thrown out the window by the start of the 2015 season, because Woods was not just a clueless and horrible commissioner, but also a backstabbing, slimy liar.

The Brooklyn Bolts would be back. The Omaha Mammoths? Yeah, they’d be back too. Except for when the commissioner changed his mind and announced they wouldn’t return. The FXFL model was apparently based on selling 6,000 tickets per game, but no team even reached half of that number, so the league was flat out delusional. I feel genuinely sorry for Omaha- they’ve had the best support of any city in the UFL and the FXFL, and they’ve been hurt by poor management by the league. This city deserves better.

The Boston Brawlers would relocate to Mahoning Valley in Ohio and become the Mahoning Valley Brawlers. This was a huge deal for the city- they hadn’t had a pro football team play for them in over a century, and this was going to be huge for a town with a population of just under 20,000. Commissioner Woods called the addition the opportunity for an exciting new market with an attractive fan base.

Time for tryouts for the Brawlers. Hundreds of players looked for their opportunity to play professional football and maybe get a shot at an NFL tryout. Only problem? There was no tryout. The league cancelled the tryout without ever informing the players. A day later, the league announced that, by the way, we don’t have the money to have the Brawlers play, so we’re gonna have you guys fold. The team was ready to go and play their October 3 home opener, and less than a week before, the FXFL made them pull out.

No notice, no refunds for airfare or hotels, no nothing. Players drove from Alabama and got no notice that the team was folding. Not only that, but the Brawlers were supposed to have tryouts on September 20. A player flew in, and didn’t get a notice until September 19 that the tryout was cancelled. So, he flew back home, then came back to Ohio on September 27 before realizing that the team folded. Also, another genius idea by the FXFL- have tryouts on a Sunday. Because nothing will get the NFL to notice you by holding your tryouts on a Sunday.

How the FXFL avoided a lawsuit, I’m not sure. The only lawsuit the FXFL ever had was a $60,000 lawsuit in legal fees during the offseason, but I think that got settled out of court, since I can’t find anything else on it or even what the reasons behind it were. How the players didn’t come together and sue this league, I have no idea, because this seems like an open and shut case. So now the Mammoths are out, and the Brawlers are out. Who’s left?

You’ve still got the Brooklyn Bolts. You’ve got the Blacktips, who are still a traveling team. And, you’ve got the newly formed Hudson Valley Fort. Why anyone would name their team as the Fort, I’m not sure. The team was located in Fishkill, New York. I’ve actually been to Fishkill before. Not sure how that city ever had a professional team. The population of Fishkill is just over 2,000. The Fort were the last hope the league had left.

There were now three teams in the FXFL for 2015. You had a traveling team, a team in a city where there’s every other sport as competition, and a team in a town with a population of 2,000. Seems like a league destined for success.

The season went about as you’d expect. No game drew more than 2,000 fans. The Fort drew 1,776 fans for their first game, and were a complete disaster of a franchise. The Fort may have been the worst run professional football franchise ever. After one game, nobody was paid. Their coach resigned, the players walked out, the team didn’t have enough equipment for the players, and “there were times at practice when water wasn’t available.” One player wrote:

We will do a team session where all defensive players are fully padded but we have 3 offensive linemen without shoulder pads and no receivers with helmets. Even during the game, we are forced to share helmets. This can be very dangerous, especially with staph infection going around.

Commissioner Woods’ response to this, along with the fact that the Fort didn’t have a trainer? According to the article, “he said he considered the issue a ‘non-starter’ and didn’t think it was a story.” How is that not a story? How is a team not having enough equipment and running out of water not a story? Again, Commissioner Woods went from clueless to downright dirty during the 2015 season.

It got worse for the Fort, though. This was their opening game. The field doesn’t look so good. Looks a bit dangerous. Looks like it wasn’t made for football. There are some baseball stadiums that can pull off the football look, and some that cannot. And then, there’s the Hudson Valley Fort. Look at these beautiful sightlines on the field. Turns out, Dutchess Stadium wasn’t safe for football. It was so unsafe that the league cancelled the remainder of their games, and any high school football games scheduled to be played there were cancelled.

Because of this, you had yet another shortened season. Brooklyn finished 4-1, the Blacktips (who were a traveling team yet again) finished 1-1, and the Fort finished 0-3. But make no mistake… the league was going to come back for the 2016 season bigger and better than ev--- nope. They folded. Brooklyn Baseball Banter of all places broke the news that the FXFL folded, and on August 31 of 2016, this failed experimental football league was no more.

Part IV: Legacy

The FXFL was doomed to fail from the start. Word to the wise- don’t try and do the NFL’s job for them. If the NFL wants a minor football league, they’ll create a minor football league. If the end game is “the only way we survive is if the NFL notices us,” then you’re going to die pretty quickly. This league was ridden with poor management, poor attendance, and a poor gameplan. Their identity was really bad. The quality of football was really bad; their marquee players were Josh Freeman and Tajh Boyd. The commissioner was bad. Everything about this league was bad.

Some tips for creating a league: Don’t try and place a team in a market that already has a team. Don’t have a traveling team. Don’t make promises you can’t keep. Don’t set the bar so low (there’s a difference between realistic expectations and then expectations that will just set you up for failure). Don’t play games in stadiums that aren’t safe for football. Don’t place a team in a town that holds 2,000 people. Don’t place teams all across the country when you don’t have the money.

I could see what the UFL was trying to do, even though it failed. But the FXFL? This was a colossal failure. Again, how the league didn’t get sued up their rear end, I’m not sure, because the way the Brawlers and the way the Fort were handled was absolutely terrible. The NFL didn’t want a minor league. The FXFL created a minor league. Not surprisingly, the FXFL failed.

Call it the Failed Experimental Football League.

Lost Leagues (Sundays)	Record Watch- Offense (Mondays)	Draft Scratchers (Tuesdays)	Record Watch- Defense (Wednesdays)	One Hit Wonders (Thursdays)	Weird Stat Threads (Fridays)
Part I: United Football League	Part I: Passing Yards	Part I: Roger Vick (NY Jets, 1987)	Part II: Sacks	Part I: Derek Loville (San Francisco, 1995)	Part I: NFL vs. Eurovision
Part II: Spring Football League	Part III: Receptions	Part II: Tyson Alualu (Jacksonville, 2010)	N/A	Part II: Patrick Jeffers (Carolina, 1999)	Part II: NFL vs. Preakness
Part III: Fall Experimental Football League		Part III: Rick Mirer Trade