I floated that PoD - but if we had an NFL one, a college football one, an NHL one, a minor league hockey one (Provedence Bruins, if you want me to declare my interest), an MLB one...
For the most part it would be the same people on every thread. That's why SPR suggested we generics this one. It even gives us latitude to talk about teams that don't exist.
Showing the level of attention I pay to sport when there is no sport, I hear the XFL quickly went belly up. Having been in the US for it's first, short lived, over hyped iteration it seems that they just can't catch a break.
It does seem like sports development, long a strength of the US, is showing some cracks. Minor league baseball was being deliberately downsized before the Covid emergency, a sustainable football development league seems to be a poisoned chalice. Minor league hockey is on a fragile financial base anyway, and the whole pre-college basketball system is rife with corruption and dodgy dealings.
Then there is college sports where everyone makes money publicly other than the players. Where if you ain't cheating in recruiting you ain't trying. Where all the other sports depend on football and basketball to subsidise them. Where the State's highest paid public employee is the state college football coach. I do wonder how the house of cards will fare over the next couple of years.
There’s still far more minor league baseball than makes sense to me. As far as minor league hockey is concerned I can only speak as I find - Providence still average 8,000* spectators a game and the B’s cover most of the player costs so the model seems to work for them.
*The Dunk holds over 12,000 - they aren’t playing to full houses.
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Feb 2022
