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Comment by r00fus | Hacker News Reader

> I would gladly support a league of slightly worse players if it wasn't as scummy as the NFL has proven itself to be.

Isn't this what the USFL and XFL were intended to be? Even if the other league were to focus on niches (like indoor football).

I don't see how this changes without some anti-trust kind of oversight by a higher authority than the already profit-focused (with the consequential ethically blinders) NFL.

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College football, although it feeds the NFL, still has some rules in place that reduce some of the bad behavior. Of course, there's plenty of problems there, too, but these days I feel much less guilty cheering for a university team than for a pro team.

I disagree. At least in the NFL, players are making (incredibly good) money.

In the NCAA, so many "student"-athletes are taken advantage of much more than NFL players.

I absolutely agree. The situation would be different if the coaches/college administrators didn't make so much money.

I still wonder: would it break any laws for a university system to institute a pay cap across the board?

Let's not forget the college itself is making an unhealthy amount of money. It's not just the personnel, it's the universities.

I attended Vanderbilt and was incredibly proud to see then-Chancellor Gee actually eliminated teh athletic department. He believed the department had too much power because of it's revenue generating capabilities, and the only way around that was elimination.

College football is much worse than the NFL. Players get paid nothing and still burden the same risks mostly. The idea that players are "getting an education" simply just isn't true when you consider some of the majors these guys are enrolled in.

We need a minor league where players can make money. College football is insanely profitable.

Decouple the football teams from the colleges. Make 'em fully pro, with the scholarships and all intact but the team only licenses the team from the university and pays for its use of facilities, plus "holy cow those are high" licensing fees. The university still acts as alumni funding agent.

I guess you call a 5 or 6 figure per-year free education, room and board, use of multimillion dollar facilites and training expertise, getting "paid nothing."

Minor league players don't make a lot of money. Sometimes they have to pay to play. They get chewed up and spit out broke for the most part.

Please name a minor league with an $11B TV contract

USFL was fine as a spring league and would have probably continued to this day if it was left as a spring league.

There is a pretty good documentary[1] on Netflix about the USFL and how attempting to make it a fall league competing directly with the NFL essentially handed it a death sentence.

I don't want to spoil anything, of course, so you'll have to watch it yourself to see who's bright idea that was.

It's really a shame, IMO. An alternate spring league would have been great.

[1]: http://espn.go.com/30for30/film?page=small-potatoes-who-kill...

So essentially you're saying that trying to compete with the NFL was the ticket to demise? Doesn't that sound like the NFL is a monopoly?

Oh, absolutely. I'm not disputing that even in the slightest.

USFL would have died once players got huge salaries. The only reason it was doing alright was because players were underpaid. They had star QBS. The XFL was a summer league and failed because they had no talent.

The XFL failed because NBC pulled out of the deal. Without a broadcast partner, a sports league is basically stuck operating off gate revenue, and at the scale the XFL attempted to run at, doomed.

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