NFL Minor League?
Originally published: 5/19/2017
Original post: https://coalm.blogspot.com/2017/05/nfl-minor-league.html
I have always found it odd that the NFL, being one of the most profitable sports leagues, does not have a minor league system. The NHL and MLB have decent minor league systems in place. Using those as template could work for the NFL too. Of course, the NFL has no reason to create a minor league as long as they can use the NCAA as their farm system. That is a discussion for another time. That being said, I still like to imagine how minor league football would play out. Since this is my fantasy, I get to make the rules. So let's get started...
I think each NFL team should have a minor league team that is located near the NFL city. It makes no sense having a minor league squad located in a different time zone from its parent NFL team. In addition, those locations should be decided based on media outlets. This isn't a charity. We gotta make some money. Let's take a look at the largest media markets that do not already have an NFL team AND is located somewhat near existing NFL locations.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_television_stations_in_North_America_by_media_market
Based on this information, I will match up existing NFL cities with potential minor league cities:
NFL City
Minor City
Seattle
Portland
Oakland*
Sacramento
Los Angeles
Fresno
San Francisco
San Jose
Los Angeles
San Diego
Houston
San Antonio
Dallas
Oklahoma City
Phoenix
Tuscon
Kansas City
Wichita
Denver
Albuquerque
Green Bay
Milwaukee
Detroit
Grand Rapids
Minneapolis
Des Moines
Chicago**
St Louis
Indianapolis
Louisville
Buffalo
Toronto
Pittsburgh
Harrisburgh
Cincinnati
Dayton
Cleveland
Columbus
Nashville
Memphis
Miami
West Palm
Jacksonville
Savannah
Tampa
Orlando
Atlanta
Birmingham
New Orleans
Mobile
Charlotte
Greenville
Boston
Providence
New York City
Albany
Philadelphia
Wilkes Barre
New York City
Hartford
Baltimore
Wilmington
Washington
Norfolk
*You may notice that Las Vegas is absent. The Raiders are moving there, so I thought it was unfair to list Las Vegas as another NFL city's minor league location. Sacramento can still be the minor league location for Las Vegas whether the Raiders are in Oakland or Las Vegas. Maybe Oakland can be the Las Vegas minor league city like I did with LA/San Diego.
**The NFC North teams were tough to balance. Making St. Louis the minor league city for Chicago seems unnatural thanks to the Cubs/Cardinal baseball rivalry. Might need to shuffle some of the "NFC North" associations with their minor league cities. For this exercise, these cities will have to exist in a vacuum, so St. Louis - Chicago stays.
There were some other geographical gymnastics required to make this work. For example, the Mountain region does not have a lot of people, so it has fewer large media markets. The Denver-Albuquerque connection is the biggest stretch, but the rest seem to fall into place. It actually makes sense for the most part. Not sure if there is even a football appetite in each of the minor league cities I have chosen.
Would the minor cities build a stadium? Who cares? I assume if they are large enough to make the media market list, they would already have a stadium or be able to build one. Besides, how large would an NFL Minor League team stadium need to be? I honestly have no idea.
In the next post, I will cover how these teams will interact by creating conferences/divisions.