This year, the IFL brought the in-season Cup concept to Indoor Football. When I first heard of it, I was dismissive of it. 4 teams that will be put in a mini tournament, playing in a mall in New Jersey, and nothing to base that situation on besides other sports, made me wonder how much of a spectacle this would degenerate into. It didn’t devolve into the fiasco I was worried about and in the end is a concept that will evolve further and in upcoming years could be one of those things that the league can point to with pride. There are a few things that I would work out before next year’s event though.
I hated the storyline that the league played up between Kevin Guy of the Arizona Rattlers and Mike Davis of the Vegas Night Hawks. I watched the sit-down talk with the two head coaches and with Jason Fitz and Caroline Fenton. Yes, they had a blowup a couple of weeks before when there was shoving and words exchanged. I thought that the questioning of that topic went way too long and hopefully in the future, if you are talking about rivalries, It is about the teams that are there not the head coaches. Plus if I wanted to watch wrestling storylines, there are enough wrestling promotions out there that I could watch them locally, not on a football broadcast. Otherwise, it was cool to see the effort that the IFL and Yahoo! Sports put into the presentation of the games. Even in the blowouts.
That brings me to the next point. If you are going to do this repeatedly, please bring teams of the same expectations. I understand that the New Mexico Chupacabras are an expansion team this year, but on your biggest stage the way that they played made me wonder why they were there. I know the reason why, exposure for the team and getting their name out there. However, they scored 26 points combined in the two games that they played and they were totally outclassed. The Orlando Pirates are expected to be one of the teams fighting for the Eastern Division crown. They played a competitive half against Vegas and then melted down in the second half. Ended up losing by 40 points to the defending champions. The league believes that they were lucky if I could get into their heads that they had the blowup between Vegas and Arizona. The top two teams in the league and they are both in the Cup and were placed so that if the plan came together, they would play in the Finals. Great, but please give those teams a bit more of a challenge than what they were presented this year. Book the four preseason teams that the league will be the strongest contenders to be champions of the league. Gives everyone a measuring stick of where they are midseason compared to what might be their biggest rivals for the league Championship.
Putting the first IFL Cup in the American Dream Mall is something unique and could be used as a recruiting tool for someone to step up and want a team in that location or somewhere nearby. It seemed like the Cup was a hit there, so use it to look at other potential cities for where you might want to have a team. You could go to a myriad of cities and see if they could possibly work for you. I would put next year’s cup in Kansas City. I know that there is a team in St. Joseph’s called the Goats. The two cities are an hour away and just because you hold the Cup tournament there doesn’t mean that you need to put a team there. It expands the knowledge of your league to people that might not know about it because there is no team close to them. There are hundreds of cities that you can choose from. Make the Cup locations travel and not just stay that the American Dream Mall.
The last thing that I would do is work with the IFL broadcast partners and develop a unique package for those breaks in the game. I know that seeing highlights and hearing other Yahoo! Sports program clips are fun but make it relevant to the IFL. You have the people watching, so give them something more to digest while waiting for the game to resume. Do player profiles on some of the stars of the IFL. Take two from every team and do a minute or two clip of them talking about themselves, a highlight package and possibly a quote or two from their coach. If not that, do a short overview of the history of the IFL. Use the trials and tribulations of the past to inform people watching that this league isn’t a fly-by night league. People would like to know the history. Use the low point of 2018 where the league was barely scraping by and the recovery that has happened in the years since. Highlight people in the past of this league that propelled it to where it is today. Make the viewers understand where the league has been and where it is going. It will work to bring in loyalty to people and also possibly get them out in person to support those teams.
Bring those things into this along with the interviews of the coaches and the camera work that has been done, I think you have a bigger win than what you have now. Make the football the main focus and why the Cup means so much and I think you can increase the awareness of the American public. That is what I believe needs to be done. I hope that the powers that be are in agreement. If not, it will be interesting to see how this progresses.
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