Compete against the NFL?

http://www.blogmaverick.com/2007/05/30/competing-with-the-nfl/

Mark Cuban has proposed a new professional football league that would rival the NFL and compete with them for players. He concedes that the NFL will always be the top tier of football but he sees his league having the ability to lure away any player that is drafted in the second round on down. On the linked post above he lays out a few general reasons why he feels this is a feasible proposal on on the face of things, it seems pretty reasonable. Everything he says makes sense and I don't think you could find a better person to participate in a start-up league. He's been nothing but good for the Mavericks, he caters to their every whim and you can tell all he wants to do is win- he just wants the best product. He even cried when Dirk Nowitzki received the MVP trophy, even if his tears were a metaphorical flop, he still put in the effort to conjure up the water works and that shows dedication.

The problem with Cuban's proposal is that he is looking at this whole thing from a business standpoint. He can't be faulted for this, its what he does for a living. Thinking in the mindset of a football fan, is this really a good idea? Cuban writes, "Competition for top players, even if the UFL gets just a few, increases prices at the top end for all teams. Every star will get paid more, but still have to fit under the cap. That forces teams to use more low cost players, at the expense of signing the middle of the roster. That gives us access to quite a few very, very good NFL players. The downside is that it will significantly impact small market NFL teams and its unclear how the NFL would respond to that and what the impact would be on the UFL."

For one, what good comes out of watering down the talent? The NFL is arguably as popular as it's ever been- it has even eclipsed "America's Pastime"- and a large part of this is due to the fact that, across the board, the games are extremely entertaining to watch. The level of talent in the league makes everyone competitive, so why would we want to see a dip in that standard to allow for a more competitive business atmosphere?

The other issue is that no matter how successful this new league got, it would still play second fiddle to the NFL. Any player that achieved any type of success would still have to face the criticism that he was playing in the weaker league and anyone with any drive would move to the NFL so thy could prove themselves. So maybe the dilemma will work itself out, but why not propose a different solution.

I'm sure every fan will agree that there can never be too much football and that's why another league will always be slightly enticing. So why not designate this league as a sort of NBA DL type league- like minor league football. People would surely still watch and it would avoid weakening the NFL's rosters. The problem here is that Mark Cuban would probably never go for being a part of any second rate product, but hey, we'll just let him cry about it.