The NFL relies on college football for its minor league, but that may change:
Don Yee, better known as Tom Brady’s agent, is launching a professional football league that will target young players who don’t qualify for college or just want to make money sooner rather than later. In limiting the player pool to those between 18 and 22 years old, the venture will challenge a nearly century-old system in which the National Football League relies almost entirely on colleges to prepare its future workforce.
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The National Collegiate Athletic Association has steadfastly refused to pay athletes but has begun supplementing their scholarships with a monthly living stipend. The amount depends in part on whether an athlete lives on campus but can range from a few hundred dollars to more than $1,000. Also, Northwestern’s football players lost their bid to unionize and be treated as employees of the university.
In light of those developments and an NFL rule that requires players to be three years removed from high school to be eligible, Yee and other advocates for athletes have argued for an alternative route for players who want to make it to the highest level of the sport.
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Yee hopes to avoid joining a long list of failed professional football leagues, a group that includes the World Football League, the United States Football League, and the XFL. The NFL folded its own alternative league called NFL Europe in 2007 after 15 seasons. These leagues collapsed amid declining interest and mounting expenses. Beyond paying a minimum of 45 players, owners need training facilities, equipment, coaches and insurance policies — expenses that can reach $5 million to $10 million annually.
“Pac-Pro Football” as its executives refer to it, will have a single-entity structure rather than a franchise model, with the league controlling all team and personnel decisions.
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The Pac-Pro league, McCaffrey said, will target players with NFL-level talent that require additional seasoning. Among those players who could fit the bill are those who struggle with academics or lost their scholarships for disciplinary reasons, or junior-college standouts not yet ready for the NFL.
Heisman Trophy winner Cam Newton, for example, spent a year playing at tiny Blinn College after a series of problems forced him to leave the University of Florida. Though Newton later thrived at Auburn, he is the type of athlete the Pac-Pro founders hope will see the new league as a viable option.
Those athletes will be able to get jump on learning the professional style of play, which requires a different skill set than big-time college football.
Well, there is a decent pool of players, I suppose. Fans though?