AHC: "North American Football"

angakkuq

I'm working on this AH novel idea, and I've been doing some world-building.

I'm trying to figure out how rather than American football and Canadian football, there might be some sort of hybridized "North American football" complete with a North American Football League rather than the NFL and CFL.

Thoughts?
 

OldNavy1988

One thing you could do is take a few rules from the NFL, and some other rules from the CFL to make a hybrid league.

Also, don't limit yourself to cities represented by either league IOTL. Go global if you want. Give back stories for each team, like ownership changes, relocations, etc.

Lastly, hold a "fantasy draft" of all the teams you want to use to have an idea on how the players got to be where they are.
 

CthulhuFhtagn

Banned
OldNavy1988 said:
They use only three downs instead of four, twelve players instead of eleven, and the field is longer and wider.
Click to expand...

So kind of the exact opposite of arena football? That seems a bit confusing.

How big is the CFL in Canada, anyway? I would assume the NFL is much bigger there.
 

Protest The Hero

This interests me. A traditional 32 team set up of a 40 team league with divisions of 5 teams each across USA and Canada would be worth seeing.

Just would be interesting to see how a mixture of player numbers and pitch and size measurements could be blended.
 

lord caedus

Since this is in After 1900, my best guess would be maybe the college game, when Teddy Roosevelt threatens to shut it down after all the deaths, opens strong dialogue with the various Canadian football organizations trying to figure out how to make the game safer. The dialogue keeps communication between the groups strong and the game on both sides of the border slowly begin to get closer and closer together until they eventually become one sport.

OldNavy1988 said:
One thing you could do is take a few rules from the NFL, and some other rules from the CFL to make a hybrid league.

Also, don't limit yourself to cities represented by either league IOTL. Go global if you want. Give back stories for each team, like ownership changes, relocations, etc.

Lastly, hold a "fantasy draft" of all the teams you want to use to have an idea on how the players got to be where they are.
Click to expand...

All these are good advice, but the bolded one might be a bit much. The most I could honestly see if you have teams in Canada & Mexico is Mexico and the Caribbean. Anything further and you'd have too many teams and/or teams being way too far away from each other.
 

606jae

12 players per side and rouge(1 point for a touchback) from Canada, 4 downs and field size from USA
 

OldNavy1988

I don't know how many teams you want to have in your league, but here's the list of cities from Madden 25 relocation mode for reference...

  • Los Angeles, CA
  • Toronto, Canada
  • Mexico City, Mexico
  • London, England
  • Dublin, Ireland
  • Houston, Texas
  • San Antonio, Texas
  • Brooklyn, NY
  • Chicago, Illinois
  • Memphis, Tennessee
  • Columbus, Ohio
  • Portland, Oregon
  • Orlando, FL
  • Oklahoma City, OK
  • Sacramento, California
  • Salt Lake City, Utah
  • Austin, Texas
 

Protest The Hero

I wonder if the NFL could buy the CFL and form a merger but that would leave a lot of the CFL players without teams as it plays a whol different style to the NFL. I for one would love someone to give the CFL a television deal that could see it become a successful summer league that could expand further across Canada
 

IndefatigableRN

CthulhuFhtagn said:
So kind of the exact opposite of arena football? That seems a bit confusing.

How big is the CFL in Canada, anyway? I would assume the NFL is much bigger there.
Click to expand...

It really isn't. Maybe in Toronto, but even there the TiCats and Argos are pretty popular.

In places like Saskatchewan, you'd be laughed at for suggesting that the NFL is bigger...

The only place that doesn't really have a team is the Maritimes...
 

Pete U

Wouldn't the economics be an issue?

It's only the NHL out of the major leagues that has managed to maintain anything more than a token presence in Canada, and the average CFL player is paid a lot less than his NFL counterpart.

On that basis, I'm struggling to see a NAFL managing more than Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver, unless we are talking a league with 60+ teams
 

Tammany Tiger

I was thinking along the lines of an early Super Bowl between the NFL and CFL during the 1920s, but the CFL as we know it didn't become fully professional until the 1950s.

Another possibility would be for the CFL to become a developmental league for the NFL, with the NFL adopting some of the Canadian rules. I'm not sure how that would go over with the Canadian government or with fans of the existing CFL teams.
 
TheMann

TheMann

If we're able to go far enough back, bear in mind that the CFL worked on expansions south of the border twice and the gap between the two leagues in the financial health of the individual teams did not grow massively until the huge TV contracts of the 1990s. It's not that far fetched to see the CFL being rather more prosperous than it is, particularly if they can get in the door early.

I'd be inclined in a case like this to try for the AFL-NFL merger to include the CFL. That's a big order but I'd say a possible one, because the one time a CFL team played an AFL one the Canadian team won, and most in the NFL and AFL by the time the merger was being negotiated in 1965-66 knew that the CFL was no joke and that their best could play with the NFL's best. As far as rules go, I'd be inclined to go with NFL length but Canadian width for the field, as well as the twelve men from the CFL and four downs and two-point conversions from the NFL. The greater width of the field and extra man gives greater flexibility for the offense, but the extra man makes pass protection easier and may give greater offensive flexibility in the league.
 

bm79

IndefatigableRN said:
It really isn't. Maybe in Toronto, but even there the TiCats and Argos are pretty popular.

In places like Saskatchewan, you'd be laughed at for suggesting that the NFL is bigger...

The only place that doesn't really have a team is the Maritimes...
Click to expand...

The games played in Moncton, NB these past few years are aimed at testing the viability of a team in Atlantic Canada. IIRC, they'd be called the Schooners, and they'd balance out the CFL with Eastern and Western conferences having five teams (the BlueBombers would transfer back to the west).
 

bm79

TheMann said:
If we're able to go far enough back, bear in mind that the CFL worked on expansions south of the border twice and the gap between the two leagues in the financial health of the individual teams did not grow massively until the huge TV contracts of the 1990s. It's not that far fetched to see the CFL being rather more prosperous than it is, particularly if they can get in the door early.

I'd be inclined in a case like this to try for the AFL-NFL merger to include the CFL. That's a big order but I'd say a possible one, because the one time a CFL team played an AFL one the Canadian team won, and most in the NFL and AFL by the time the merger was being negotiated in 1965-66 knew that the CFL was no joke and that their best could play with the NFL's best. As far as rules go, I'd be inclined to go with NFL length but Canadian width for the field, as well as the twelve men from the CFL and four downs and two-point conversions from the NFL. The greater width of the field and extra man gives greater flexibility for the offense, but the extra man makes pass protection easier and may give greater offensive flexibility in the league.
Click to expand...

I think the 2-point conversion was a CFL rule adopted by the NFL.
 

bm79

DocU said:
Wouldn't the economics be an issue?

It's only the NHL out of the major leagues that has managed to maintain anything more than a token presence in Canada, and the average CFL player is paid a lot less than his NFL counterpart.

On that basis, I'm struggling to see a NAFL managing more than Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver, unless we are talking a league with 60+ teams
Click to expand...

In a scenario where the CFL and NFL/AFL merged back in the 60s, for example, the Canadian teams in the NAFL would be benefitting from NFL-level television and merchandising royalties for nearly half a century. That'd help level the playing field. Also, more teams might somewhat lower the average pay, at least for journeymen players compared to OTL NFL levels. More teams isn't going to mean more superstar players, talent on that level isn't really a demand-sensitive commodity.

As for economic viability, CFL teams aren't exactly playing in small towns. Aside from the big 3 Canadian cities you mention (and leaving aside Regina), they all run in the 750,000-1.25mil range. And Regina is bigger than Green Bay, and like the Packers, the Roughriders survive by having developed a wide fan base that spans the country.
 

The Ubbergeek

How popular is (american) football in Mexico or perhaps Caraibans states? Butterflies could turn a team there in a Future side at least....
 
TheMann

TheMann

bm79 said:
In a scenario where the CFL and NFL/AFL merged back in the 60s, for example, the Canadian teams in the NAFL would be benefitting from NFL-level television and merchandising royalties for nearly half a century. That'd help level the playing field. Also, more teams might somewhat lower the average pay, at least for journeymen players compared to OTL NFL levels. More teams isn't going to mean more superstar players, talent on that level isn't really a demand-sensitive commodity.
Click to expand...

One other point to point out - the TV market in Canada is quite heavily centralized in modern times, with CTVGlobemedia, Rogers Communications and Bell Canada all owning wide slices of the Canadian TV market and them being able to move around big sums of money for TV rights. Rogers bought the rights to the NHL in Canada for 2015-2026 for $4.2 Billion in 2013, and the NAFL would probably have such a level of popularity that that sorta money could be justified for TV rights in Canada. In terms of how much that is proportionate to NFL rights in the states, its about even. There are a LOT of NFL fans in Toronto, and a huge number of them travel down the QEW to Bills games on a regular basis, and the Bills in Toronto series was a flop because it couldn't come close to the atmosphere of a normal NFL game at the Ralph in Buffalo. (That and the tickets at first were grossly overpriced and the Bills, frankly, perpetually suck in recent times.) Having all those fans constantly packing the Rogers Centre in Toronto would give that atmosphere just fine, thank you.

bm79 said:
As for economic viability, CFL teams aren't exactly playing in small towns. Aside from the big 3 Canadian cities you mention (and leaving aside Regina), they all run in the 750,000-1.25mil range. And Regina is bigger than Green Bay, and like the Packers, the Roughriders survive by having developed a wide fan base that spans the country.
Click to expand...

Most CFL teams do have smaller stadiums, but keep in mind that the CFL isn't seen as being the greatest of football. The CFL does proportionally better out west, but in Ontario (where NFL coverage is over-the-air a lot of the time) the NFL clearly has the edge. It's worth also pointing out that most CFL stadiums in the West are pretty big - ranging from 32,850 in Regina to 56,300 in Edmonton - and while they are not NFL size (no stadium save maybe Olympic Stadium in Montreal is, even the big Rogers Center in Toronto), having the NAFL around to share TV revenues and popularity with could easily mean those stadiums could be built bigger (BC Place was opened in 1983, the Rogers Center in 1989, both long after the POD here) or expanded or rebuilt.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top
Top