The All American Football League: A Novel Approach to Pro Sports

On Tuesday of this week's Houston Business Show I interviewed Mike Pede of the All American Football League. Any regular listener of my show or reader of this blog knows that I'm a big fan of sports and to those teams that are aspiring to attract fans against the very competitive major leagues.

The problem with most of these leagues is that they either pretend to be on the same tier as the major teams, play the same time of the year as when they play, or don't offer any unique features to make fans interested. I think that the new All American Football League may have addressed these issues effectively:

* The season begins right after the NFL season ends. Soon enough where people are still thinking about football, late enough not to interfere with the "big boys."

* You actually have to be a college graduate to participate in this league. Being educated is one of the elements to being a good example. This is a positive for young fans.

* The salaries will attract higher quality people, but people who are still hungry. Each team will have six players who make $100,000 a year and around 40 who will make $50,000. This is similar to the Arena Football League.

* They give a great "college feel" that provides an excellent -- and unique -- niche. They plan on only operating in college stadiums (Houston's team will play at Rice University's stadium). In fact, they go to great lengths to align players to teams that are close to where they went to school.

All in all, it is too early to say whether this approach is going to work, but I'm optimistic. I love sports and particularly those teams filled with hungry players that desire to take it to the next level. It will be interesting to see how this new league matures.

Kevin Price is Host of the Houston Business Show (M-F at 11 AM on CNN 650) and Publisher of the Houston Business Review. Hear the show live and online at HoustonBusinessShow.com. Visit the archive of past shows here.