Football

5/3/2024 |  UFL at midseason: League took best of USFL and XFL, but has a familiar team at top of standings (Associated Press (AP)) The Birmingham Stallions are playing in a new spring football league, and they’re continuing their winning ways.
The Stallions are unbeaten as the United Football League reached its midway point last week. The UFL came about after the mergers of the USFL and XFL last September.
Birmingham, the two-time USFL champion, was one of four teams to survive along with four teams from the XFL. The Stallions are the league’s only unbeaten team at 5-0 and can wrap up a playoff spot with a win at Memphis on Saturday.

5/3/2024 |  Baltimore Ravens to offer field-level seating at M&T Bank Stadium (Stadia Magazine) As part of ongoing efforts to ensure M&T Bank Stadium remains a world-class NFL and entertainment venue, the Baltimore Ravens have announced that they will introduce new permanent seat licensed (PSL) field-level seats this year.
With the installation of 138 exclusive field seats flanking each side of the northwest and southwest corners, the two rows of plush seating will offer fans an opportunity to enjoy Ravens games from one of the stadium’s most intimate and unique vantage points.

5/2/2024 |  Bears’ $4.7 Billion Stadium Pitch Caught in a Game of Political Football (Front Office Sports)

On the surface, what the Bears are proposing for their new $4.7 billion lakefront stadium is hardly radical by current NFL standards. The team’s pitch for a new stadium adjacent to Soldier Field, with about $2.3 billion in private money, easily beats the team-level contributions for forthcoming facilities inBuffalo and Tennessee, both in actual amount and percentage of overall development cost, and could also overtake what is being discussed in Kansas City and Cleveland. 

And despite the ongoing debate about the best use and preservation of Chicago’s downtown museum campus, no private landowner would be displaced in this project. The office of Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker, however, has already branded the Bears’ effort, as currently constructed, as a “nonstarter.”

Such is the highly delicate nature of the city- and state-level politics surrounding the team’s stadium pitch. Even with the massive popularity of the NFL nationally and the Bears locally, and the particulars that the team has offered to date, the Bears’ proposal is running hard into broader realities and a general resistance to even a perception of enriching a wealthy team owner with taxpayer funds. 

“As the governor has said, the current proposal is a nonstarter for the state,” said Alex Gough, a spokesman for Pritzker. “In order to subsidize a brand-new stadium for a privately owned sports team, the governor would need to see a demonstrable and tangible benefit to the taxpayers of Illinois.”

Conversations between the team and Pritzker’s office are still ongoing, and the Bears said they “share a commitment to protecting the taxpayers of Illinois and look forward to future discussions.”

State-level support is likely critical for the stadium, as the team in particular has not identified a funding source for three phases of infrastructure development that are projected to total $1.5 billion, only saying last week, “There are dollars that we believe exist at the state level, maybe the federal level, and potentially the city level.”

Back in the City

Chicago mayor Brandon Johnson, whose full support of the lakefront proposal has already rankled critics, continues to face further criticism for his position. Recent local columns and editorials have opined that Johnson “is playing fantasy football with our money,” and that “the Bears are looking out for the Bears.”

Should the downtown stadium development fizzle out, officials in suburban Arlington Heights saidthey remain ready to restart talks with the Bears. 

5/2/2024 |  Paying college football players could reverse trend of bowl game opt-outs, boost non-CFP postseason (Associated Press (AP)) SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. (AP) — With the expanded College Football Playoff locked in through 2031, questions still remain about what the rest of the postseason will look like.
One thing is certain, there will still be bowls.
“College football cannot have a postseason that only provides 12 opportunities,” Nick Carparelli, executive director of Bowl Season, the organization that advocates for bowl games, said Thursday. “That’s contrary to every other NCAA sport. And the leadership of college athletics has been very clear in recent years that they want more opportunities for student athletes to compete in the postseason, not less across all sports.”

5/2/2024 |  Georgia’s Kirby Smart becomes the nation’s highest-paid college football coach at $13m annually (Associated Press (AP)) ATHENS, Ga. (AP) — Georgia’s Kirby Smart agreed to a contract extension Thursday that makes him the highest-paid coach in college football with an annual salary of $13 million.
Smart got a bump in salary of $1.75 million annually as part of the deal, which ties him to the Bulldogs through 2033. He could also receive up to $1.55 million per year in bonuses based on the new 12-team playoff structure, an increase from $1.3 million under the previous terms.