FOOTBALL: ELECTRONIC MEDIA Publisher Ron Alridge writes
that after the NFL's TV deal, "it's hard to imagine a better
time for starting a new pro football league. ... [A] real
football league that would go head to head with the NFL,
Sunday after Sunday." He suggests that TNT and NBC could be
TV partners and the league make 25% of "their best tickets"
available to the general public, not only corporations.
Alridge writes the NFL's "greed" has left it "vulnerable to
any rival looking for opportunities to simultaneously help
itself and hurt its opponent" (ELECTRONIC MEDIA, 1/26
issue)....ESPN's John Clayton reported, "Only two weeks
remain in a two-month window for NFL teams to lure unsigned
CFL players or those in their option year. Only five
players have made the jump, including four who had
previously been on NFL teams" ("SportsCenter," 1/27)....In
L.A., Alan Rothenberg, who is backing the effort to bring an
NFL team to the Coliseum, now believes that "the chances are
better than 50-50." Rothenberg spent last week in San Diego
and said later, "The last time we went to an owners'
meeting, they tried to find ways to avoid us. Here, some of
them actually came over to greet us" (L.A. TIMES, 1/27).
