Brian Woods grew up in the football-mad world of Florida. He was a walk-on safety at Ole Miss, spent time as a coach at Iowa State, interned for the New York Jets working on salary cap matters, and spent five years as an agent with HS International. He also found time to get a law degree from West Virginia University. More recently, he ran the Medal of Honor Bowl college football all-star game. It was in that job that he got backers together to form the new FXFL, a four-team, six-week developmental football league that starts next month.
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Injuries occur throughout the season. If you need to get a player, it is really hard to do that. Would you rather have a guy who is sitting at home versus a player who has actually been playing in a league?”
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Photo: COURTESY OF FXFL
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Why start the league now?: A lot of people really question why the NFL doesn’t have a development league. The 2011 CBA really set this in motion [with restrictions on practices]. You really need a place to send a player who isn’t quite ready. … I have been contacted by a few NFL teams who want to send scouts to our games.
How much money has been raised?: I can’t disclose that. … All I can tell you is, we have enough at the moment to get through the first season.
The player budget: We are paying players $1,000 a game, and it is a six-week season. Their contractual commitments don’t even last eight weeks because they report Sept. 25 and it is done Nov. 12.
About any contact with the NFL in regards to working with them: I won’t go into specific details; I have definitely had conversations with executives at the league office. Our goal is to form a partnership with them.
Ties to baseball: The Omaha team [will play] at TD Ameritrade Park … and our New York team is playing — it is a unique partnership — at the Brooklyn Cyclones’ stadium, MCU Park. Brooklyn is our model team of the year. It is a partnership with a minor league baseball team, which has the infrastructure in place for marketing, ticketing and promotions.
Why this league will succeed where others have failed: We have cost containment. … Other leagues overspent too quickly.
