Fort Worth is getting a new pro football team, because people can’t quit this sport
Football apparently is dead, or dying, which explains why people still play it, watch it by the millions, and new leagues keep popping up all over the country.
Another pro football league is launching, this time something called the Texas Alliance Arena League, which will feature a team here in Fort Worth for a season that is scheduled to begin play in 2021.
Our team will be the Fort Worth Blaze, and, no, gear is not quite available yet.
The league, which is owned by Lone Star Sports Group, is scheduled to formally introduce more details on Wednesday in downtown Fort Worth with a press conference at the Sheraton.
Ladies and gentlemen, Godspeed and good luck with this business venture. I have no idea how this is all going to work during a global pandemic, but anyone trying to plow through all of this COVID fun with a startup business venture has my respect.
The plan is for the Fort Worth franchise to play its home games in the 1,100-seat Watt Arena in the Will Rogers complex, and some others at the Fort Worth Convention Center.
Other sites will include Abilene, Mesquite, H-E-B, and expect Waco and Wichita Falls to join, provided this all moves forward.
Minor league sports in Fort Worth are historically not a great play, but the idea that football is on the verge of going the way of harness racing is preposterous.
So quit saying football is in trouble! when it’s fine. Football was due for some semblance of a slide, but we are not witnessing the end of the sport, either because of COVID, fear of concussions or whatever the heck is it they are doing in the NFC East.
Football will survive because millions love to play. Former Allen and Oklahoma star Kyler Murray turned down the chance to play professional baseball with the Oakland Athletics specifically because he just prefers football.
Football will survive because tens of millions love to watch. Let’s face it, no sport screams “party time” more than football.
And football will survive because hundreds of millions of dollars are wagered on the sport every year. How many friendships endure, and remain, simply over a friendly $10 wager on Colts versus Lions? Millions.
So now we have another business venture that’s tethered to football.
Because football is neither dead, nor dying.
The XFL, a league that first opened and shut its doors in 2001, tried to return in 2020. It was progressing according to its plan with WWE founder Vince McMahon bankrolling it. The Dallas Renegades were doing OK in their first year playing at Globe Life Park in Arlington.
But the XFL 2.0 became a COVID casualty and the league filed bankruptcy. The XFL has since been purchased by The Rock, and his ownership group is making plans to debut its vision in 2022.
Because football is neither dead, nor dying.
The arena football league that is launching here in Texas is not related to the same Arena Football League that existed, and briefly thrived, for 30 years. That league, which officially folded in November of 2019, once featured a Fort Worth franchise. The Fort Worth Cavalry existed for one year, in 1994, and whose lone 5-7 season was sandwiched by the Dallas Cowboys parading Super Bowl trophies up and down I-30.
Sadly, most minor league sports ventures in Fort Worth have followed that timeline; baseball’s Cats, hockey’s Fire, the NBA’s D-League Flyers all tried and could not make it work in Funky town.
Selling a minor-league product to a market that identifies with the Dallas Cowboys, Texas Rangers, Dallas Mavericks and Dallas Stars is not easy. And that’s not even including Texas-OU, the Big 12 title game, college bowl games and NASCAR events.
Soccer’s Fort Worth Vaqueros continue to play on, as do the Lone Star Brahmas hockey franchise in North Richland Hills. Professional lacrosse is scheduled to play at Dickies Arena next year, too.
If you keep your costs low enough, pro sports in Fort Worth can work. The business model may not make you rich, but you don’t have to close the doors.
So Fort Worth will get another team, because despite what you may see and read, football is neither dead, nor dying.
This story was originally published November 3, 2020 at 5:00 AM.
