Soldiers in Blue wrote:Agreed. I think I read somewhere that something like 30,000 college football players graduate annually and don't get Pro contracts. If American RL could just attract 0.1% of this pool annually that would be 30 potential players per year to pick from for a league of 8 teams. Wouldn't take long to start generating real interest.
That's slightly off. Between the NCAA and NAIA there are 716 schools with football teams, and they carry about 80 players each. That's over 57,000 players total. Every year about 1/4 would graduate or use up their eligibility to play, so more than 14,000 players move on every year. Fewer than 500 get a shot at playing pro, and there's very little open-age American football due to the costs of the sport. The rest constitute a huge pool of potential players.
College football is extremely popular too. The season before last the NCAA's 619 schools attracted 48,751,861 fans to their games. Millions more watch the schools in "Bix Six" conferences on TV on Saturdays too. That's a huge potential audience for American RL.
