Template talk:Professional gridiron football leagues in North America

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Contents

[edit] Minor League

What's the definition of "minor league" football (i.e. what's the distinction from "professional")? They're not exactly exclusive concepts. Professional usually just means "paid", perhaps distinguishd from "semi-professional" in that they pay equivalent to a full-time salary or better (or something like that). I'm thinking specifically of the Canadian Football League What's a WP:NPOV way to make that distinction? It could be argued that the CFL is a professional league. I think it's quite a POV thing to say the NFL is the only pro league. --Bdoserror 22:06, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Template Name

I think this template should probably specify "American Football" or some other appropriate distinguishing name to clarify that it's not what the rest of the world outside of North America and Australia calls "football". --Bdoserror 22:10, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

I agree. The Gridiron football article states that it is a term refering to American Football. So why not just say American Football. Pollox87 05:03, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

Because Canadian Football and Arena Football are not "American Football" per se. However they are Gridiron Football. JohnnyBGood t c VIVA! 18:19, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] European (and Japanese) leagues

I think that this should be just "Non-North American leagues", in case others come up. --Bdoserror 22:15, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Quality of this template

This template needs some serious clean-up before it should be pasted on every relevant page. For one, if it's about professional football, why are semi-pro and amateur leagues listed? "NFL Europe" isn't even spelled right. The header isn't centered. Nothing wrong with the concept, it just needs work. -- Mwalcoff 00:11, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

Not that it's particularly important, but if you go to the official website, it is "NFL Europa" now, not "NFL Europe". --Bdoserror 17:29, 17 November 2006 (UTC)
I'll be darned, you're right. -- Mwalcoff 02:51, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

I have update the formatting of this template and removed (gasp!) the Canadian amateur teams. We could use a new and different template for the dozens and dozens of amateur leagues and teams in each Canadian province. -- SunDog | Talk 15:17, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

For example: [Amateur gridiron football leagues in Canada] -- SunDog | Talk 15:24, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Template name

This template needs to be moved for two reasons - A: Capitalisation and B: For 95% of the World "Professional football" means something else entirely. Jooler 08:35, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Requested move

Template:Professional Football → [[Some other name]] — Globalisation Jooler 12:57, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Survey

Add  * '''Support'''  or  * '''Oppose'''  on a new line followed by a brief explanation, then sign your opinion using ~~~~.
  • Oppose. This is not the Main namespace. No particularly good reasons for the move have been made here. However, I could well support a move to delete this template, as being too huge and intrusive on the articles in which it is found, being largely useless as a navigation tool, and to the extent it does serve a purpose, being redundant with and better served by good use of categories and wikilinks. Gene Nygaard 14:32, 17 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Support - move to Template:Professional american football as more descriptive and to avoid any confusion with soccer. BlueValour 18:19, 17 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Support - There are two sports known widely as football and the one also known as soccer is more widely known as football in the world than American football, hence why FIFA is the Federation of international football associations (or the equivalent in French). The template Template:Professional Football should be re-titled to avoid confusion. --Chappy84 21:30, 17 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Support. The name is not in sync with Wikiproject football.  sʟυмɢυм • т • c  21:54, 17 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Support Though cumbersome, the name really should be named "Professional American Football Leagues", to be in line with the current conventions already well established here at wikipedia. --Jayron32 04:39, 18 November 2006 (UTC)
Comment - probably Professional American football leagues for correct caps. BlueValour 22:19, 18 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Support as football means soccer in an international context. DoubleBlue (Talk)
  • Support As the template creator I am in favor of Template:Professional American football leagues. I view this move as non controversial and will move the page immediately. Thanks for your concern. I continue to wonder about the redirects especially in the template space. Currently, the command {{Profootball}} redirects (transcludes?) to the template. The move procedure will also leave {{Professional Football}} as a redirect (transclude?) to the template. Is it necessary to change the transclusion commands on each page? TonyTheTiger 16:40, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Support as the template includes non-professional American Football Leagues - mainly those that are non-North American. Principally, and backed up by the quote I put on the [British American Football League] talk page, the BAFL is an amatuer league and the BCAFL is a collegiate league. The tamplate needs to be renamed to capture all adult kitted Football Leagues worldwide, or slimmed to target ONLY professional leagues (NFL, CFL, NFLEuropa, AFL, etc). I suggest the latter, and a new template captures global semi-professional and amatuer leagues. Londonblitz 17:53, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
    • I think they forgot to close this RM. The template was moved to Gridiron Football per this discussion a long time ago. JohnnyBGood t c VIVA! 18:20, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Discussion

Add any additional comments:

[edit] Remove CFL from the template

The consensus at Wikipedia is that the CFL is not a minor league, it is the highest professional league for the play of Canadian Football, which is considered as a seperate, though similar, code of Football from American Football. For an analogy, see the way that Rugby Union and Rugby League are treated. Any references to the CFL or other canadian football leagues should be removed from a template dealing with American Football. --Jayron32 04:42, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

I see that User:TonyTheTiger has re-added the CFL to the template under it's own heading. I think we need to clarify what this template is trying to represent and see if it then makes sense for the CFL to appear.--Bdoserror 19:19, 20 November 2006 (UTC)
The CFL link should be removed and the user should be directed to take the issue up at the talk page. I am no good at technical stuff like template mark-up, but if someone could please remove it, and leave both an edit summary and a comment on Tony's talk page about this, we may be able to reach consensus on how to handle this. I personally would not mind to see the template titled "Professional football in North America" with seperate categories and links for Canadian, American, Arena, and Association (soccer) leagues at the major, minor, and semi-professional levels. --Jayron32 21:34, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

I have moved the CFL to Other leagues. Due to its importance to professional football job seekers as one of the top two alternatives to the NFL, I felt it should be noted on the template because people using this resource to look up pro football leagues should be able to easily find it. TonyTheTiger 16:29, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

For the same reason I've moved the Arena Football League to that category. Both the CFL and AFL have similar circumstances in that they act is an occasional feeder to the NFL but also that they both play by nominally different rules then the NFL and are both major leagues. JohnnyBGood t c VIVA! 21:59, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
I disagree with the arena move. All indoor and arena leagues belong together. TonyTheTiger 23:25, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
Then they should be under a different category then "Minor Leagues" as the AFL isn't a minor league. The AF2 is, but it's a minor league of the AFL which also owns it. I'd point everyone to the "Connections to the NFL" section of the Indoor football article. The NFL does not consider the AFL to be a minor league and has dropped any remaining official option to ties to the AFL as of several years ago. JohnnyBGood t c VIVA! 23:38, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Arena v. Indoor

What's the distinction between Indoor football and Arena? Is it just the name or is there more to it? --Bdoserror 23:22, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

It's been fixed. --Bdoserror 23:39, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
Arena is a version of Indoor Football. JohnnyBGood t c VIVA! 23:39, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Leagues

This template should be re-organized and updated to bring it in line with the information in the List of leagues of American football (or vice-versa). --Bdoserror 23:36, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Like the new changes. Some suggestions though

Good things done recently:

  • Like the categorization of the NFL, CFL, and AFL(Arena) as major leagues... Seems a reasonable categorization. Each is the highest level of its particular code.
  • Like the rest of the categories (minor, semi-pro, rest of the world)

Changes still needed (I lack the template coding skills to do it. Can someone else handle this?):

  • The differences between Arena and other Indoor leagues is largely moot. These leagues all share more in common than they have differences. There are a few minor rule differences league-to-league, but not enough to justify seperate headings. Combine these as one heading: Arena/Indoor.
  • The British Collegiate American Football League seems to be more on par with the NCAA and not any professional level league, so it should be removed from this template.
  • Women's pro leagues should be added as a seperate header. See List of leagues of American football for more info.
  • The World Football League should be added to defunct leagues. The list I cite above also lists several other defunct leagues, though of these, only the WFL, USFL, AFL, and AAFC really lay claim to trying to be a major league...
  • We seem to have a white-space problem. Maybe some formating changes can help this. Maybe its just something we have to live with.

Hope to see this get better still. We're almost there. --Jayron32 06:14, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] DIG IT!

Love the recent changes. The template looks perfect. I especially like the name change, since it now draws a distinction between "soccer" or "rugby" or "aussie" football and gridiron based football. With the current listing it looks great. Any chance of adding the Women's Professional leagues? --Jayron32 21:02, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Arena is "Major"?

I understand that the AFL is the highest classification of indoor football, but let's not fool ourselves (or anyone else). It's essentially a purgatory for NFL wannabes. Are there more than, say, ten cases of players who turned down NFL contracts to play in the AFL? Or for that matter, is there a single case? Its most famous player is Kurt Warner, and it wasn't for his accomplishments in the AFL. --Son of Somebody 04:04, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

My apologies for the snarky edit comment, but I still believe the objection is valid.--Son of Somebody 19:33, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Same arguement can be made for the CFL. But it doesn't change the fact they are both the major leagues in their respective versions of the game. JohnnyBGood t c VIVA! 21:21, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Professional?

I don't think this template is correctly named. Most of the leagues are not professional. This was raised at Talk:British American Football League. I assume the template is designed to exclude college football yet it includes British Collegiate American Football League. I wonder whether the scope of this template is too broad and it should be slimmed down significantly.

Separately, NFL Europa should surely be considered on a par with Arena Football League and Canadian Football League. MLA 16:26, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

On the first point. People have been adding leagues that may be out of the scope of the template, like the British American Football League. If you see one that isn't a pro league then please by all means remove it from the template. As for NFL Europa, it is a designated feeder league to the NFL and is not the highest level of American football. The AFL and CFL however are not feeder leagues to the NFL and are the highest level in their particular branch of gridiron football, and in the CFL's case developed seperately. JohnnyBGood t c VIVA! 18:15, 20 February 2007 (UTC)
I think that the "semi-pro" leagues should be split up from the true "professional" minor leagues, mostly the indoor leagues that at least pay $200-300 per game. Also, if we are going down this road, do we want to include the 3-4 womens football leagues (despite them being barely semi-pro). Dletter 14:30, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

I think we have to draw the line somewhere on the semi-pro thing. Let's face it semi-pro leagues are a dime a dozen. IMO this should only list leagues that are of some consequence to the sports world, not minor regional leagues that nobody's ever heard of. And definitely not these "leagues that never played a game", as there are literally dozens. heqs ·:. 07:18, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

Frankly, this template was a mess. I have been bold and reduced the scope to established/non-regional professional leagues located in North America, and left some notes underneath. heqs ·:. 08:43, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

I agree this template needed cleaning up but, I believe the scope was reduced too much. Regional leagues can be legitimate and many minor pro leagues across sports are only regional. After all, North America is a very big place. Personally, I consider the WIFL, UIF, IFL, and even the NIFL (at least until they officially shut down) as active minor pro indoor leagues as well as the ones still listed on the the template. Also, I feel the term 'gridiron' is not accurate as that is just a nickname mainly used outside North American to distinguish the code(s) of football this most popular in the U.S. and Canada. The term is rarely heard here and I question if it the term is really that well know outside North American except for maybe Australia. Using 'gridiron' for this template would be like using 'soccer' instead of 'football' for the "Football in England" template. If this template is to continue as is then I would suggest it be renamed "Professional American, Canadian, and Indoor/Arena Football leagues in North America" or simply "Professional North American football leagues" just to cover the three main versions. Better, the Indoor & Arena football leagues should be split off to a new template for those leagues and leave this one to the "outdoor" game only. Straykat99 t 19:50, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

  • I agree. Also several of the defunct leagues pulled from the template were of high level, like the USFL and XFL. JohnnyBGood t c VIVA! 17:17, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

Okay, perhaps I was a bit drastic with my edits. However, my changes have been wholesale reverted and the template once again lists amateur leagues like Canadian Junior Football League and non-North American leagues. There seems to be a consensus here to at the very least limit it to professional leagues based in North America, so I will be reverting to include only that for now. I think something along the lines of Straykat99's suggestion will work best in the long run. heqs ·:. 12:31, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

  • Why did you pull the "defunct before games began" and the "proposed" sections? Both had legitimacy, in that they only listed leagues where players would be getting paid. Especially in the "Proposed" section, the UFL and AAFL have had quite a bit of press written about them. Dletter 20:12, 2 August 2007 (UTC)
The template is a monster and still seems to include a variety of leagues that aren't professional in nature. Those that did not exist should not be on the template - and indeed should probably be their own Category rather than be on a template of professional leagues. For a league to be professional, presumably it should have existed. MLA (talk) 14:15, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] "Gridiron football" not appropriate for this template - please revert the renaming

"Gridiron football" is a term that is used only in Australasia and not in the regions served by the various American and Canadian football leagues. The proper term for the template is professional football, with the American and Canadian variants described in the field of the template. If there should have been any change whatsoever before someone applied the name change, it should have been Template: Professional football leagues in North America and Europe or Template:Professional North American football leagues instead (otherwise NFL Europa and its ilk would have to be removed from the table). 147.70.242.40 (talk) 18:32, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

I agree. I would say "American football" is more appropriate than "gridiron football". From what I can gather, "American football" is what other articles on Wikipedia use when disambiguating football and soccer. For NFL Europa, I think that it still remain in this template since it was renamed from the former World League of American Football which included franchises in the Unites States. So my vote is that this template is renamed to {{Professional American football leagues in North America}}. X96lee15 (talk) 18:41, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
I retracting my statement after reading the earlier comments on this talk page. Since this template includes Canadian football and arena football leagues, then I don't think "American football" covers all those variations. I still am not a fan of "gridiron football", but that may be the best option. But maybe since there is this naming issue, the template is including too many different types of leagues. X96lee15 (talk) 18:46, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
But "North American football leagues" covers the territory much more appropriately than "gridiron football". The leagues are North American (NFL Europa can be tucked in as an extension of the WLAF), and in none of the leagues is the sport called "gridiron football". All this takes is a move/rename of the template. 147.70.242.40 (talk) 01:22, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

As long as this template contains rugby union links Gridiron is not an appropriate name.Rugby football is not a kind of gridiron football. Either take the rugby links out or re-name it "Professional gridiron football leagues in North America (and rugby football leagues of Canada)".--Jeff79 (talk) 21:35, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

  • Why is rugby included here at all? The term "football" in Canada does not mean rugby; it means the type of football played in the CFL. There are rugby leagues in the United States, too, including at least one semi-professional league, but no one has suggested listing them on this template. --R'n'B (call me Russ) 13:53, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

[edit] UFL = Major active

Please stop moving to planned, since it WILL take place. Brady4mvp (Talk) 00:28, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

Dletter (talk) 14:52, 17 June 2009 (UTC) I have to agree... the best case of this being the PSFL in 1992, which had training camps, preview shows on SportsChannel... and then folded 10 days before kickoff. While I agree that from what I have seen, I'd say I'm 95% sure that the 2009 season will happen, it still is not set in stone.


[edit] UFL Major??

I realize that nothing's set in stone yet, but in the event the UFL does succeed, where will it be added to this chart? I assume major leagues along with the NFL (since the UFL isn't a minor league) or do you make a section for alternative leagues? 172.192.191.113 (talk) 23:05, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

Too soon to say. Whether it is considered major or minor is something that will have to bear out with time.
It may not have official affiliations, like MiLB, the AHL or the D-League, but it doesn't appear that it's going to be at the level of the NFL any time soon, and the NFL will remain, for the foreseeable future, the prefered destination for top-flight players.
Those are probably the main criteria for major status. The UFL appears to be filling the gap between the NFL and the much smaller regional leagues also listed. It likely will be the Triple-A of football, but as I said, it's too soon to say.
The best thing to do, I believe, is to wait to see what the overall media reaction is, and what the overall public opinion turns out to be. oknazevad (talk) 15:39, 4 August 2009 (UTC)
So wait until the end of the season to move it out of "planned leagues". I think you people are in denial. 172.190.59.187 (talk) 18:23, 5 August 2009 (UTC)
As soon as the UFL plays it's first game, it's no longer a "planned league".RF23 (talk) 19:44, 5 August 2009 (UTC)
I'm not saying to leave it in the "planned" section, but I don't think it can be put into the "major" category right away, either. Truth is, the public perception of the league is that it is below the NFL, not nearly even with it as putting it in the same section would imply. I do believe the league will get off the ground, but there's no way that, in 2009, people will accept a brand-new 4 team league as equal to a 32 team league with 80+ years of history. As I said, the perception is likely to fall into a "Triple A football" view, which we'll have to figure out how to phrase and when to add it. oknazevad (talk) 20:36, 5 August 2009 (UTC)
I made the UFL an Independent Major League. 172.192.111.54 (talk) 23:14, 12 August 2009 (UTC)
Good call, I think that describes it very well. It's professional (not semi-pro), but independant of the NFL. Well chosen. oknazevad (talk) 01:16, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Arena Football 1 Major?

I am glad to see that the newly announced Arena Football 1 was added to this list, but I would argue that with most of the Arena Football 1 teams coming from the af2, and it not yet having played a single game, it shouldn't immediately be declared a "major" league. Maybe there isn't a major Indoor League right now until the next season starts and one of them proves itself to be the leader. Micah008 16:38, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

Agreed. It's too soon to call it major. Indeed, I'm not sure if any arena/indoor can be called major at all. Also, considering the events leading to Arena Football 1's formation, it's probably also time to just move the Arena League and AF2 to defunct. Even without formal announcements, the only teams tya have expressed a firm desire to continue have joined AF1. oknazevad (talk) 23:07, 30 September 2009 (UTC)
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