AFL Spring Meetings 1952

 

The AFL owners were certainly a lot busier this February than they were last, as there were a lot of topics to be discussed and get through before the season would begin in September

COLUMBUS TO BE SOLD BY 1953

The dire Columbus scenario was looking a lot better entering the spring meetings, as they had an increase of tickets sold and turned a profit for the first time in a few years. That wasn’t enough for Buckeyes owner Randolf Durant, as he announced his intentions to sell the team by the 1953 season at the earliest. The Buckeyes have not had a single winning record while under Durant’s tenure as owner, and knows that the team’s future in the city is fairly bleak, as UOhio has consistently outperformed and outsold the team every year since 1946. He opened the team up to buyers, both those who want to stay in Columbus and those who want to move the team elsewhere. While no deal is set in stone yet, if the team was to relocate 1952 might be the last year in the Buckeye state, as the two most promising deals come from relocation bids. The first bid is from Washington, D.C., with real estate developer Bernard McCullough from the proposed AFL DC bid as owner, wanting to both fill the gap in the nation’s capital and challenge the upstart Baltimore Barons of the NYPL for regional supremacy. The other prominent bid was from Minneapolis-St. Paul, as lumber magnate Reuben Braun was willing to outperform the two MWFC teams that had been stuck in the basement of the league and thought that an AFL team would perform better. There was a front-running bid from Kansas City, as the owner of the Kansas City baseball team Silas DeWitt was given another shot at a team, but the MWFC’s invasion of the city this year made the bid a lot riskier to relocate them to the Kansas City area. If things go smoothly with finding a new owner, the Buckeyes could relocate as early as next season, as every market presented has some sort of stadium for the team to play in, either temporarily or permanently.

AFL TO FULLY INTEGRATE WITH DRAFT

In a historic first for professional football leagues, the AFL has announced that it will require teams to integrate beginning with the 1952 season. This decision dates back to the feud that commissioner Donovan Hasenkamp has had with MWFC president Virgil Bradshaw, who notoriously refused to integrate the MWFC’s teams, and until 1946, made unsigned agreements with other owners to not sign any black players. That agreement was broken when Hasenkamp signed two black players after they came back from military service in World War II, with RB Johnnie Hendrix and DB Vincent Kelly becoming the first players to break the color barrier in any professional sport, seven months before the color barrier was famously broken in baseball. While a majority of teams did sign black players, Bradshaw notoriously refused, infamously stating “If we want to be the best team in [Chicago], then we will look like we’re the best team in town.” With all 6 current and 2 incoming teams already integrated in some capacity, the league decided it was the right time to introduce the ruling, which will come with the stipulation that all future teams and owners be required to do the same. 

INAUGURAL DRAFT FORMAT SET

With the draft also approaching and having no clear format set, the owners also decided what to do. They had originally planned to do the draft in a reverse order, with Detroit getting the first overall pick and Chicago getting the last, but Buffalo and Pittsburgh joining made things slightly more difficult. To keep things simple for this year, the Shamrocks and Hammers will be placed in the 5th and 6th draft positions, respectively, based on their finish from last year in the NYPL. The year after will revert to the draft that was originally planned, being based on the previous year’s standings. At least for this year, the draft will be 5 rounds, but it might be expanded in the future if more teams and players show interest.

NEW SCHEDULE, INTRODUCTION OF PLAYOFFS

With the introduction of 2 new teams into the league, the Owners Council wanted to try something new compared to the other major professional football leagues. To make scheduling a bit easier, the league will be broken up into an East Division and a West Division. How the divisions were to be divided was the biggest debate of the entire owners meetings. 4 teams were the easiest, as Chicago and Tri-Cities were placed into the West Division, and Buffalo and Pittsburgh were slotted into the East. The other 4 teams were a larger problem. The league wanted to balance divisions, not putting the better teams in one division, and keeping rivalries between teams relatively intact. Detroit owner August Riddle wanted to join Chicago in the West due to their rivalry in the past, but the other owners argued that, as of late, Cincinnati has had a larger rivalry with Chicago and Tri-Cities than Detroit. Geographically it also made more sense for Detroit to join the East, as it is a lot closer to the other cities than with its historical rivalries. And so Detroit and Cleveland were placed into the East, while Cincinnati and Columbus slotted into the West. The schedule will remain at 10 games and teams will be once again given a bye, the way the teams play will change. Teams will play a home-and-home against every team in its division, and play 1 game against every team in the other division. Instead of the rolling bye weeks of the past 2 seasons, the league instead will take a mid-season bye, where weeks 6 and 7 will have half the teams on a bye and the other half playing as normal. Rather than just the top 2 teams in each division make the championship, instead the top 2 teams from each division will play in a playoff game, where the winner of those 2 games will play in the championship. With the introduction of the division finals, the league will play its championship game in December, with the division final games taking the old Thanksgiving slot that the championship had before.

AFL SIGNS FIRST MAJOR TV DEAL WITH DUMONT

In a first for any professional league, the AFL announced that they have secured a deal with the DuMont Network to broadcast the championship game this year, along with a select few games nationally across the network. The teams in the AFL already had deals with local radio stations to broadcast their team’s games, and Chicago and Detroit already had deals with local TV stations to broadcast select games. In addition, DuMont has requested that the AFL introduce an all-star game to boost popularity, that would take place sometime after the championship game. No other professional football league, not even any professional sports league, has ever signed a deal with a national TV network. This unprecedented deal may catapult the AFL into nation-wide popularity, and might finally take football out of the northeast and midwest.