"Good Ole Healthy Conversation....."
The "National Flag Wars" are once again on and cooking

Part I

“This ain’t nothing but good ole’ health-a conva-sation” as Eddie from the Barbershop would put it.  If you blinked, you just missed the rekindling of the National Flag Wars with the emergence of yet a fifth contender into the National Flag Football arena.  There will be plenty to talk about for all the flag football activists.

Who produces the “Real” National Champion?  Who has the best teams participating?  Who offers the most?  Who has the most history?  Who is simply the best organization?

Count’em!  Flag Mag, USFTL, AFA, AFTFL and now the MCFFU, 5 National Organizations, all competing with one another to win what I like to call, the “Flag Wars”.  The reason I group all these “national” organizations together is due to the fact that they each host a Nationals every year and have other leagues and organizations tied in and supporting their Nationals in some way.

There are several 4-Man National organizations as well as a couple of 7-Man/Screen Nationals who, by the way, host some of the best ran tournaments around in any type of amateur sports.  But lets be honest here, the 4-Man and 7-Man styles can pack’em in, but the 8-Man and 9-Man styles are closer to the real game of football; if not for the contact alone, which in return gives a National organization a little more clout on the flag football circuit by crowning the champions of these styles.

Now in the veteran group we have Flag Mag, USFTL, AFA and the AFTFL, all seasoned vets of the early “Flag Wars”.  The AFTFL, after making a strong push in the late 90’s has decided to give way to the USFTL, who somehow convinced the AFTFL to step aside and only host 4-Man, 5-Man and 8-Man Screen Nationals in Texas Stadium.  The AFTFL has seriously fallen behind on the National scene due to their lack of aggressiveness and innovation and to be honest, I don’t think they even care anymore.  Don't believe me?  Give'em a phone call or shoot'em an e-mail.  By the time they respond you will have either figured it out or competely forgot just what the hell you wanted!

After battling for years, the USFTL and the AFTFL have a joint venture in Virginia Beach (if you want to call it that) and as if it were the signature of a treaty, both directors inducted the other into their Hall of Fame (I still don’t get that one).  So now the AFTFL has accepted defeat in my eyes by their recent actions; or lack there of.

The AFA (American Football Association), of the West coast was once part of the USFTL team, until things began to go south between the two Directors, which led to one heading west to host a National on the exact same day as that of USFTL.  Now this didn’t affect the USFTL as far as numbers, but the fact that there was a tournament being promoted as a National on the west coast, split the country in half leaving the Nationals technically undecided.  Both organizations have or had strong support from their regions, but the fact that teams are reluctant to cross the country tells me that both Nationals have the same lure; the same value to the teams involved. 

True, the USFTL pulled a couple of California teams, but those teams were disgruntled with the AFA (as are several teams from the West) and there was nothing else other than Orlando (unless of course you wanted go to Cambodia with Flag Mag to play the "Eastland Tribe All-Stars" in a game of flag football for the World Title.)  The actions and reportedly horrid customer service of the AFA completely broke down what little structure they once had and basically pushing them out of the National picture.

Now this leads me to Flag Mag, who’s niche in the flag market was to bring the world together, literally.  Has is it worked?  Yeah, for parts of the World, but for US teams it just doesn't really do for us, placing Flag Mag in a category of entertainment for lack of a better word.  Once they started ranking teams by alphabetical order, grouping them in the wrong styles of play and using international “call girls” as a marketing ploy, they fell from any serious consideration of hosting a National Championship tournament; a competitive one anyway. 

With these three organizations doing more damage to themselves than anything else, they left the door open for the USFTL to take control of the competitive contact flag football market who in return, parlayed that into 240 teams to their Nationals this past January.  But a funny thing happened along the way to complete flag dominance by the USFTL – they did not close the deal.

Together, these top organizations had several opportunities to form a single National entity but decided not to because of individual greed; everybody wanted to keep all the money.  What other reason could there have been over the last 15 years?  Think about it, had they all formed one organization, who would even thought to have started another “National Organization”?  Now after years of dormant activity they each find themselves with a bleeping target on their backs from a new challenger.

Part II

It’s funny how money can change situations.  It was money and money alone that initially provoked the nations top organizations to attempt the “divide and conquer” technique only they did it ass-backwards (slap the forehead).  They divided themselves and tried to conquer, which gave us 3 different Contact National Champions and 3 incomplete goals.  This lack of unity left them all extremely vulnerable for attack.

With the AFTFL literally giving up and the AFA shooting themselves in the foot and reloading, the USFTL decided to team with Flag Mag who were not a direct threat to them (or anyone else for that matter with their Komodo Island Qualifiers) and put it in cruise control.  This relationship was simply to allow the USFTL to tap into another market – screen. 

But as the USFTL was cruising at 55, they forgot one thing – to accelerate.  No disrespect, but its asinine for any company or organization to think they can remain on top without creativity, innovation and adaptation (slap the forehead again).  Without any wars to fight, the USFTL stopped trying and took a “take it or leave it” approach knowing teams had to take it and simply stopped.  They became routine in their actions and extremely predictable. 

Now its human nature for people to want to be part of a successful group, therefore the USFTL had no problem capturing leagues and tournament directors and having them send their champions to their Nationals, because there was no one else around.  Great concept, but the effort to expand was not as effective as they had wished.  The “take it or leave it” approach backfired in the west as leagues and teams decided to leave it.  Reasons: A dislike of tournament formats, worthless points, lack of respect and an unknown organization all led to the failure of the USFTL on the West coast to secure team support.

I don’t blame the USFTL for trying, but I do blame them for not adjusting and repositioning themselves in the market to attract these teams.  The USFTL simply decided to focus on an already loyal market that required less work.  Now that isn’t bad if you want to remain regional and it truly supports the 80/20 rule (80% of business comes from 20% of your customers), but it showed a lack of commitment for a “National Organization” attempting to become a “National Organization”.

Remember, consequence is no coincidence and there is no coincident that there now is true contender joining the 15 year old “Flag Wars”.  This group came about by a couple of league directors and players feeling that they were getting shafted by these National organizations (spending money and getting nothing in return) and combined forces forming the MCFFU (MC Flag Football Union) that is owned and operated by leagues and players making them an immediate threat to the “Old School Crew”.

This is a young organization that is bringing creativity and innovation, but clueless to the fact that they are fighting a battle they cannot win.  But the problem is that somebody forgot to tell these guy’s that; apparently they didn’t get that company memo.  Only time will tell if this “New School” organization will make it to the Championship Game or not. 

Nevertheless, the competition they’re injecting is just what the flag market needs to get that old blue blood flowing again.  Especially with an organization that has nothing to lose, but everything to gain joining the battle, it ads a little suspense to the whole thing. 

Now one of two things will happen:  The Old Schoolers will either begin to offer more incentives and express creativity or they will stand pat on their traditional policies and conservative views and take a chance of creativity and innovation taking over.  Either way, something will have to give.    

So I say unto thee: Sit back and enjoy the show, rewards and benefits because from the looks of this, it will not be an abbreviated battle.  The MCFFU is taking on 4 National Organizations all at once (Good Luck on that one) and the Old Heads are not about to allow these “young, new generational nomads” to come in and take over.  As far as they are concerned, things are just fine the way they are and they don’t want nobody coming to mess with that money!

Whether they (MCFFU) succeed or not, I know one thing for sure and that is that their entrance into these Flag Wars alone have assured us (the teams), that we have already won.  Trust me, if it wasn't them it would've been somebody else because the mystery of the "True Nationals Champion" in contact flag remains unsolved.  Like I said before, “This ain’t nothing but good ole’ health-a conva-sation” and if I’ve offended anyone, good! 

Trap “Can’t Get” Wright