El Paso Chilles Move: How It Benefits More Than Just El Paso

[lordtoffee]

The biggest story of the offseason has been the Aviators moving to the city of El Paso. I personally think Nigel made the right choice in location. The Chilles have had well-documented cash problems, and getting into a new market will help the team as well as not having to shuffle around the divisions into a new alignment that would cause some consternation. But the BBA is more than just one team, and each change in team location or expansion is going to benefit some teams more than others. So, outside of El Paso, who benefits?

San Antonio
The Outlaws do lose the distinction of the being the sole Texas entity in the league, and that will probably eat into revenue and television areas. But, the Outlaws do gain a natural rival that could help both teams. The BBA has a lot of teams that are geographic rivals that add some spice. The Robins and Gamblers mirror the rivalry between the New York Rangers and New Jersey Devils, Yellow Springs and Louisville is a great regional rivalry, the California teams in LA plus the Popes, the Pacific Northwest teams have a nice Cascadia thing going on, and so on. Rivalries help sell tickets and give some attention. I think that San Antonio now has a division rival that is closer to them than the Talons or Aztecs.

Brooklyn
Look, the writer is the GM of the Robins, and usually comes at features from that perspective. He's not going apologize. But hear him out. When you look at a map, there are certain advantages that Robins hold that will now be magnified. Before the El Paso move, the Robins, Outlaws, and Hurricanes held the distinction of being the teams that held the largest area of fans who were geographically closest to them. Well, El Paso is going to eat into the Outlaw fanbase as West Texas and New Mexico are going to probably jump on board with Nigel's team. El Paso and New Mexico have been historically underserved by major league sports, and Nigel made a genius move to tap into a huge market where the first league to put down roots in that area will make millions of dollars. Brooklyn wins because they are now the team that has millions of people that have them as their "local team". Keep in mind that there is no team in New England. And the Robins have been marketing as "The Northeast's Baseball Team". Their revenue hold is going to get stronger.

But, I want to turn it over to other people. Is there another team that benefits from El Paso moving?

[Fat Nige]

All very sound “real-life” reasons why the move should prosper but does OOTP actually recognise that? It would be really good if it did, it might just save a few FI points if I stink and lose lots but beat SA six times out of eight?

It would be a great little cosmetic thing if you could see where your season ticket holder’s actually lived, whether your catchment area did extend far or just to downtown? Or if you got a message from your fans saying how ecstatic they were about beating your main rivals and that they expected an extra 5,000 on the next home gate as a result?

In fact it would be great for a writing league like ours if OOTP nicked a feature from Football Manager, that of the fake tweets. In football manager post game you get a page of tweets telling you things like “the centre forward was great/shite/dead”, “they were ecstatic/ suicidal about the results”, they like/hate your new signings” etc etc. There would be great storylines for our league coming out of something like that being added

[lordtoffee]

I don't own any FM besides 17 and 18, so I can't comment on some of the newer features in the game. Plus, the social media can be a bit odd with how they react to signings. But what I like is that the board is normally fairly realistic with how they would react to how I do. But I do think that you are right that OOTP would add some of those features to get more of that real life feel. I've noticed in solo play that sometimes MLB GMs and managers get fired where it wouldn't make sense in real life. All of that information would be really interesting, as well as seeing how many season ticket holders would show up after you relocated.

I guess that in real life, El Paso would love to have a major pro sports team, as the closest ones would be in Phoenix, Dallas, Houston, or San Antonio for the Spurs. Plus, generally speaking there are more major pro sports teams in the eastern part than in the western part.

[Jwalk100]

El Paso has the Chihuahuas, AAA for the SD Padres

[RonCo]

Wichita citizens can now turn their minds to the next closest team--which being the Heartland's Omaha franchise is like getting a major promotion!

[usnspecialist]

All very sound “real-life” reasons why the move should prosper but does OOTP actually recognise that? It would be really good if it did, it might just save a few FI points if I stink and lose lots but beat SA six times out of eight?

It would be a great little cosmetic thing if you could see where your season ticket holder’s actually lived, whether your catchment area did extend far or just to downtown? Or if you got a message from your fans saying how ecstatic they were about beating your main rivals and that they expected an extra 5,000 on the next home gate as a result?

In fact it would be great for a writing league like ours if OOTP nicked a feature from Football Manager, that of the fake tweets. In football manager post game you get a page of tweets telling you things like “the centre forward was great/shite/dead”, “they were ecstatic/ suicidal about the results”, they like/hate your new signings” etc etc. There would be great storylines for our league coming out of something like that being added

There are many things I wish OOTP would borrow from FM, including how to run a competent single player game.

[bigmike13]

Gonna have to start some fights with El Paso so they know who the big dog on the block is.

[lordtoffee]

I gotta say, Mike is building something interesting with the Outlaws. The Frontier is going to be a very interesting division to follow. Of course, Paul Finebaum is probably working for the Heartland when he is not a hype man for the SEC.