For the first time since October, football is back at Ladd-Peebles Stadium and city officials are hoping South Florida-based Major League Football can bring an economic boon to Mobile in July and August.
MLFB, in a news release Thursday, announced that Mobile is joining its “Core Four” of so-called “football-hungry cities” as a host city for its inaugural one-month season of pro football starting on August 9.
The Mobile team will be called the Alabama Airborne and will play its two home games – August 9 and 16 – at Ladd-Peebles Stadium. The team’s coach is Jerry Glanville, the former head football coach of the National Football League’s Houston Oilers and Atlanta Falcons.
Mobile will also be the host city for league’s three-week training camp, expected to start on July 18. Players will begin arriving to Mobile on July 10.
The addition of hosting the camp has city and league officials excited about the economic benefits for Mobile starting in less than 18 days.
“We are all very excited about this,” said Bill Lyons, chief marketing officer with MLFB, a publicly traded company with a goal to serve as a player development league and with high hopes of expanding to six-to-eight teams during a 24-game season next spring.
‘Good piece of business’
Alabama Airborne logo (image courtesy of Bill Lyons, chief marketing officer with Major League Football)
Mobile is not paying any upfront costs nor incentives to host the MLFB for its training camp and during the two games in August. The organization is spending $35,000 to lease Ladd-Peebles Stadium and is expected to utilize up to 5,000 hotel room nights during their stay in Mobile.
“It’s an economic boon,” said David Clark, president and CEO with Visit Mobile. “In terms of the short-term piece of business, and it’s a really good piece of business, it’s also exposure for our city. You don’t get many opportunities like this.”
He added, “The rooms alone are $750,000 in just hotel revenue, and there is also lodging tax, food, beverage and transportation. They don’t play football all day long, so there are other retail opportunities there.”
Danny Corte, executive director of the Mobile Sports Authority, said the overall economic impact for hosting the training camp could be as much as $4 million.
“They are paying Ladd income which we would not have otherwise gotten,” Corte said. “I just saw a tremendous economic impact for Mobile and Mobile County and for Ladd also when they have no other economic impact for that time of the year.”
Each MLFB team will start out with 70 players per team, with cuts occurring that will whittle each squad down to about 50 players, Lyons said. Each team will have eight coaches, and league staff “will be in and out” of Mobile non-stop, he said.
“We did not come to (Mobile’s) economic development people saying, ‘you have to give us money,’” Lyons said. “There is a reputation among spring leagues that isn’t the best and we’re taking that worry out of the deal. We put a deposit on the stadium, and we’re a publicly traded company and we have to be open and transparent on what we are doing.”
Aside from the Airborne, the other teams include: Arkansas Attack, which will play its home games at War Memorial Stadium in Little Rock; Virginia Armada, which will play its home games at the Sportsplex in Virginia Beach; and the Ohio Force, which will play its home games at the Hall of Fame Bowl in Canton, Ohio, adjacent to the National Football League Hall of Fame.
The MLFB’s inaugural championship game will be held September 6 in Canton.
The league’s arrangement in Mobile appears to be much smaller-in-scope to the arrangement the city of Birmingham has with Fox Sports to host this year’s United States Football League.
The Birmingham City Council and the Jefferson County Commission endorsed separate $500,000 agreements late last year to bring the USFL to the Magic City, with hopes of a potential economic impact between $15 million to $20 million.
The league’s games took place this spring at Birmingham’s Protective Stadium and Legion Field, though this weekend’s playoffs will take place in Canton, Ohio.
Ladd-Peebles future
Ladd-Peebles Stadium pictured in 2018, when the University of South Alabama Jaguars played their home games at the venue that first opened in 1948. (photo by Joe Songer).
The league’s arrival to Mobile also comes at a precarious moment for Ladd-Peebles Stadium, the 74-year-old football stadium that has been without football since a shooting occurred during an October 15 football game between Williamson and Vigor high schools.
The Mobile City Council, earlier this week, announced it was holding a council Administrative Services Committee to discuss the future of the stadium on July 19.
That meeting was called shortly after council members learned that a new interim general manager, C.J. Drinkard, was hired by the stadium’s board of directors.
“It’s important for us to know what is going on,” said Councilman Ben Reynolds. “We’ve been left in the dark from my perspective. The taxpayers want to know what is going on over there.”
Ann Davis, the board’s chairwoman, said the hiring of Drinkard came after expiration of a contract with the stadium’s management group, The Mishkin Group, and following the May 7 death of longtime general manager Vic Knight.
Drinkard’s contract is for six months. He will be paid $35,000.
“We’re not trying to put anyone off,” said Davis, saying the board is trying to “get its bearings” after Knight’s death and the conclusion of Mishkin’s work in Mobile.
The stadium has seen some of its higher profile tenants leave in recent years. That includes the USA Jaguars in 2020, when the University of South Alabama opted to have the football team play its home games at the on-campus Hancock-Whitney Stadium; and the Reese’s Senior Bowl and the Lending Tree Bowl, which are also occurring also at Hancock-Whitney.
Officials believe Ladd-Peebles Stadium can still be a viable football option, particularly in attracting Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU) games. The Gulf Coast Football Challenge, pitting Alabama A&M against Jackson State, is expected to draw a large crowd on November 12.
Lyons said that MLFB has developed good relationships with the Ladd-Peebles board and with city officials. Aside from Ladd-Peebles Stadium, MLFB will host its summer training camp at McGill-Toolen High School’s Archbishop Oscar H. Lipscomb Complex, otherwise known as “The Lip.”
He said the league is planning an introductory news conference soon.
‘Doing this the right way’
Former Atlanta Falcons head coach Jerry Glanville walks on the sidelines during half time of an NFL football game between the Atlanta Falcons and the New Orleans Saints, Sunday, Jan. 1, 2017, in Atlanta. Glanville was named the head coach of the Mobile-based Alabama Airborne, which will play two games for Major League Football on August 9 and 16 at Ladd-Peebles Stadium in Mobile, Ala. (AP Photo/John Bazemore)AP
There are high hopes for the MLFB, as it envisions a national push and expansion next year with a 2023 season starting with training camp in April and games occurring during the month of June and July.
The league’s CEO is Frank Murtha, a former sports agent and Chicago area native. In an interview posted Thursday on SB Nation’s Dawgs by Nature website, Murtha confirmed that MLFB’s goal is to host its league inside medium-sized markets like Mobile, and to keep overhead costs low.
He said that the team’s ownership model is borrowed after Major League Soccer, in that all teams are owned by shareholders. He said that model has some appeal “with the popularity of fantasy football,” and that “our stock certificates, you can buy and sell them.”
He said the league will not compete with the NFL. He considers it strictly an organization aimed at player development, and not a “graveyard for guys who are trying to squeeze out one more of year.”
Murtha said that player salaries are $2,500 a game, with a $500 win bonus. He said players will be allowed to leave for the NFL at any time, and that every player that makes a team will be on one-year deals.
Murtha also told the publication that he does not see his league getting swallowed up by other leagues that are also hosting football during the spring. The returning XFL, Murtha told the publication, is in cities that are not even in the same regions as the MLFB. The USFL is also in bigger cities and stadiums.
The MLFB purchased much of the league’s equipment from the now-defunct Alliance of American Football (AAF) following its 2019 bankruptcy. Murtha told SB Nation that he saved $2.5 million buying the league’s equipment and electronics, saying he has enough to outfit eight teams.
Lyons and Murtha are also touting the league’s athletic trainer, Mayfield Armstrong, who worked for years under Dr. James Andrews, the famed sports surgeon who has clinics in the Birmingham area.
“He is such a player advocate and is building the hydration plans,” said Lyons, acknowledging the potential for hot and humid weather conditions during next month’s camp. “We are not putting players at risk. We are doing this the right way.”
