It's been a little less than a week since I found out I'd be getting an expansion franchise. Was I worried before that that I wouldn't be chosen? FUCK YES I WAS. My original GM tenure isn't exactly well regarded. I'm not gonna go into how deserved that really is because it doesn't really matter. The looming cloud hung over my head during the whole process and was ever present in my mind. I quietly did my best to start building my branding early both so I'd be ready and so those with the power to choose might see that i was working on things heavily. I did have a bit of a setback as I'd initially talked to a person last season about being my future CoGM and after a lot of conversation Juosu had agreed. At the time we also applied to other teams as expansion was down the road. Later, I decided to wait for expansion and became YKW Co and someone else had the idea of putting Juosu into a GM role after drafting her. Hehe. I'd be surprised if Nola didn't add a few more trophies in the next 10 seasons.
Once I was in the process of working towards expansion I also switched from my original plan of going back to Vegas. I thought rehabilitating the city for our league would be a good thing but there was definitely some strong hesitancy for that idea. For those who do not know, Vegas had a franchise, the Legion, which was...badly run to say the least. The team moved to Nola in S6 and the rest is a multi-championship history (which I got to be a part of). Seattle was also an option based on the branding I had at the time, which was something that had been worked out among my players and I as a place we could move the Outlaws to back during the struggling/controversial time period.
Eventually, I just discarded the idea and started fresh. Probably a week or so before the expansion decisions were made. I wanted something that wasn't heavily used or oversaturated but was still a big enough market that it made any kind of realistic sense. And while our delightful simmer nailed it when he said "Oh Texas, like they don't have enough teams" he also kind of inadvertently hit on one of the reasons I chose my location.
Is this where I actually reveal my location? Yup. We'll be playing our football in the wonderful city of Austin, Texas. Good size, good culture to work with, and little to no real professional sports (quiet Jiggly, MLS is still like the 7th or 8th biggest sports league in the country). It's also a place I've considered moving to so it's something I already knew a fair amount about. Austin is the place that makes the rest of Texas mad for being so rebellious while they themselves pride themselves on being rebellious against well...everything. I even had some ideas for a theme based on this but couldn't quite get where I wanted with it even after extensive brainstorming with the Commissioner himself. I'm gonna hold on to that branding for a bit longer by the way so don't expect to get all the dirt today.
Having chosen Austin I was able to have a whole slew of idea, including the Rebels or Independents that I referenced above. It's an interesting city after all. I eventually found my best ideas, had one immediately lose out because a women's pro team is there (the Yellowjackets), and started figuring out how I sort of wanted the branding to look. I did some stuff on paint with a few logo and picture ideas...YES I DID A GRAPHIC THING....and ran it by a few people, including my fellow expansion GM, Oles. One fo the fun thigns about this is that we've conferred a fair amount of branding and locaiotns and other details because really..who else is better in this moment than the other person doing what you're doing?
Once I got the news I was chosen, I had to go to work on the logo and sought out one of the best graphic people in the league, and person whom I occasionally share real beers with, TLK. I gave him some of my basic design ideas and set him loose. Then came my next phase. CoGM. I put out the announcement and got a pretty good amount of replies and had some good conversations with several people. Pheo, Vander Jones, and Unicorn all have my seal of approval if you're considering a CoGM on that end. A great candidate happened to stroll in and I knew he was the right answer pretty quickly. I'm gonna let him announce for himself, but the first thing he did after I gave him the job was look at my logo ideas and point out something I'd missed, which I was able to get to TLK immediately. IMMEDIATE DIVIDENDS.
Other than that, I've just been scouting my butt off and talking to a variety of different prospects. The Pre-Draft is starting soon even as we're ironing out the long term details so I'm trying to get a sense of who people are as much as I can before it's time to start making decisions. Right now it's about laying that foundation and I think we're well on our way. You have to take the long view and be patient so you don't unevenly build and screw the team up for longer than a buildup should take. I've been asked several times by prospects what kind of offense I want to build and I always answer with "a functioning to start". That's the kind of mindset I'm bringing. Absolutely nothing I do right now wins Austin a title in S16 or S17. But I can do things right now that will lose titles for the next 7-8 seasons after that. So I'm not trying to hotshot or prove my brilliance or any of that. See: not defending my tenure above.
What I want to is to build a great, fun team and ultimately help other people enjoy this hobby. It's part of why I'm have some fun in announcing things and doing little teases. people are super interested in the expansion and process so why not have some fun with people primed to enjoy it. I hope you had fun with my insights into this process as well as the hints I've dropped here. If you look closely you'll find a code hidden inside my words that tells you what the branding is. And I know, those of you who are more experienced with my sense of humor are thinking "you're just fucking with people and there's nothing there". Well...that's always possible. Am I though? There's really only one way to be sure.
Once I was in the process of working towards expansion I also switched from my original plan of going back to Vegas. I thought rehabilitating the city for our league would be a good thing but there was definitely some strong hesitancy for that idea. For those who do not know, Vegas had a franchise, the Legion, which was...badly run to say the least. The team moved to Nola in S6 and the rest is a multi-championship history (which I got to be a part of). Seattle was also an option based on the branding I had at the time, which was something that had been worked out among my players and I as a place we could move the Outlaws to back during the struggling/controversial time period.
Eventually, I just discarded the idea and started fresh. Probably a week or so before the expansion decisions were made. I wanted something that wasn't heavily used or oversaturated but was still a big enough market that it made any kind of realistic sense. And while our delightful simmer nailed it when he said "Oh Texas, like they don't have enough teams" he also kind of inadvertently hit on one of the reasons I chose my location.
Is this where I actually reveal my location? Yup. We'll be playing our football in the wonderful city of Austin, Texas. Good size, good culture to work with, and little to no real professional sports (quiet Jiggly, MLS is still like the 7th or 8th biggest sports league in the country). It's also a place I've considered moving to so it's something I already knew a fair amount about. Austin is the place that makes the rest of Texas mad for being so rebellious while they themselves pride themselves on being rebellious against well...everything. I even had some ideas for a theme based on this but couldn't quite get where I wanted with it even after extensive brainstorming with the Commissioner himself. I'm gonna hold on to that branding for a bit longer by the way so don't expect to get all the dirt today.
Having chosen Austin I was able to have a whole slew of idea, including the Rebels or Independents that I referenced above. It's an interesting city after all. I eventually found my best ideas, had one immediately lose out because a women's pro team is there (the Yellowjackets), and started figuring out how I sort of wanted the branding to look. I did some stuff on paint with a few logo and picture ideas...YES I DID A GRAPHIC THING....and ran it by a few people, including my fellow expansion GM, Oles. One fo the fun thigns about this is that we've conferred a fair amount of branding and locaiotns and other details because really..who else is better in this moment than the other person doing what you're doing?
Once I got the news I was chosen, I had to go to work on the logo and sought out one of the best graphic people in the league, and person whom I occasionally share real beers with, TLK. I gave him some of my basic design ideas and set him loose. Then came my next phase. CoGM. I put out the announcement and got a pretty good amount of replies and had some good conversations with several people. Pheo, Vander Jones, and Unicorn all have my seal of approval if you're considering a CoGM on that end. A great candidate happened to stroll in and I knew he was the right answer pretty quickly. I'm gonna let him announce for himself, but the first thing he did after I gave him the job was look at my logo ideas and point out something I'd missed, which I was able to get to TLK immediately. IMMEDIATE DIVIDENDS.
Other than that, I've just been scouting my butt off and talking to a variety of different prospects. The Pre-Draft is starting soon even as we're ironing out the long term details so I'm trying to get a sense of who people are as much as I can before it's time to start making decisions. Right now it's about laying that foundation and I think we're well on our way. You have to take the long view and be patient so you don't unevenly build and screw the team up for longer than a buildup should take. I've been asked several times by prospects what kind of offense I want to build and I always answer with "a functioning to start". That's the kind of mindset I'm bringing. Absolutely nothing I do right now wins Austin a title in S16 or S17. But I can do things right now that will lose titles for the next 7-8 seasons after that. So I'm not trying to hotshot or prove my brilliance or any of that. See: not defending my tenure above.
What I want to is to build a great, fun team and ultimately help other people enjoy this hobby. It's part of why I'm have some fun in announcing things and doing little teases. people are super interested in the expansion and process so why not have some fun with people primed to enjoy it. I hope you had fun with my insights into this process as well as the hints I've dropped here. If you look closely you'll find a code hidden inside my words that tells you what the branding is. And I know, those of you who are more experienced with my sense of humor are thinking "you're just fucking with people and there's nothing there". Well...that's always possible. Am I though? There's really only one way to be sure.
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