GFL - December 9th Posts
By Adam Knoll | December 09, 2010 at 11:12 PM EST | No Comments
GFL Adds 5 New Teams:
The GFL, after having 13 teams last season, will enter the 2011 season with 16 teams the league has announced. The decision came during the GFL’s first ever Board Meeting on Wednesday night. The final team to enter the league, the Chicago Cyclones, will mark the second Chicago team to enter the league this offseason. The GFL now spreads from Chicago, to as far North as Milwaukee, and as far west as Janesville.
Immediately following the 2010 season, the league was actually contracted by two teams, in which the Milwaukee Gators and the Racine Razorbacks both folded up their respective franchises. However, after that move, the GFL experienced a wealth of new team applications, and five teams were added to the league in the last two months due to their perceived ability to helm respectable franchises.
The new teams are:
Chicago Titans
Chicago Cyclones
Racine Rampage
Milwaukee Hitmen
Milwaukee Maniacs
The eleven established franchises from last season are:
Lake Shore Lynx: 5th season - 3 titles
Kenosha Cougars: 5th season - 1 title
Kenosha Sabers: 5th season
Lake County Cowboys: 5th season
South Milwaukee Rage: 3rd season
Janesville Nighthawks: 3rd season
Racine Gladiators: 3rd season
Fox Valley Premier: 2nd Season
Wilmot Phoenix: 2nd Season
Chicago Chaos: 2nd Season
Jefferson Scorpions: 2nd Season
In the coming weeks and months, we will go over some of our past seasons as we get ready to enjoy our 5th season as a league.
GFL Considering a Divisional Format:
With the GFL gaining an extra 5 teams in this past offseason, the GFL is considering a move to a divisional format for the 2011 season. The divisions will consist of 4 teams each with each team playing their new divisional rival twice each year. The divisions will be set up using geography and ease of travel, while also balancing out the competition evenly throughout the league. The divisions will be named North, South, West and Central; however, the process of putting together the divisions has been slow, as some divisions do not mold together easily.
There is yet to be a consensus on what is turning out to be a very contentious battle over what the GFL’s new Divisional format will look like. At the crux of the argument is which franchise will be the 4th team added to both the South and North Divisions. With three Chicago teams, as well as three Milwaukee clubs, the outline of each division is becoming clearer. However, whichever teams are called upon to fill the void in each division will cause a ripple effect while creating the rest of the league’s divisions.
During the GFL’s first Board meeting on Wednesday night, many different ideas were floated around, including sending either Janesville, Waukesha or one of the Racine teams to play in the North division. Conversely, the South division could be filled out with one of the three other Illinois teams, Lake County, Lake Shore, or Fox Valley.
How the West division shakes out will rely almost entirely on which team is picked to join the North. Based upon the layout of the franchises, the West division could very well end up being the group that does most of the travel during their inter-division schedule.
Another hot topic during the meeting was whether or not to divide the league into Conferences again, and if that would impact the leagues scheduling. An idea floated was while we play all division opponents twice, the remaining four games would be played against the other four teams in the prospective conference. Every effort is being made this year to reduce travel times as we play on Friday nights. However, this provision has met some resistance by some as this could once again lead to a conference discrepancy much like the one we faced last year. It will be interesting to see how these talks play out over the next month or so.
The GFL playoff format will stay the same with eight teams making the cut after a 10 week season.
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