Rocky Mountain Football League

Now that everyone's had a few months to get away from the RMFL and re-connect with non-football family and friends, I thought I would send out a quick update on what's happening around the league.  With college & NFL football in full swing, it appears that RMFL teams are also reuniting for recruiting, off-season workouts, and fundraising.  For the most part, we seem to be in the middle of a fairly normal off-season.  I wanted to let everyone know what the league staff has been working on and pass on any news you might find interesting.

1.  Organizational Changes:  For those of you unfamiliar with my background, I'm a business and finance guy.  One of my first priorities was to analyze the budget and try to find ways to run the league more cost-effectively.  All of the GMs participated anonymously in an online survey at the end of the season and gave us feedback about each postion and staff member (not just each person, but the role they fulfilled).  Based on that feedback, I have consolidated some of the staff positions (and their salaries) and re-aligned many of the responsiblities.  I am currently looking at other ideas to lower costs for the league and make sure that teams are getting the most bang for their buck when it comes to league fees.  I hope to be able to lower each team's league fees $100 - $200 from the $1500 we collected last year from each team.  This is a work-in-progress (like almost everything on this list), but I think it can be done.

2.  Team Changes:  Like every season, it appears we will have some turnover again this year in the RMFL.  I know officially that ownership in the Bulldawgs (Magic Valley), Gladiators (Great Falls), and Bearcats (Helena) has either already changed or is in the process of changing.  In all three cases, it seems to be a positive move that the players of those teams are excited about.  I have spoken to the new owners of the Bulldawgs & Gladiators, and will be talking to the new Bearcats owner soon.  Folding Teams:  As far as teams folding, I've heard rumors of a couple of teams, but nothing has been made official yet.  I think almost all of the 2012 teams will be back in some form or fashion, except maybe one or two.  New Teams:  The new team packet is available on the front page of the website.  Thus far, I have had official inquiries from 3 teams (2 in Utah, 1 in Montana) and a few informal calls from other teams.  The deadlines for new team applications is December 1st, so I'm sure we'll hear more by then.  As we've done the past couple of years, we will review the new team applications and do our due dilligence before deciding who will present to the Managing Board at the league meeting.

3.  RMFLapalooza:  Circle May 17th & 18th on your calendars right now--this is probably the thing I am most excited about thus far for the 2013 season.  We've worked out an agreement with the Stars & Stripes Officials Academy to coordinate their academy with one of our regular season weekends (rather than the after-season format we did this year).  We will have 9 RMFL games in the SLC area over that weekend.  There are not only a lot of financial benefits (the Academy will cover the field & officials fees for these games as well as a small contribution to help the teams traveling to SLC), but it will give us the opportunity to have 18 of our teams in SLC at the same time.  We've already started working on ways to leverage this event to gain RMFL exposure as well as group rates on hotel rooms & other travel costs.  I think this will give us an excellent opportunity to schedule one out-of-state game during the season and make it as affordable as possible for GMs and players.  There will obviously be wrinkles to iron out (especially this first year), but I think the long-term potential of this relationship could be really great for the RMFL.

4.  RMFL Room Rates:  We have been reaching out to a variety of hotel franchises in hopes of establishing an RMFL rate at participating hotels to help traveling teams.  While we don't have anything definitive on this yet, we have had some productive conversations with Wyndham Worldwide and are waiting to hear back from some other franchises.  My hopes are that this will make travel for RMFL teams and players (when they do have to travel) more affordable.  This will be a rate any RMFL player can use, whether traveling for football or any other reason.

5.  Miscellaneous:  We have been speaking with hudl.com about the potential of an RMFL membership for gamefilm exchange among teams.  We will have a presentation to the Managing Board about hudl.com to see if that's a direction we want to go.  We are looking at ways to try and add more content (pics & video) or at least framed links to the RMFL website to spice it up a bit.  We entered a relationship with the Utah Ultimate Indoor Football Association (UUIFA) for their league to provide insurance in an attempt to offset some of our increasing insurance costs.

This covers a lot of what we've been working on.  I know everyone is very interested in the AA/AAA split, and at this point we haven't had any addiitional discussion about that.  I have spoken to many of the GMs and Regional Managers about that topic the last month or so, and it will be something we will address more and more as we get closer to the league meeting.  We will be setting the dates and times for the league meeting in the next month or so.

As always, feel free to give me a call (406) 750-3015 or send me an email (thurber.brad@gmail.com) with any questions.  I think we've got a lot of things moving in a positive direction and I'm excited for the 2013 season and this new direction for the RMFL.