“NOW IS THE TIME FOR ALL REAL TEAMS TO COME TO THE CALL OF THE RMFL”

RMFL – Well the off-season is officially headed for a close.

RMFL Commissioner, Jared Neumeier, is calling on all potential new teams to officially contact him and reserve agenda time if they are to present themselves as a new team to the RMFL for the 2007 season.

The annual RMFL “Kick-off” meeting where new teams are presented and accepted into the league is tentatively scheduled for Friday evening, January 26^th thru Saturday, January 27^th in Pocatello, Idaho.

“The meeting specifics are still being ironed out,” Neumeier said, “however, the agenda is certain. The meeting always gets started with the introduction of the new teams. They are then voted on and, if approved, continue through the rest of the meetings as voting members of the RMFL Managing Board.”

The first session of the league meeting would focus on how the league will be structured and how the scheduling of the various teams at each level will occur. Of course, the biggest contingent part of that will be approving the final AAA level field.

By original design of the AAA/AA split, the bottom two teams of 2006 would move down, while the top two AA teams would move up. That would put the Idaho Matadors and whoever may replace the Salt Lake Nemesis as a franchise (Seminoles?) into the AA with the championship game of the AA participants, the Muddogs and Vipers up into the AAA.

That would put 6 Utah teams in the AAA and 4 Idaho teams, however. But, according to Neumeier, he does have a solution for the imbalance that does not require placing a Utah team into an Idaho division. “I’ll be presenting an option to the Board for discussion on that in the upcoming weeks,” he said. “I don’t have to present it early, but I’ve found out the earlier we can work on some of these issues, the easier time we will have when it comes time in the meeting.”

First things first, however, new teams are being called out.

According to Neumeier, “at least 12” people have contacted him about starting a new team, surprisingly, most of them were from Utah… an area of the RMFL, generally regarded as “saturated” already with teams. Neumeier says he has yet to hear of a new team from Montana (“which is unfortunate”) and has only heard from a couple of potential starts in Idaho, one from Twin Falls and another from the greater Boise area.

Most of the contacts, Neumeier reports, were “one time only” contacts.

“I generally give them the same information about what it takes and what they need to do,” he said, “if I find out they are from the northern Utah area, I stress the need to finalizing a deal for a field and have expressed how difficult that has been for currently established teams, but then I also stress that if they can find players that have not already been playing with another team… it will increase their chances of success greatly.”

Neumeier wrote an article entitled Starting up a New Team for Dummies… in which he usually directs new teams to read to help get a focus on what the costs are likely to be and understand what they will be up against as they prepare for one of the more rewarding activities in sports.

The RMFL Managing Board, however, will be looking for several things for aspiring new teams:

1. A confirmed playing field

2. A minimum 30 player roster that can be visually verified through a video-tape of a team workout. None of the qualifying 30 players should be disputed as part of another team

3. An introduction of their team at the league meeting; should have a team web site with further information already set up.

4. Be prepared to pay the RMFL league fee

5. Be prepared to pay a refundable $500 “new team” deposit. Money returned to team after year is completed without incident

Of course, a lot will be derived from the presentation of the team in the January meeting. New teams will want to demonstrate organization, talent and leadership. The RMFL Managing Board will want to know they are a team that “no one will have to worry about”… and that will provide an a competitive game every time they step on the field.

As teams CONFIRM they will be in attendance AND have a web site established, they will be added to the list of potential teams on the home page of the RMFL web site. At the release of this article, only the Salt Lake Seminoles have reached that position and have been listed.

“This accounting serves two purposes,” Neumeier explained, “first it allows everyone to see immediately who may be coming into the RMFL… and second, it allows us to read more about them and start learning just how organized and “professional” they are. I stress to these teams to get this taken care of AND to do a good job of it. I tell them they may be pre-judged a little by how well they can set up a simple web site. Let’s face it, the web site is one of the easiest of their concerns as they try to get a team going.”

Watch the RMFL site for more information as it comes available in the next 8 weeks leading to the RMFL league meeting… and Happy Holidays to all!