How much difficulty/deterrent from multiple rule differences?

[Robert Goodman]

For many years I've daydreamed about starting a Budget Football League on more or less the model of community theater or independent minor league baseball: truly semi-professional focusing on mostly local talent (but not tied to existing institutions) and revenue, small cash flow volume but with decent profit margins, nationwide or continent-wide overall extent but with minimal travel.

One of the ways I'd want to attract audience would be by a unique combination of playing rules, such that people would recognize it as American football but different from its contemporary competition at all levels in myriad small ways -- but ways that'd frequently seem like "gotchas". What I'd like to know is how much having to administer a rule set with a slough of differences from other versions would either require additional expense in paying and training officials or in accepting a lot of errors in administration -- especially since the game would be designed to be played at at least the pace of its competitors and probably a little faster. And I'd want to arrange play during the "traditional football season" rather than spring, summer, or winter.

I wanted to draw on the experience of those who already officiate football of two or more different flavors during the same season. This would probably be harder, since the Budget Football League would not be using a rule set people would already be familiar, even if not experienced, with thru exposure of years, but a little from here, a little from there, and many that haven't been used in generations or have never been done exactly that way. And the rollout wouldn't be gradual, diverging season by season from others, but an integrated whole from the start.

At one extreme would be really simple matters such as adjusting the point values of scores, since scoring would make the ball dead and be easily correctable at leisure. (In fact administration would be eased by abolishing the try and the safety.) At the other extreme would be what I'd anticipate as a mistake-prone administrative procedure: playing the ball again after it becomes dead. In cases where the ball was next to be put in play from the spot by a player of the team who personally had possession of it as it became dead, and the ball did not leave the playing enclosure (playing area plus small safety zone around it), and that team did not claim to reach the line to gain where it was not quickly obvious, no official would have to handle the ball. The linesman would mark the spot (possibly with the old stick) that the ball would have to be played from immediately behind -- on the center zipper if otherwise outside a hash -- as was done over a century ago, and have 40 seconds in which to do it (or 10 seconds from when the snapper put hands on the ball there and clearly paused), being responsible for getting the ball to the spot. Plus they'd have the choice of snap or a version of the old kick-forward-in-scrimmage. But if other conditions obtained at the dead ball, it'd be officially spotted with 25 seconds to play it, short-circuitable to 10 seconds as described, and the period clock stopped while the play clock was, and restarted together, with kick-forward-in-scrimmage still available. Lots of ways to go wrong there, plus the kick forward in scrimmage would have requirements nobody alive today has seen, let alone administered.

In between would mostly be situations where a flag could be picked up, but some where an IW could result that'd be a proper whistle under other rules. Lots of opportunity for clock errors, though, because BFL's timing would be simpler than elsewhere.

I'd be hoping to attract audience aficionados who'd be intrigued by the different play possibilities, ditto the players. Some people might be induced to play who wouldn't otherwise as adults because of safety improvements, but others induced not to play because of facets that'd make certain plays more dangerous. Money would also be saved on talent by a player weight limit -- nowhere near as restrictive as for Sprint Football, but enough to exclude many of the bigger guys who'd turn pro. I'd really like to go the A7FL route in eliminating hard pads and helmets. I'd even allow for saving money by accommodating the 8' wider field (56 yards not counting safety zones) by adding only one outboard sideline to existing fields while not moving the goals, leaving them 4' off center. 5 yards of each end zone would be sacrificed to field of play while leaving the goals on the end lines.