Welcome to the Semi-professional football discussion page!

This page is a "living essay" and has come about due to a relatively large number of articles for deletion discussions on semi-professional football teams and leagues.

There's no reason to accuse anyone of creating the large number of articles (the category shows well over 100) in bad faith. However, these articles need to be examined for notability, verifiability, and any other Wikipedia policy. Many of the articles have no independent reliable sources and only provide links to the team page or to the league discussion groups.

Everyone is encouraged to participate in this discussion. It's broken into two parts: General discussion and article-specifics. Please remember to remain WP:CIVIL and open to everyone's ideas.

Remember, the ultimate goal of this page and discussion is for Wikipedia to become better, specifically in the area of articles on semi-pro football. This means that if the articles can be fixed and sources added to be brough up to Wikipedia standards, that's great! If that is not possible, then the articles should be considered for removal.

Discussion

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Please feel free to add general discussion segments here.

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This is a proposed guideline for establishing the notability of semi-professional sports leagues.

The following criteria should be considered when attempting to determine if a semi-pro league is notable. If the league:

  1. been around for 10 years or more, thus proving that it's not a fly-by-night deal;
  2. has teams located in more than one state;
  3. has verifiable coverage in third-party publications (newspapers and the like);

it's almost certainly notable. If it meets criterion 1 or 2 and 3, it's probably notable. If it only meets crierion 3, it's possibly notable. A league failing criterion 3, however, is most likely not notable even if it meets 1 and 2.

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Under these criterion, the MidStates Football League meets 1, 2 and 3, and therefore I have no problem having a page on it (in fact, it's not at AfD - but its teams are, see later). The Mid Continental Football League, on the other hand, meets 1 and 2, but has a bit of a weaker 3 - two gBooks hits mention it, but both in passing (one in an appendix, the other is a "facts about cities" guide), no gnews hits, however a Googling does turn up a few newspaper stories as you sort through the chaff. So it's probably notable.

The Elite MCFL, on the other hand, as a stand-alone page, doesn't seem to be notable at all. Fails 1, of course, and 3 - there are no secondary sources on Google. At all. That said, seeing as the Elite AFL was only created just before the merger and never played any games, merging the Elite MCFL page to the MCFL's page would seem to be a completely logical act, thus preserving the information and, really, since the league seems to be just "the MCFL with a new name and a few new teams", that would probably be the way to go anyway.

Dragging in something not mentioned yet, the United States Football Alliance is another semi-pro league, dragged in by the fact the EAFL teams split off from it. Again, we have no gnews or gbooks hits, but there is news paper coverage, at least in passing. Not to mention scandal! So I'd call the USFL safe for meeting WP:SEMIPROFBALL, as I'll call it, criterion 2 and 3.

Now though we come to the other part of this discussion: the team pages. (And I'll toss the season pages into the mix as well). These are going to be much harder to establish as notable, especially "notable independent of the league" - most of the newspaper sources I've mentioned will probably be referring to local teams, with the league's notability/existiance being verified through that. In addition, many of the pages would never be able to be expanded beyond stubs anyway. For both teams and seasons in semi-pro football, therefore, I'd strongly suggest that their creation be discouraged in favour of their contents being placed in the league's main article, and accordingly I've voted merge on the team AfD submissions.

Anyway, that's my $2 worth. - The Bushranger One ping only 18:10, 10 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I'd drop the bit about teams in more than one state, otherwise you will get some completely insignificant leagues that just happen to straddle a state line. Best to stick to the general notability guideline. Though in terms of teams that get coverage, current and former league champions are liable to have had more coverage than less successful teams. ϢereSpielChequers 19:42, 10 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I was going to suggest that also on the "two-state rule" -- we don't want to give a "free pass" to teams that may form in Ark City, Kansas and Ponca City, Oklahoma -- or simply across State Line Road in Kansas City.--Paul McDonald (talk) 20:58, 10 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Well, I didn't mean it as one or two or three. Rather that 2 could be an additional factor in addition to 1 and, most importantly, 3 - e.g. it's not a super-local thing. - The Bushranger One ping only 21:13, 10 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I think you meant a league should have teams in at least two different cities and actually play in those cities. If all the teams are in one city or all the games played on one field, it's basically a rec league, and those are definitely not notable. Mateinsixtynine (talk) 20:20, 28 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

No real need for its own guideline, thinks like teams and leagues in all sports follow the WP:GNG, either they have 3rd party independent reliable sources or they don't. -DJSasso (talk) 14:13, 17 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

yeah no need for new guidelines here, all minor leagues are not given notability unless they pass WP:GNG. By the way there is a gnews hit for the Mid continental league [1], the writer appears to be a staff writer of a reputable news station (it doesn't look like a blog). My guess is that the league is notable but that most of the teams are not MATThematical (talk) 17:56, 19 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

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