THE DEATH OF THE SFL
A Grantland Special Report
With the new NFL season beginning in just a few days, millions of fantasy football fanatics are obsessively tinkering with their rosters, reading every preview article available to them, hoping to find some inside scoop that could make the difference this year. What third string running back will gain ridiculous points thanks to his goal line prowess? Which unclaimed wide receiver will break out in week one and become the waiver darling? Who will be the first backup quarterback thrust into a pressure-packed starting role and the high-yield points that go with it. Across the world, fantasy owners are preparing. However, the owners of one well-known league have been left without a league this year. Despite its longevity and relative success, the Staples Football League has been eerily quiet this off-season. No press releases have been issued. No invitations were extended. Nothing of note was ever generated from the SFL’s Columbia, SC home office. Since the NFL season is beginning in two days, it is now readily apparent that the Staples Football League has indeed folded.
What happened? That is the question that must be answered. Or must it? Does the demise of the SFL actually have any bearing on fantasy football or our lives in general? Or is it just another example of a small business collapsing under the apathy and ineptitude of poor leadership? Perhaps it is something more, something deeper. Maybe it can teach us a lesson about ourselves and how we treat entities that no longer entertain and enthrall us. So we can uncover these explanations, it is at least worth an examination of the circumstances surrounding the shuttering of the Staples Football League.
The SFL had what most fantasy leagues desire - stability. The league lasted twelve seasons. That is a virtual eternity in the virtual world of virtual football. Twelve seasons with a core of owners that religiously reported back each August for the automated draft. Names changed, cities changed, expansion teams came and went. But the core teams stayed. That is usually what makes for a successful league. And it was indeed what helped the SFL survive the tumult that happened behind the scenes. While the league itself was a standard of stability, the league ownership often exhibited quite the opposite.
Many professional sports franchises have been undone by their inept owners. The Dallas Cowboys are perpetually handcuffed by egomaniacal Jerry Jones. The Washington Indigenous Americans can never seem to get Daniel Snyder to stop shooting them - and himself - in the foot. Donald Sterling, Hugh Culverhouse, Jerry Reinsdorf. Owners can cause great damage to their franchises. And the very best owners (Robert Kraft, RC Buford, The People of Green Bay, WI) can guarantee success for theirs. The owner of the SFL was about as unstable as they come. David Staples never seemed satisfied to stay in one place. He moved the home offices of the SFL from Orange Park to Winter Park to Orlando to a different place in Orlando to Oviedo to a different place in Oviedo to Tallahassee to Winter Springs and, finally, to Columbia, South Carolina. His escape from the Sunshine State was supposedly to take advantage of promised tax breaks in the Palmetto State. But, in retrospect, it may have been to escape the threat of bone breaks in Florida.
As time has gone on, the rumors of scandals behind the scenes of the SFL became more concrete. There had always been allegations of wrongdoings. Staples rigged draft order to favor himself for years. Team owners accused him of taking the best players. He hopelessly bungled the free agent signing period after the draft nearly every year. Coaches complained endlessly over shifting start times, start dates, and signings. Threatened punishments did not come to fruition. Staples’ wild threats usually just led to mocking responses by other teams. Despite the (alleged) manipulation of just about everything in his favor, Staples only won one SFL title. His overall team record is still the highest in league history. But his abysmal playoff record speaks for itself. “He can’t even cheat right,” bemoaned one anonymous owner.
But all of these scandals were nothing compared to what surfaced over the past few months. At first glance, the trial of Ernesto “Tire Iron” Cepeda has little bearing on the fate of the SFL. But court documents brought to light a disturbing relationship. Cepeda’s nickname was well earned, and it wasn’t for helping women change tires on the interstate. Tire Iron was the hired muscle for Juan Ramirez-Colon. For those unfamiliar with international news reports, Ramirez-Colon is the head of a massive multinational crime syndicate. Hidden behind the legitimate JRC Worldwide shipping corporation, Ramirez-Colon was able to smuggle drugs, weapons, antiquities, and pirated DVDs around the world. He supposedly bought dozens of elections and ordered the assassinations of several government officials unhappy with his reign of crime. Cepeda was one of the enforcers for JRC. He usually was brought in to “teach a lesson” to unruly parties. His “lessons” rarely led to death, but were a form of long-term education: Beat the tar out of one person, the others learn to stay in line.
As fate would have it, Cepeda was picked up for speeding in - you guessed it - Columbia, SC. Routine inspection of his car found a substantial amount of counterfeit football cards and the address to David Staples and the SFL. Further investigations solidified the link between Cepeda and Staples. The counterfeit cards were just the tip of the iceberg. Staples and Cepeda were using JRC to distribute high-end fakes of Minecraft figurines, Lego sets, Angry Birds apps, Frozen t-shirts, and Madden 2015 games to unsuspecting children around the world. Imagine the disappointment of a child who opened their birthday present to find Mynecraft, Leggo, AngryByrds, Froozen, or Maddem products. The FBI, CIA, and Homeland Security all were circling Staples.
The League itself was mostly sheltered from the drama behind the scenes. The problem on the league though was that it had become rather boring. The SFL had basically come down to a league of luck. Whoever got the best draft class in the auto-draft and jumped onto the post-draft waiver wire first had the best team. It had nothing to do with skill. There was no fun in it. Staples resisted a live draft - which could have brought more skill to the proceedings. As a result, the fantasy league became a bit of humdrum reality. The NFL itself had changed. The video game numbers that had been put up by most people had dropped off. Running backs, which had been the most important position for years in fantasy leagues, now were interchangeable. Quarterbacks emerged as the new trophy to score. But there are only around six or seven elite quarterbacks. After that, teams were left with a giant cesspool of woefully similar pedestrian field leaders. To top it all off, the most well-constructed league team could run the table during the regular season, only to find themselves knocked out of the playoffs due to injuries, teams tanking the last three games, or teams resting starters.
When all of this was combined, it actually was little wonder that the league folded. It was being ripped to shreds behind the curtain. In the league itself, it was eroding. Owners were losing interest. When the decision to shut down the league was made, hardly anyone even knew. Much more telling, hardly anyone even cared. Only two owners even inquire about the status of the league for this season. Staples himself issued a statement with his usual misplaced bravado. He mentioned needing a year off to retool and tinker with the league so it would come back “bigger and better than ever” next year. But we all have seen what happens when leagues take a year off. What little momentum the SFL had will be gone next season - not to mention its owner may be in prison by that point.
It indeed is a sad tale. The SFL deserved better than this. The teams in the league deserved better. This is especially true of the core teams, who had given twelve years of hard-fought roster clicking to the SFL. Alas, the league was undone by one man. David Staples was entrusted with the legacy of the SFL and he didn’t care for it the way he should have. Add that to his list of crimes.
