Talk:Virginia Destroyers

Page Name

Does anyone know if you can change the page's name from UFL Virginia to whatever the fans vote to name the team? (Virginia Navigators, Destroyers, Tritons...) Marlinite (talk) 17:42, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

Merge with Tuskers

It appears there is some confusion over whether the "Virginia Destroyers" are a new team, or if they are the same team as the Florida Tuskers. For what it's worth, they are definitely the same franchise, which has now relocated and changed its name.[1] What to do with this is another matter. There is little consistency in how Wikipedia treats articles on sports teams that have moved cities or leagues; sometimes they get one article, with previous names redirected there, and sometimes there are articles for every incarnation of the team.--Cúchullain ^t/c 15:47, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

Well, the original source for the move was from the UFL website and it treated the Tuskers and Destroyers as seperate teams. 2nd, the Tuskers final owner (outside of the league) didn't move his ownership to the Destroyers. The confusion comes in as the Tuskers' assistant coach move to coach the Destroyer after their 1st choice was moved to the Ohama team. Then this Destroyer coach then claims the protected players of the Tuskers. Given, the full team, coaching staff and ownership did not move to Virginia Destroyers and the Destroyers pre-existed the end of the Tuskers, it sure seems like a seperate team. Spshu (talk) 03:25, 5 February 2011 (UTC)

The UFL has given conflicting responses about this. They are treating Virginia as an "expansion market", but the player and staff contracts are from the Tuskers. As a result many of the players and staff are people who were with the Tuskers. In fact they were going to have Jay Gruden as the head coach until he was hired by the Cincinnati Bengals.[2] The bottom line is, whether Wikipedia treats them as one team that has moved, or two separate teams that merged or whatever, we're going to have to cite sources.--Cúchullain ^t/c 14:12, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

We're going to need to see some cites indicating that the Tuskers and the Destroyers were "founded" separately. Clearly the Destroyers were announced prior to the Tuskers suspending operations in Orlando, but they didn't even have an owner or ownership group. Can announcements of new franchises really be taken to mean a team has been founded, especially when we have sources that say specifically that the "Florida Tuskers are relocating to Virginia Beach, Va., where they will be renamed the Virginia Destroyers"?--Cúchullain ^t/c 15:13, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

The team was founded in June 2010, while the Tuskers were still around. It had an owner (Jim Speros) who left that summer,[3][4] a President (Ed Reynolds), a general manager (Doug Williams) and a partial coaching staff that had to be moved to Omaha when the Tuskers operations moved to Virginia.[5] For at least six months, the Destroyers and Tuskers co-existed as separate organizations, with no intentions to merge. While the fact that the original Destroyers never played means that both can be discussed in the same article, it is not the same as saying both teams are and always have been the same organization, and they were not. The Destroyers' existence was wholly independent of the Tuskers' relocation. And for the record, I did not remove the source. The source merely stated that the team was to "become the Virginia Destroyers," a statement that is ambiguous and not enough to suggest the team did not exist beforehand.J. Myrle Fuller (talk) 17:17, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

This is a matter of semantics, but still we need to find the best way to say it. Sports organizations often make claims about their own origins that don't mesh with what the sources actually say. No sources I've seen actually say that the Tuskers and the Destroyers were "merged". These articles specifically say that the Tuskers team is moving to Virginia and changing their name, but keeping all their existing staff and player contracts. The "Virginia Destroyers" were originally an announced/proposed/theoretical expansion team, but as of January 2011 they had no firm organization, no ownership, no front office, etc. So basically we have an extant team moving to a new area and taking on the name of a proposed team that never played a game. This matters for us because the intro needs to summarize the article's contents, and the bulk of the article is about the Florida Tuskers.--Cúchullain ^t/c 19:22, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

But once again... these were two separate organizations that, contrary to your assertion, did indeed exist separately and Virginia had a full front office (the original Destroyers front office remains with the "new" Destroyers fka Tuskers). The assertion is not that it was a merger, but a complicated combination in which an expansion team absorbed first rights to a predecessor instead of starting from scratch. This happened in the NFL several times in the 1940s and 1950s with the New York Yanks to Dallas Texans, and with the Texans to the Baltimore Colts. The teams were separate organizations that had the same players and sometimes coaching staffs, but were still separate teams with separate owners. In this case, the consortium led by Joe Theismann, which owned the Tuskers, does not own the new Destroyers. The evidence is overwhelming that while the Destroyers were founded in summer 2010, the Tuskers continued to play the 2011 season. That is, on its face, evidence that the Destroyers are not the Tuskers. I have attempted to phrase the paragraph to give weight to both teams, acknowledging its Tusker roots and making clear it's a separate team, but it is a factual inaccuracy to say the Destroyers were founded in 2009, just as it is to say the Southern Indoor Football League was founded in 2005 because it absorbed a league that was founded that year. J. Myrle Fuller (talk) 20:02, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

I think the argument comes down to how much of an "organization" the Destroyers really were prior to January 2011. Frankly, they seem to have been more of an "idea" than an organization. They made several announcements, but still had nothing firm at the time the league announced the Tuskers were relocating. Prior to that the local media appears to have treated them with a lot of skepticism and regarded them as fairly ephemeral.[6][7][8] Their skepticism means we should take the UFL's own announcements with a grain of salt.

BTW here's another source that says the Destroyers originated with the Tuskers:[9] "The Destroyers are the remnants of the Florida Tuskers' franchise, which the league shuttered and relocated after two seasons due to an inability to find a suitable venue in Orlando."--Cúchullain ^t/c 20:28, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

A sports franchisee has the following components (I believe, we all agree apon based on above discussion).

factor	Destroyer	Tuskers
Owners	UFL, (Jim Speros,droped out)/out for bid[10]	Joe Theismann group, UFL
Management	President: Ed Reynolds/Joe Moglia/Ed Reynolds General Manager: Doug Williams	President: Joe Theismann
Coaching	Joe Moglia/ Jay Gruden & Tuskers staff / vacant Head Coach, remaining Tusker Staff	Jay Gruden
players	none Tusker key players	Tusker players
launch/end	June 22 2010 /ongoing	08-2009 / 1-12-2011

So basically I see it as a merger the owners and management of the Tuskers did not move with the rest of the Tuskers and the Destroyers franchise was not created only to take the remainer of the Tuskers. As the Tuskers only shut down do to lack of a stadium deal. I think the remaining question is does the Tuskers important enough to have its own article and coversely does the Destroyers. Yes for the Tuskers, they were the original regular Season Champions, and the losing team in the UFL Championship Game and repeated that feat in the second season. Destroyers, we really don't know yet. They may only last a year or they may repeat the Tuskers' sucess. So, at this point, I would have a Florida Tuskers article with a Destroyers "mini-article" and redirect and if we give the Destroyers' a seperate article (until importance can be established), the Tuskers article would indicate a partial merger with the Destroyers with a "see: Virgina Destroyers" wikilink. (Also, I think that the Destroyer information "overwrites" too much of the Tusker information in a fully merged article.)

Back, Cúchullain, to your statement: "There is little consistency in how Wikipedia treats articles on sports teams that have moved cities or leagues; sometimes they get one article, with previous names redirected there, and sometimes there are articles for every incarnation of the team." I agree. The first 4 or so Detroit NFL teams are all jammed into one article while only 2 have any connections except for the being in Detroit and the NFL, but give the amount of information available some times there isn't much that can be done. While the Arena FL Detroit Drive is under another name dispite it being the Drive longer (2 years to 1 Year), and the franchise was sold in bankruptcy court some else and run as the Grand Rapids Rampage, which has its own article. Etc. Well, hopefully discussion here could lead to discussion at American football WikiProject about how to handle articles and redirects better. Spshu (talk) 23:21, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

One other thing I might add: the Tuskers' official Facebook page even says they're not the Destroyers. "We have now ceased operations. Head Coach Jay Gruden is moving on to the Virginia Destroyers." It's pretty clear they're not the same team. J. Myrle Fuller (talk) 19:36, 20 February 2011 (UTC)

Again, we can't put too much stock in the team and the league's own announcements; we have to go with what third party reliable sources say. And obviously we can't be citing Facebook. The news sources I linked to were skeptical of the Destroyers proposed expansion team, and regard them as largely notional prior to the Tuskers suspending operations. After that point, they consistently describe the "expansion" plans as scrapped entirely, with the Tuskers organization relocating to Virginia and picking up the name (here's more:[11][12][13]). In fact, there's some skepticism even now that the Destroyers will ever even play a game [14]. I don't think we disagree with all this; the only issue is on how to say it in our intro. Please comment on my proposed wording below.--Cúchullain ^t/c 20:31, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

What do you mean you can't put too much stock in their OWN WORDS?! Their own words and actions are exactly what comprise what happens. You don't have news organizations making the decisions on the Tuskers. The Tuskers and the league made that decision. You still don't recognize the Destroyers existing for six months prior. Every single news organization out there draws on the actions and words of the league itself for their reporting, and every step you remove from the official word is one step away from reliability. I understand skepticism about this league in its forward-looking statements, since they have been frequently changed, but when it comes to the word on what happened to that team... their word is pretty much final. Ultimately it is their decision on what teams are considered to be the same and different, not some hack reporter. You cannot defy both the league's official word and the laws of the space-time continuum to claim that the Tuskers are the Destroyers when, in fact, they are not. The Destroyers were founded in June 2010 while the Tuskers continued to exist through at least the end of the 2010 season; the sources are abundantly clear on this fact. You can call it a successor, you can even call it a merger, but you cannot call it the same team. Period. With that in mind, I've scrapped the whole paragraph and have changed the description to a successor franchise, not an expanion, to address your concerns. Hopefully this compromise will bring an end to the edit war. J. Myrle Fuller (talk) 00:38, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

But if you must insist on an independent source, today's Omaha World-Herald should help: The first sign of the league's financial troubles came in January when the Orlando-based Florida Tuskers closed up shop after a year of mediocre attendance. The remains of the team were moved to Virginia Beach, Va., which had been set to become the league's sixth member.[15] Which is basically what I've been trying to say. J. Myrle Fuller (talk) 00:56, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

Yes, I insist on independent sources. Wikipedia articles are based on "on reliable, third-party, published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy," not on statements made by the subject itself. The subject has an incentive to put itself in the best light, which may or may not be accurate. In this case, it's not. The league announced a sixth expansion team, but the media was skeptical anything would even happen with it. In the end, nothing did, as the league folded the Tuskers organization in Orlando and moved it to Virginia, where it took on the name of the supposed "expansion" team. The reliable sources I've provided - and the one you provided - all describe it happening in this way. They are for all intents and purposes the same team, no matter how the UFL tries to spin it.

Your current edit is somewhat better, but I don't understand your resistance to discussing proposed changes on the talk page beforehand, as I've been trying to do below.--Cúchullain ^t/c 13:15, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

Sorry, Cúchullain, but some of your source don't support your position. Some indicate merger with only part moving to the Destroyers: "With the Florida Tuskers disbanding and the carcass becoming the Virginia Destroyers, the UFL currently has only five franchises."[16] Some gloss over the fact that the ownership and management didn't move with the rest of the team. Gurden didn't come over as general manager only as the coach. Theisman's group didn't move to Virgina as owners either. "The Florida Tuskers, who appeared in each of the first two UFL title games, are dead." "For now, the Tuskers will still exist, sort of." "Out in the cold is Tuskers president and “owner” Joe Theismann." [17] "Meanwhile, the league will cease operations of its Orlando-based franchise, and Tuskers head coach Jay Gruden will lead the Destroyers in their first season next fall."[18] Tuskers should be treated as a predecessor of the Destroyers as this isn't as simple as a name change and a move. Spshu (talk) 16:12, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

Sorry, but not a single source I've seen mentions a "merger". The "carcass becoming the Virginia Destroyers" implies that the Virginia Destroyers as they currently exist came from the Tuskers, not that they were a pre-existing entity that just picked up some staff. Of course the issue isn't "as simple as a name change and a move", but it's not accurate to say that the current Destroyers franchise are one and the same as the ephemeral expansion team that was proposed in 2010.--Cúchullain ^t/c 16:47, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

Just because some doesn't use the word merger doesn't make it not a merger. If it quack likes a duck and has all the features of a duck and some one just calls it a bird, some how that doesn't make it a duck!?!?! That is the logic of your above paragraph. Second, if now don't agree that its a merger then the Florida Tuskers and Virigina Destroyers article should be seperate. It wasn't an emphemeral expansion team it had management and owner prior to the Tusker. It may seem that way as the visible product is the team playing on the field. Seeing some articles, many still consider the Destroyers "emphemeral".Spshu (talk) 22:20, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia articles are based entirely on what the reliable sources say. If they say this is a merger of two teams, that's what we say. If they say it's a complicated arrangement of an extant team's operations being folded and relocated, taking on the name of a prospective expansion team, well, that's what we say.

I don't think the sources can be interpreted as saying this was a merger between two extant teams. Indeed, they're all pretty clear that before the Tuskers folded, the Destroyers barely existed off of paper, regardless of what the UFL's official line was. They had an "official" owner at one point, but he dropped out before the Tuskers even folded. They had an "official" head coach (Gruden), but he never even left Omaha, and the league later said he'd been "transferred", lo and behold, to the Omaha team.[19] In the end they had a name, a logo, and some staff, and the local media was skeptical they'd ever play a game. All the sources I checked follow the Virginia Daily Press in saying that "the Destroyers are the remnants of the Florida Tuskers' franchise, which the league shuttered and relocated after two seasons due to an inability to find a suitable venue in Orlando."[20]--Cúchullain ^t/c 16:16, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

Well, if it isn't a merger then why are you treating it as one? With both teams in the same article that is how you are treating it. There for, I will split the articles. Spshu (talk) 14:03, 24 February 2011 (UTC)

First, I'm not the one who merged the articles. Second, what I'm saying is that the Tuskers and the current Destroyers are for all intents and purposes the same team, which is even more of a reason to treat them on the same page. Your cut-and-paste move has seriously messed up the edit history here, which is necessary for attribution. This is why it's important to achieve consensus on the talk page before making major changes.--Cúchullain ^t/c 14:48, 24 February 2011 (UTC)

As I have pointed out, the outside 50% owner, Joe Theismann group did not move over. Joe Theisman isn't the president of the Destroyers and Gurden didn't move over as general manager just as the coach as the general manager position was filled. For all intents and purposes, they are not the same franchise or team unless you are talking a partial merger but you claim none of the sources indicate a merger. Some sources don't even consider the "current" set up to be viable. All this from the available sources. So, you have disregarded the sources and me, and claim consensus. "Carcass" can indicate that the team franchise is "dead". Spshu (talk) 17:25, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

This discussion isn't really productive anymore. I think the current lead sums it up well enough - the Tuskers's operations were suspended and relocated to Virginia where they took on the name and some staff from a prospective expansion team that barely existed off of paper. You interpret this as a "partial merger", but none of the sources do; this terminology implies the Destroyers had more existance than they really did. No, Theismann didn't move over, but the players and most of the staff did. There was no dispursal and no dispursal draft, they just relocated. You are correct that some sources don't consider even the current setup to be viable; if they end up being correct we'll figure out what to do at the time.--Cúchullain ^t/c 13:18, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

Proposed intro wording

Okay, here's my proposal for the intro's wording. Please, let's work it out here rather than reverting.

“ The team's current incarnation originated with the Florida Tuskers, a charter franchise of the UFL who played two seasons from 2009-2010.[21][22] The Tuskers advanced to the UFL Championship Game in both years, losing both games to the Las Vegas Locomotives. In 2010 the UFL announced it would be adding an expansion team in Virginia Beach for the upcoming season, to be known as the Virginia Destroyers. Prior to the season, however, the league suspended the Tuskers' operations and scrapped its expansion plans, instead relocating the Tuskers organization to Virginia Beach, where it would take on the Virginia Destroyers name.[23][24][25] ”

There's your answer. For all intents and purposes, what was the Florida Tuskers is now the Virginia Destroyers; unlike the Cleveland Browns it is highly unlikely there ever be another Flordia Tuskers, and prior to the announcement the Destroyers were apparently as much notional as they were actual. Wikipedia really needs to be right about this because lots of people are going to be turning to it for info when next football season starts and the UFL is all the pro football that there is! 75.201.206.210 (talk) 20:41, 19 February 2011 (UTC)

Yeah, thanks, it's important to get the wording right. I've made a few changes to my proposed wording based on a few new sources that the expansion plans are officially canceled.--Cúchullain ^t/c 20:41, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

Take a look at this sandbox page for how I would do it. Has both teams in one article indicated that the Tuskers partially mergered with the Destroyers. Spshu (talk) 16:32, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

Thanks Spshu. The problem with that is that the intro doesn't really reflect everything that the article actually discusses, which is the same problem here. Additionally, no source I've seen describes what happened with the Tuskers and Destroyers as a "partial merger".--Cúchullain ^t/c 16:50, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

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