Template talk:Florida Sports

New Template

I realize this was just made, but I wanted to ask if this list included defunct teams, in which case I could add a few more teams. Tampabay721 (talk) 01:49, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

No I didn't include defunct teams to this template. If you would like you could add them to it. The only problem is, it isn't a current sporting team in Florida, but i guess it's still A sports team in Florida. Hatmatbbat10,a Wikipedian (Talk) 01:53, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

Typically, these are for active franchises. All other states/provinces only list active ones. A better idea is to make a template for defunct teams as was done for Quebec I believe it was. Shootmaster 44 (talk) 08:57, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

Baseball: Gulf Coast League?

It seems to me that this template should include the rookie-level Gulf Coast League. Sure, it's the lowest level of affiliated baseball possible, and it doesn't have much of a local following (by design, really), but it is a league of professional teams. Sliver7 (talk) 23:25, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

Work

Okay, I've done quite a bit of work on this template, but more needs to be done. I've removed as many defunct teams as I could find and added teams that have been created since this was update. However, a major question is, which leagues should be included? Do we really need the rookie-level Gulf Coast baseball league? Or the Lingerie Football League? And why the Women's Football Alliance but not the Florida Football Alliance? Additionally, the USL Premier Development League is referred to as the "top amateur league in the country", and will be something like the fourth level down in the soccer pyramid. We also have the W-League and Women's Premier Soccer League, which are second (or third) level leagues. All of these leagues seem to have a high level of turnover in their teams, judging by how many I had to prune. Do we really need this level of detail?
College athletics is another thing. The section is a mess. We had two NAIA teams (there are 10 in Florida), but not NCAA Division II (or III). I've added NCAA Division II, but this adds far too much length. Most other similar templates only list NCAA Division I, which is probably the way to go here. However, we should not try to separate them into "FBS"/"FCS"/"Non-football", as it's far too complicated. For instance Jacksonville University is in the "non-football" Atlantic Sun Conference for most sports, but has a football team in the "FCS" Pioneer Football League. The other templates only list which schools have Division I teams; that's what we ought to do here.--Cúchullain ^t/c 15:56, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

Over two and a half years later, it's not much better. I was WP:BOLD and removed a lot of what appears to be dead wood from the template. I removed the Gulf Coast League baseball teams, but I left the link to the league. The (uncited) article for the league describes it as an uncompetitive rookie league not designed to attract fans. The fact that the league is in Florida is notable, but the individual teams aren't. I also removed the Florida Basketball Association and its four teams, as it's proven impossible for me to find accurate information about any of them. I highly doubt they're notable enough for articles, let alone inclusion in the template. Over time I've tried to keep the American Basketball Association (2000–present) section updated according to its team list, but someone has removed all the currently listed teams besides the Jacksonville Giants. These teams are also hard to find real information on, so I'm certainly not going to bother re-adding anything. I pruned out two teams in the Women's Football Alliance that aren't on the league's team list anymore; as usual, someone needs to clean up the articles. I removed the section for the Women's Premier Soccer League, as all but one are redlinks and the section has proven difficult to maintain. Finally, I removed the section for NCAA Division II college sports, as this bloats the template and it's excluded for most similar templates.--Cúchullain ^t/c 03:43, 30 July 2013 (UTC)

Orlando City

As this template is meant to list current teams, it's currently far too early to list Orlando City Soccer Club as an MLS team, since as of 2013 they aren't scheduled to take to the field for two years. It also looks awkward to have them listed under both USL-Pro, where they will play through 2014, and under MLS. We shouldn't list "announced" teams too far in advance; if we were doing that I can think of at least one other announced team for 2015, the Jacksonville NASL team, we certainly shouldn't include that at this stage as it doesn't even have a name yet.--Cúchullain ^t/c 14:01, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

Notability of college teams

Is there any reason that WP:NOTABLE organizations, such as schools that are not in NCAA Division I should be excluded, as expressed by USER:Tavix?

In an edit caption, Tavix says that other states include only division one, which I found to be incorrect in seconds, , examples include Indiana and Illinois. In my opinion, if they are notable, they are notable whether it meets a single editor's sensibilities or not. Jacona (talk) 17:41, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

Looking at a couple more, Kansas, and Michigan, it seems there is no clear practice of limiting it to NCAA Division I, or NCAA for that matter. It seems to me that it might be better if there were a Florida College Sports template, since it is a big state with lots of schools, rather than mingling the huge melange of professional and college teams together. What do others think? Jacona (talk) 17:55, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

I took the liberty of creating Template:Florida College Sports for discussion purposes but have not included it on any page until this discussion is concluded. Thanks Jacona (talk) 18:01, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

I went through all the state templates, and found no evidence of a standard practice....Template:Arkansas Sports even includes high school. There is also no separate "standard practice for large states" as USER:Tavix intimated on my talk page, the largest state, California includes NCAA D1, NCAA DII, and NAIA. The second largest state, Texas includes only NCAA DI colleges, but also includes loads of red-linked teams from obscure sports. The third largest state, this one, Florida, includes all blue-linked colleges, as far as I can tell. That said, it is indeed a large template. Dividing it between professional and amateur teams might be an acceptable solution. Jacona (talk) 19:43, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

In previous discussions we've discussed only including the Division I college teams as otherwise the template gets too bulky (as it is now). Most other sister templates (that are of any use) go with only Division I, including Template:Sports in Georgia (U.S. state), Template:South Carolina Sports, Template:North Carolina Sports, Template:New York Sports, and Template:Texas sports.--Cúchullain ^t/c 20:51, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

In practice that appears to be untrue. Template:Arkansas Sports contains more, even high school. Template:California sports contains DII, NAIA, Template:Florida Sports contains all levels. Indiana, Illinois, Kansas, Utah, Nevada....the list goes on and on. It looks like "NCAA DI only" is at best around a 50% rate. It appears to me that if it's too bulky, it could be split into amateur v professional or something....but it seems wrong to say that we're going to declare some teams "Not Notable" simply because it is inconvenient (ie "the template is too bulky").Jacona (talk) 21:32, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

There are exceptions, but this is the general practice, especially for big states with lots of teams (unlike Arkansas). The templates are supposed to serve readers looking for the topic, not collect everything related subject (some of which don't even have articles). I think we're better off with a separate template for college sports, and limiting this one to D-I teams.--Cúchullain ^t/c 21:58, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

I think that is the perfect compromise, Cuchullain. I really like the way the Florida College sports template looks, and I would love to see that rolled out to all states. Good work, Jacona. Tavix |  Talk  22:17, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

Sounds reasonable. There are a lot of these templates.....and "sports teams" is such a huge topic, even in a "small" state, when you consider the possibilities.Jacona (talk) 22:48, 9 February 2015 (UTC)