I was going through some older table top sports games in my collection, like this APBA Football game from 1995, and it reminded me of why I’ve chosen to play games from companies other than APBA and Strat-O-Matic.

I went on both those sites to see how much a season set would cost, and for APBA Football they seemed to run between $50-$120 per season.  Strat-O-Matic seasons ran $32-$42, but the oldest complete season was 2002.

A printed season from Inside Sports Games for Inside Blitz Football can run $42-$58, but they also offer a PDF option for $15-$17.

Downey Games offers Grid Iron Wars for $30 for a complete game with 1 season, printed, or $7.95 for the game parts in PDF.  Printed seasons run for $8-$15 while PDF seasons run $8-11.

PLAAY Games has Second Season for $49, with seasons going for $25-$33 printed, and $19-$21 PDF.

The major difference between APBA/SOM and the other companies is that with the former you’re getting individual player cards per team, while the latter have team sheets with all the players on a sheet.  At the moment, I prefer the team sheets to individual cards.

One plus, had I stuck with the Big Two, would be that I would have bought less seasons (in all sports games) than I currently own because of availability and price.  I only own one complete season for SOM Baseball (2011), SOM Football (2009) and SOM Hockey (1993-94), for example.

And in the picture above, those are the only two *teams* that I own for APBA Football.