UFL Live - United Football League News and Fan Forum

The United Football League does not tread down the unworn path. In fact there have been many a league that tried to compete against the National Football League. Most never even made it to the first snap, dying in the anonymity of the ownerships proposal. A few, the WFL, USFL, and XFL actually made to the first snap (and some a few years beyond).

“This Is The USFL” is a fan site that chronicles the creation, demise, and winning anti-trust lawsuit against the NFL that was settled for the ultra-small sum of $3.76 (including interest and penalties). Everyone involved in UFL management, currently signed up to own or manage a team or even thinking of getting involved needs to read this site and internalize the lessons learned.

Lesson #1 - Keep Player Salaries under control. The USFL started out in debt due to large player salaries. Don’t be tempted to extend that bonus or make promises that will unbalance the scales. $20 million tops, at least for the first few years.

Lesson #2 - Don’t complete head to head against the NFL. The USFL’s move to a fall schedule spelled doom for league teams located in cities that already had NFL teams. Teams in cities without the NFL did better. So the UFL might want to rethink that New York City team.

Lesson #3 - Don’t count on a lawsuit against the NFL to solve your problems. Sure the USFL won, but the jury essentially nullified the victory with their $1 award. On the other hand the steroid issue might just cause congress to rethink the NFL’s trust status. That might mean interesting things for the UFL’s prospects.

Lesson #4 - Big Money attractions the Heisman Trophy winners and other name players. Imagine Tim Tebow playing for the Orlando Orbits (sponsored by Orbitz, of course)(and yes, I know Tim’s not leaving Florida, just yet, or is he?). A top salary of $2 million a year probably won’t cut it when Tebow is expected to draw upwards of $7 million in the NFL. That’s a quandary as you see above with Lesson #1.

From what I’ve seen from the UFL so far, they’ve been dealing with these issues already. So I look forward to writing about the UFL for years as an active league, not as a museum as the poor owner of the “This is the USFL” site is left with.

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A little bit of housekeeping. If you were subscribed to UFL Live via RSS feed you’ll need to subscribe again. That was supposed to be avoided by using Feedburner, but somehow I managed to screw it up anyway. So I apologize.

And because I haven’t said it enough, Thank you for reading UFL Live. I hope you’ll stick around as we document the creation of the United Football League

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Cindy over at Home By The Sea blog notes an unusual fact of NFL team names. You can pair almost all of them together. Here are a few from her post:

Tennessee Titans vs. New York Giants
TITANS/GIANTS - Obvious connection.

Seattle Seahawks vs. Philadelphia Eagles
SEAHAWKS/EAGLES - Two prey birds.

Kansas City Chiefs vs. Washington Redskins
CHIEFS/REDSKINS - Obvious connection.

Jacksonville Jaguars vs. Carolina Panthers
JAGUARS/PANTHERS - Two big cats.

Tampa Bay Buccaneers vs. Minnesota Vikings
BUCCANEERS/VIKINGS - Ship-based marauders.

Atlanta Falcons vs. Baltimore Ravens
FALCONS/RAVENS - Two prey birds.

Indianapolis Colts vs. Denver Broncos
COLTS/BRONCOS - Two kinds of horses.

Green Bay Packers vs. Pittsburgh Steelers
PACKERS/STEELERS - Two blue-collar workers.

Detroit Lions vs. Cincinnati Bengals
LIONS/BENGALS - Two big cats.

Well, you get the picture. Anyone care to posit on the reason for this strange phenomenon of name pairings?

So, some advice to the future team owners of the UFL… please come up with some great names and make sure you’re not separated at birth from any of the above twins.

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Welcome to 2008. This is the year that the United Football League will rise up and provide football fans in eight cities neglected by the NFL with quality professional football. At least that’s the plan.

We’ll know shortly if the UFL is able to meet the tight schedule that will be required to assemble team owners and staff, acquire players, have a spring mini-camp, sell tickets, launch the inaugural season in late summer, and more. The first step of announcing cities, team owners, and stadiums should be coming soon. I know I sound like a broken record, but if the UFL is coming, it has to happen soon.

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