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.

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.

I believe they can do it. So UFL Live has been getting ready. I’ve ported the blog over to Wordpress, which has a better look and more functionality than blogspot. I’ll also be able to add forums, galleries, and other features to make UFL Live the number one destination for fans of the new league. I hope you’ll join me for what I expect to be an exciting ride.

The Charlotte Observer ran a story on Chris Leak, QB of the NCCA Champion Florida Gators in the 2006 season. His height doomed him to be left out of the NFL Draft, but he has found his way onto the Florida AAFL Team.

“My dream is alive,” Leak said by phone from Florida this week. “This league is going to let me and a lot of other guys have the opportunity to showcase ourselves to the NFL.”

That’s certainly a possibility. The fact that the AAFL plays in the spring will give the NFL Scouts plenty of time to check out the skills.

So once again, I ask, if you were an agent, what would you tell the players you represent? Take the AAFL job or hold out for the UFL where the play is likely to be a bit more and the recognition more national.?

SoCalSportsObserved has a few ideas of what the United Football League team in Los Angeles will be like. He seems pretty happy that Mark Cuban is rumored to be the LA UFL Franchise owner too.

Mark Cuban could be owning a pro football team in LA soon. No, it’s not an NFL team. According to the Las Vegas Review Journal, Cuban is believed to be the person to set to own LA’s team in the United Football League or the UFL. The league will begin play in August, and will likely host games on Friday nights.We don’t have a lot of information yet about the UFL, but I’d expect the talent level to be similar to the old XFL or WFL, and not quite as high as the old USFL. We also have no idea where this Los Angeles team would play, whether it be at the Coliseum, Rose Bowl, Home Depot Center, or somewhere else. Still, it would be a lot of fun to have Cuban owning a team here.

Since the NFL Europe league has collapsed, something the UFL wasn’t counting on, you might be surprised at the type of talent that applies to join the UFL this spring.

Sasha at the Professional Cheerleader Blog heard on her radio that Los Angeles has been awarded a United Football League. So it looks like Commissioner Huyghue has spread his campaign of slow leaks to the west coast now.

Speaking of Los Angeles, the fight between USC and the Coliseum Commission continues. USC is angling to gain 100% control of the facility, which might freeze out the UFL should it want to play there.

Apparently the United Football League is happy to let news of their first few cities leak out through the press before any big announcement is made. The latest paper to get the inside scoop is the Las Vegas Review Journal.

Sam Boyd Stadium director Daren Libonati said an agreement is close on a two-year deal with options. The team would play on Friday nights.

Libonati said he had two face-to-face meetings with Huyghue in the past two months, most recently about two weeks ago.

“They have been very, very positive conversations, probably the best conversations with all the leagues we’ve had from Day 1, starting back with the Canadian Football League and all the basketball leagues and the XFL,” Libonati said.

Las Vegas was one of the few cities where fan support of the XFL was strong. I lived there when the league auctioned off all the teams surplus merchandise and equipment. It drew quite a crowd.

This article says that the first 8 teams will be announced in January. If so, I hope they mean early January. This slow news leak stuff is driving me crazy.

I’ve been covering the United Football League since it was announced in May of this year and I can tell you all that there is to know about the league. Of course, at this point, that’s not much.

It’s hard to find out many facts about the league. The official website, UFL2008.com, doesn’t reveal much. I’ve had to paste together my picture of the league from various quotes and a few conversations with people who are connected to the league.

I’m patient. I know that good things come to those who wait and very shortly a ton of details about the UFL will be revealed. They’ll have to if they want to keep up with the schedule to start playing in the fall of 2008.

So I’m surprised when someone who makes their living at writing about sports writes off the UFL when so little is known about the league. Take, for instance, John Pruett of the Huntsville Times:

The same thing goes for the eight-team United Football League, which is also supposed to start up next year in Los Angeles, Las Vegas and various other big cities that don’t currently have National Football League franchises.At least the UFL plans to play (on Friday nights) in the fall, the traditional time for NFL and college football. But even if the league works out a TV contract, how many fans across the country will choose to forego [sic] their local high school games - or ESPN’s Friday night college game, for that matter - to watch a pro game played by a bunch of guys who couldn’t make an NFL roster?

When’s the last time he was at a high school game? Except in the parts of the country where High School is huge (parts of Texas mostly) the game is usually attended only by player’s parents and other students. We’re talking about a very small group of fans here in most metropolis areas.

Even then the UFL has announced that they’ll start play 3-4 weeks ahead of the first High School games and end before the High School playoff season begins. This will give the UFL teams some exposure when no other teams are playing (HS, NCAA, or NFL) and make sure they’re not buried in the news when the other leagues are wrapping up.

I also think it’s a little unfair to say that the league is full of NFL rejects until you see who actually makes up the league. I’m thinking the UFL is going to make sure there will be a good mix of players who have previously played in the NFL, perhaps as recently as 2007.