United Football League

[lorentrook]

A rival to the NFL ? Nah no way!

Hambrecht, Google exec to form rival to NFL, report says

REUTERS

7:46 a.m. May 30, 2007

CHICAGO – Well-known investment banker Bill Hambrecht and Google Inc. executive Tim Armstrong plan to launch a competitor to the National Football League next summer, The New York Times reported Wednesday.

The leagues – named the United Football League – already boasts billionaire Mark Cuban, who owns the National Basketball Association's Dallas team, among its owners, the paper said.

Hambrecht, Google and Cuban were not immediately available to comment.

The plan is for eight teams to begin preseason games in August 2008, according to the paper. The UFL would be the latest in a series of leagues since the 1970s, including the World Football League and the United States Football League, that have failed to thrive against the NFL.

Hambrecht, the founder of WR Hambrecht + Co., and Armstrong have each pledged $2 million, the paper said.

I think that their best bet, would be to take all of that money, and try to get the NFL to expand.

[TITANFAN]

Interesting, but that's about it I think. I wish it would have touched on where these 8 teams might play these games.

[BMW]

They are going to try to go to the 8 biggest cities without football teams. San Antonio and LA are the two biggest. I wonder if they would go to Milwaukee Wisconsin...hmmm. If they held their season in the spring they would have a better shot working against the NHL, NBA playoffs and the start of MLB than they do of going against MLB playoffs and NFL. No other major league's (NHL, NBA, MLB) playoffs can compete to the NFL regular season, how does this league expect to be any different?

[John F]

OKC, Orlando, LA, San Antonio...Sacremento? Portland? Virginia Beach/Newport News?

Crazy

[bedir than average]

cough

Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver all have populations that could support teams.

Of course, putting in a closer to NFL quality product with NFL rules rather than CFL would basically mean the end of the CFL.

Media Life Magazine - Coming, a second pro football league

Mentions a few cities in the running

“Is it crazy to try to compete with the NFL? I don’t think so,” writes Cuban on his blog, Blogmaverick.com. “There is obviously demand for top-level professional football, [and] the NFL wants and needs competition.”

The UFL is targeting cities without NFL teams initially, such as Los Angeles and Las Vegas, as well as Mexico City. The NFL has scheduled games in Mexico before to great success, and branching out in this way would create a new and potentially loyal audience for football in general.

Competing with the NFL - Blog Maverick

His blog entry has some amazing comments, but more impressively he hasn't responed. This looks like an early leak, and not a formal attempt at publicity - yet.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/03/sp...l?ref=business

Where others might be daunted by the N.F.L.’s success and power, though, Hambrecht came to believe its monopoly status gave him an opening. “I really started thinking hard about this after the Los Angeles Rams left to go to St. Louis and the Houston Oilers went to Nashville,” he told me over drinks recently. “Why do you leave two of the top 10 TV markets in the country for these two smaller markets?”

The answer, of course, is that the N.F.L. doesn’t really have to worry about where its teams are located, since most games are televised and the bulk of the league’s revenues come from its network contracts. What’s more, with the right stadium deal and enough corporate sponsorship, team owners can make as much (or more) money in smaller cities as they can in larger ones. That’s why the N.F.L. does just fine despite not fielding a team in 21 of the country’s top 50 markets — including such enormous metropolitan areas as San Antonio, Las Vegas, Orlando and (of course) Los Angeles. Nor does the N.F.L., which now has 32 teams, have much incentive to expand. On the contrary: expansion dilutes the TV money. (Greg Aiello, the N.F.L.’s spokesman, told me that “expansion isn’t on the table right now.”)

So the first step in Hambrecht’s plan is to enter big cities where the N.F.L. isn’t. As Mark Cuban put it to me in an e-mail, “There are quite a few good-sized non-N.F.L. cities that can support a pro team.” So far, the U.F.L. has decided to put teams in Los Angeles, Las Vegas and Mexico City. (Cuban is considering taking the Las Vegas franchise.) Each owner will put up $30 million, giving him an initial half-interest in the team; the league will own the other half. But eventually the fans themselves will become shareholders — because each team is going to sell shares to the public. Then the owner, the league and the fans will each own a third of every franchise.

I like the idea of fan ownership quite a bit. Fan ownership could change the way the league operates, particularly if a significant portion of the fan ownership disagrees with ownership. The selloff would lower share value. I have read that the league might try and find a way to buy/sell shares on a mobile phone, which could lead to a trade market based on performance of actual cash. Similar to WallStreetSports or Protrade, but with real money.

United Football League (planned) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Borrowing from my post on population centers that might get baseball by 2030.

LA, Portland, Sacramento, SanAntonio, LasVegas, VirginiaBeach, Memphis, Louisville, Richmond, Birmingham are the ten largest cities without an NFL franchise in the US that don't share neilson/arbitron markets with current teams. Most of those have a major stadium (40k+) available nearby, though a collegiate one.

The stadium issue, is well one of the larger issues facing this endevour. Would anyone in Portland really drive to Corvalis or Eugene to see an expansion league rather than Seattle?

[Hellwig]

I really hope they succeed; the NFL needs competition; the odds are against them though. If they could undercut the NFL’s current age rule that would be a good first step to competing. Getting the top college talent.

[TexasG]

I read the other day that The UFL would hold a draft however would not compete with the NFL for 1st round picks. Their picks would start with players projected as 2nd round picks.

[grizzly]

that is a step above the minor leagues, CFL and Arena Football.

I proposed a league to the NFL and others and got laughed at. Yet, many of those I know who once played in the NFL loved the idea.

I would lay out the plan, but I want the credit for the plan after those who have the money realize what I proposed is the right way to proceed.

[grizzly]

and would command a great TV schedule for this league.

The teams would have been communit owned teams and would have been placed in select cities. Each city I would set teams in have been carefully researched.

I also have a very profitable plan in how to develop the facilities for these teams to play their games.

They, like the NFL would play a 16 game schedule, have 4 preseason games and a play off schedule giving each team in the league a play off position.

As I said, I have a complete plan that would have worked! It would have worked as well as the research paper that started Fed Ex worked. I am telling you, the plan is SOLID!

[grizzly]

BUT a developmental league would thrive like crazy. It would make serious money.

[LaxD]

Hmmmm, this is very interesting. I wonder how the draft will fare with these 2 leagues.

Maybe the UFL will just be players who can't make it in the NFL.

Or it will end up like the XFL....

[grizzly]

I would place leage teams in Honolulu, Las Vegas, San Antonio, Salt Lake City for a 4 team western division and 4 teams in an eastern division in Orlando, Birmingham, Memphis and Oklahoma City.

[TexasG]

Oklahoma City, Las Vegas and San Antonio would definately have to have a team.

[JoseA]

I've heard the United Football League would be going after high school players and challenging the NCAA....The players would be receiving a lot of money instantly for signing, that is if they opt out of going to college.

Imagine the potential effects this would have on NCAA football and the NFL draft. They could sign some fairly big names or "top prospects" and see them devlop into big time players someday.

[bedir than average]

I don't know if the mix of 18 year olds and 25 year olds will work though. Look at how bad Maurice Clarrett was in the NFL. By avoiding the youngest players the UFL can maintain its legitimacy in attempts to have top level football. The fact is that the NCAA has kids that play well, but not at an NFL level.

Mark Cuban isn't trying to compete with the college game. That would make him a minor league. He only tries to be the best, and that's what he will continue to attempt to be.