United Football League

Well theres a market for a spring/summer league in the states but the salaries should be atleast 100,000 for the abuse you put on your body

Exec In New Football League Confirms Teams Were Slated To Go Nameless As Late As Last Month By Joe Eskenazi in Business, Sports Monday, May. 18 2009 @ 11:01AM

http://blogs.sfweekly.com/thesnitch/assets_c/2009/03/UFL-thumb-222x222.jpg

“What’s in a name?” may be the most overused Shakespearean phrase of them all. But bear with us – it’s warranted this time. For while Juliet notes “That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet,” she doesn’t go so far as pushing that roses (or dingleberries or whatever we’d call them) should have no name whatsoever.

That’s where Frank Vuono comes in. The Chief Operating Officer of the San Francisco-based United Football League told SF Weekly that, as recently as April, the league actually planned for its franchises to have no names. Keep in mind, the UFL’s unique first-year template calls for its four teams to play in seven cities – so if you just went by cities, that which we call cumbersome by any other name would still be just as onerous. Not much spare room on the scoreboard for the New York/Hartford/Orlando vs. San Francisco/Sacramento game, is there?

“Until we had real owners for each team, we didn’t want to have names for the teams before an owner came on board. So now we have owners on board,” said Vuono, who confirmed this happened “just recently.” By the way, not only is Paul “That Paul Pelosi” Pelosi one of the league’s initial investors, he’s the lead investor for the San Francisco team. What’s the name of that team? That’s yet to be determined. While we noted last week the “name that team!” function was still up and running on the UFL’s Web site – and Vuono confirms the league is still looking for team names – the Web page’s submissions section appears to have been discontinued as of today. (Hope they got some good suggestions; Vuono wasn’t too impressed with SF Weekly’s offering of “The San Francisco Values.”).

Had the UFL opted to go nameless this year, incidentally, teams would have simply worn helmets adorned with the league’s logo in differing colors (since, as we noted earlier this year, the logo resembles a well-endowed star engaging in intimate relations with a clam-like football, we’re glad this isn’t the game plan).

Other interesting tidbits about the UFL:

* Teams will be stocked by players from cities' surrounding regions; San Francisco's team will feature footballers who played for west coast colleges or, more likely, were cut by west coast NFL teams (players cut by the 49ers, Seahawks, Chargers, and Raiders will be the ones to pop up on the S.F. UFL team's roster).

* Sixty players will be invited to each team's preseason camp following the final cut of the National Football League preseason. The salary structure allocates each team $4 million to pay for 50 salaries (that's an average of $80K per player, for a six-game season with the top two squads playing Game No. 7 for the championship, tentatively set for Thanksgiving Weekend).

* Vuono says we'll find out what the teams are named in two months' time. He says the submissions for the San Francisco team have been "right down the middle. You can imagine some of them. Lots are about heritage and what the roots of San Francisco are all about." Actually, we can't imagine them and Vuono won't help us. And the first reader submission we got on our post here suggested the "San Francisco Fudgepackers." God damn is that clever!

We don’t think that’s what Vuono meant by “right down the middle.”


There you go…80k US for a 6 game season.

This league will fold after the first year. I wouldn’t be surprised if their overall plan is to try and get a few successful team started such as Las Vegas, then to try and sell their operation to the NFL.

Otherwise, this is a huge waste of everything. It will never last. (I’m not usually one to splash cold water on one’s dreams…but I’m not really seeing it)

Orlando’s UFL franchise name rumored to be the Tuskers
Chris Hays, Orlando Sentinel

Upon searching the U.S. Government Trademark Search Engine, sure enough, trademark applications have been made by the UFL for the

Orlando Tuskers
San Francisco Rockfish
Las Vegas Locomotives
New York Sentinels

Las Vegas Locomotives - Uniform

California Redwoods

I like the name

The Florida Tuskers

Head Coach Jim Haslett and Michael Kalt, [b]Tampa Bay Rays[/b]’ Senior Vice President of Development and Business Affairs, were also in attendance at the press event.

Commissioner Huyghue also announced that the Tuskers’ game against the Las Vegas Locomotives on October 30th will be played at Tropicana Field, home of the Rays, and that the Rays have reached an agreement in principle to acquire an interest in the UFL’s Florida franchise.

New York Sentinels

I think they’ll play their dumb little mini-season and then “go on hiatus” for a year to “organize and regroup” and, like the AFL, will throw in the towel well before Season 2 gets under way.

But I am 100% okay with the league starting up. Gives the CFL more players to scout.

Edited because I was wrong :rockin: Thanks to the above posters for thier excellent information.

whether or not the UFL makes any sense.....I lean towards no. I like the CFL for picking up talent that might be missed by the NFL, and maybe the UFL will be a partner in that, but as said before, there are a LOT of NFL team's, and I don't see a start up league being succesful competing with the NFL, and if they don't compete directly, they seem like they will be fairly irrelevant.

also, As a recent fan of CFL, (as stated in my post about Brett Favre and VIck) I would hate to see any talent sapped from a league with such a long history, the only benefit being the excitement of a "continental Bowl" but with the CFL's failed attempt in colonization (at a similar level to the UFL) in the 90's, and the recent implosion of AFL (which only survived on it's quirks and alternate schedule) I have trouble seeing the UFL making it.

I will watch for novelty's sake.

The league isn't helping themselves, though, by trotting out with generic team uniforms for their inaugural season.
With minimal name recognition among their players, you'd think that they'd want to have something interesting to market.

:thdn:
http://www.ufl-football.com/schedule

Well looks like they lost a potential 70 million U.S. viewers ever since Directv was forced to pull the plug on the versus network. There has not been one ounce of coverage on this league in the press down here. It won't last!

Not to mention yet another sports team in NY??? That dog just won't hunt!

I don’t think its 70 million.

I heard it was 14 million this morning on ESPN. Hardly a death sentence…

I'll be watching out of interest, and to see how some of the new rules they are using will work in practice. Some of them sound like good ideas that the other leagues, particularity the NFL, could use, while others sound like they will be disasters wanting to happen (for example, allow the QB to intentionally ground the ball if he is in trouble).

Odd though, the Las Vegas team is really an LA team, and the New York team is really a New England (Hartford, CT) team. :lol:

How about forming an entirely new league out of the nfl garbage? :wink:

I did use the word “potential” which is accurate. That is how many american viewers versus reached on Directv. And now that it isn’t on Directv anymore you lose that number. So YES it’s 70 million.

UFL Media Guide
(85.7 MB)

Players

California Redwoods - 45 Jon Abbate, Fullback (Montreal)
California Redwoods - 53 Kai Brown, LB (signed w/ Saskatchewan)

Las Vegas Locos - 12 Russ Michna, QB (Winnipeg)
Las Vegas Locos - 24 Wale Dada, DB (Edmonton)
Las Vegas Locos - 31 Trey Young, DB (Calgary, Edmonton)
Las Vegas Locos - 81 Andrae Thurman, WR (Winnipeg)

New York Sentinels - 7 Ryan Hoag, WR (Edmonton practice roster)
New York Sentinels - 36 David Lofton, S (Hamilton, Toronto)
New York Sentinels - 91 Charlton Keith, LB (Hamilton)
New York Sentinels - 95 Bryan Robinson, DL (Hamilton)

Orlando Tuskers - 35 Fakhir Brown, CB (Toronto)
Orlando Tuskers - 55 Terrence Melton, LB (Saskatchewan)
Orlando Tuskers - 76 Brandon Joyce, OT (Toronto)
Orlando Tuskers - 82 Frank Murphy, WR (Toronto)

Coaches

California Redwoods - Charles Collins, Receivers/TE Coach (Edmonton WR)

New York Sentinels - Ted Cottrell, Head Coach (Winnipeg LB)
New York Sentinels - Pete Rodriguez, ST Coach (Ottawa DC)

Orlando Tuskers - Ricky Porter, Director Football Operations/ RB Coach (Montreal RB)

League

Rick Mueller, League VP/GM (Sacramento, Dir. Player Personnel, WR coach)

Media

VERSUS - Doug Flutie, Color Analyst (BC, Calgary, Toronto QB)

And. . . Mike McMahon, QB, California (Toronto)

70 million is almost 1/3 of AMERICA’S TOTAL POPULATION. That’s man, woman, and child.

Its probably about 1/2 of the total paying tv viewership or better. DirectTV doesn’t have those kinds of numbers. I assure you.