Just come out and call it what it is: the Michael Vick League
In just the past couple of days I have discovered the United Football League, or UFL, a four team fall professional football league that begins play in October with teams in Las Vegas/Los Angeles, Hartford/New York City, Orlando and San Francisco/Sacramento. I have no idea what the slashes mean unless home games will be split between the two home cities like the way the Packers pathetically split games between Green Bay and Milwaukee for 61 years.
I will tell you I am all for alternative leagues, I am too young to remember the World Football League, the WFL existed between 1973 and 1975, I was amused by the United States Football League, the USFL ran from 1982 to 1987 and I remember with some exitement plans in 1992 for the Professional Spring Football League, the PSFL was to be a spring league with a team in Washington, the Marauders, arrrgh mitey prepare to be barded!! Check here, here, here and here for a walk down PSFL memory lane. There was one training camp and the teams never took the field for a game. Yes yes the XFL whatever. I was excited about that one too and when I actually tried the product I could not sit through a single game.
So here we are with another alt pro football league, one with 30 million dollars in financial backing and some name brand coaches: Dennis Green, Jim Haslett and Ted Cottrell, all guys that should be in the NFL and know they could get a look if they wanted to, experienced guys that are not going to wait around for the Raiders job or the Cowboys job to open and suck their reputation dry. Jim Fassel on the other hand is like a last call skank ho barfly looking to go home with anyone willing to talk to her. Did I just say that out loud?
So what makes these guys think they can compete, in the fall with the NFL, and in this economy? Four critical success factors for the UFL emerge as I see them:
1. Local interest. The franchises will cater to cities with no NFL team, or that are at the least underserved by the NFL. San Francisco and New York notwithstanding, Los Angeles, Las Vegas and Orlando certainly are legitimate NFL candidate cities, Sacramento is probably in the next tier and Hartford, I do not know what that is all about. For a model have a look at the Baltimore Stallions of the CFL's US expansion from 1993 to 1995. The Stallions were a great team, well run, won the 1995 Grey Cup and averaged more than 30 thousand attendance over their two seasons.
2. Labor unrest in the NFL. With the collective bargaining agreement between the players union and owners cabal set to expire at the end of the 2010 season and little activity on the labor front, the UFL is hoping enough scraps in the form of players, fannies and eyeballs fall from the billion dollar negotiating table to make the league sustainable. The UFL has no delusions of rivaling the NFL, they just want to be able to put another quality football driven product (as opposed to the XFL which was not football driven).
3. The lack of a developmental tier for the NFL. Despite the increase in roster size from 47 to 53 in 1993 (and the lock down of injured reserve to a season ending designation), there is still a huge need for NFL caliber talent beyond the current rosters. Baseball has the farm system and hockey and basketball have large international presences and other leagues for the almost guys to play in. Given the rate of injury in the NFL, typical roster churn and a compensation system that turns out veterans when they become too costly and not when they are no longer able to contribute, a place for the next 200 guys to play would be a great thing, if there was freedom of movement between the leagues. Yes the NFL Europa was supposed to be that developmental league but like an Apple Store in al-Anbar you have to get the setting right for the business plan to work.
4. No one gives Michael Vick a job right out of the joint. Former NFL quarterback Michael Vick should be out of prison by July and the NFL seems cool to him right now, Michael is still technically suspended from the NFL and I have heard, mainly on Sirius NFL Radio, a league owned property, that Roger Goodell may go ahead and suspend Michael for the 2009 season to ensure he will not appear in a game until he has been out of jail and stayed clean for a whole year. If he wants to, Michael will get back to the NFL, the UFL would offer Michael an opportunity to work into shape, hone his chops and be on display as a model citizen.
Could be fun. Or could be I never watch a game or even notice when this league quietly expires with no fuss and a clean cadaver.
Tell you what UFL, I will make a deal with you. Start up a Washington area franchise and I will start up a blog to cover it, I will recruit a writer for this minor league Curly R, one I can work long hours and pay terrible wages for the dangerous, physical work that is covering a football team year round, I will encourage and mentor him while simultaneously crushing his soul with the cruel, ever present and ultimately unattainable goal of some day making the big leagues.
AOL Fanhouse has a take on why this could work.
UFL homepage screenshot from here.
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