New Football League, Cuban to own a team...

[Sickboy]

His move to run at it at the same time as the NFL proves his ego is bigger than his brain.

[Jack of Arcades]

I'd probably be much more likely to want to watch football on Friday during football season than during the summer.

[polkaface]

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His move to run at it at the same time as the NFL proves his ego is bigger than his brain.

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I am not sure why you think this. I definitely see the benefit of playing at this time of year when there is no football, and basketball is pretty much over.

However, they are planning on planting teams in cities with no NFL presence. This will tap into football fans with money to attend games that have no outlet (except maybe college or arena leagues). Likewise with corporate money/sponsorships.

The only place where they are going after the same audience is in TV (albeit on different days). They have come to the realization that they will have to have a minor TV contract (most likely) for the upstart years. You have one East game at 730 eastern on a friday and one game at 1030 eastern and you have half the league's games on TV each Friday night.

[Homer]

If this league ran in the summer, there's no way they could play in places like Vegas and Mexico City.

[TheNoodleMan]

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I'd probably be much more likely to want to watch football on Friday during football season than during the summer.

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There is already a bunch of College football on Friday night.

[Sickboy]

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I'd probably be much more likely to want to watch football on Friday during football season than during the summer.

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There is already a bunch of College football on Friday night.

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And high school football + Arena to I believe
the NFL is already on Thurs/Sat/Sun/Mon
College and High school is Fri/Sat

run it from dec/jan thru till the summer and maybe you have a chance.

[polkaface]

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3. A salary cap will be instituted, however they believe they will be able to pay NFL non-first round picks more than what the rookie draft scale is in the current NFL Bargaining Agreement. The average NFL career is only 4 years long and if most of that is under your rookie contract, you have a better chance to maximize your earning potential in this new league.


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this is smart imo, b/c the new league has recognized an inefficiency in the amount of money these guys get - each NFL team could probably afford to pay them more.

however, this isn't a sustainable strategy b/c the NFL could easily react. the new league really shouldn't be competing on price at any level. I'm pretty sure that's right, though I'm far from an expert on NFL finances.

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that was similar to my first reaction, but maybe its possible that this will have some success if there are more talented football players than there are roster spots and enough people who want to watch football from april-sept. maybe the difference in ability between who ends up staying in the NFL and who gets cut is very small. Though this league might have a problem producing star players and getting people attached to their hometown teams. The Giants are terrible and embarrassing but I'm still a huge fan and will always be. It's arbitrary but those are my tastes and thats what they will always be.

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Again as in my last post the UFL is going after fans with no current NFL outlet. If you are a kid in Vegas which NFL team do you follow? What about a kid in LA? I understand you can be a fan of a different team than where you live, but it's harder to go and see those games in person and root for that team.

As far as the money, there is a salary cap in each league so the teams are going to have to figure out how to spend that money and still get the depth on the team that they need. And NFL teams are bound by the current collective bargaining agreement and that is set to run for a few more years I am guessing. To make any changes to it would require the owners and the players agreeing to first change the CBA before it runs out and 2) agree to terms of the new agreement.

Think about these 3 scenarios:
1. NFL teams routinely cut players who still are under contract because of cap consequences. Now when cuts occur next March 1, players will be able to look at being signed by a team in the NFL that is constrained by its own cap, and a UFL team that is brand new and can most likely pay more for him than an NFL team could. Most NFL players make their money on the signing bonus and not on the salary. Chad Johnson for instance made 1 mil for the first time in 05. Tom Brady did not make over 400k until his 4th year in the league and didn't make 1 mil either until 05 (6th year).

Another point of contention - NFL contracts are not guaranteed, maybe they will be in the UFL. The UFL would need to offer comparable signing bonuses, but if that hurdle can be cleared, the UFL could have more player friendly contracts.

2. Draft picks. As already mentioned the 2nd round picks and later are supposedly going to be able to be offered more money in the UFL than they will be granted by the rookie wage scale which is set in stone by the NFL CBA. Colston, Tom Brady, Troy Smith, Michael Bush are all players that would be paid better (according to reports) by going to the UFL according to where they where drafted.

3. Earlier Draft Picks. What about a scenario where the UFL allows college players to come out after their 2nd year out of HS instead of the 3rd that the NFL requires? Maybe only 1 year out (although I would be against letting someone jump straight from HS to the UFL). The player would still have the name recognition from having a year or two of experience in college and the UFL would have first shot at that player.

[polkaface]

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I'd probably be much more likely to want to watch football on Friday during football season than during the summer.

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There is already a bunch of College football on Friday night.

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By a bunch you mean 1 game a week right?
ESPN/ESPN2 had 1 game a week, ESPNU had 1 game all year on Friday.

Nevada and Fresno State
Army and Air Force
Pitt and UCF
Louisville and MTSU
Kansas and Toledo
Pitt and Cincy
NW and Nevada
UTEP/Tulsa
UTEP UAB

If the UFL can't bring an audience from that group of viewers over to pro football they don't have a chance anyway.

[MicroBob]

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I'd probably be much more likely to want to watch football on Friday during football season than during the summer.

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There is already a bunch of College football on Friday night.

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Not really. There are some games on ESPN like a UC vs. UCF or a MAC game or something like that. Maybe a Big East game too I think.
But there certainly isn't THAT much college-football on Friday nights.


If they wanted to do this in cities where they would be trying to play in a stadium that is normally used for college-football (Memphis Liberty Bowl, Orlando Citrus Bowl where UCF plays, Birmingham, Hawaii, UNLV) then they almost certainly would have to play their games during weekends when the college team was out of town.

And even then they would be tearing up the fields pretty badly and the college team will voice that it's ticking them off.

It's also kind of difficult to schedule home games for the new pro league when the college team is away if that college team is big enough to play 7 or 8 of their games at home.

The team in Los Angeles I'm sure would have designs on playing in the Rose Bowl for example. But they might have to find another stadium for some of their home-games perhaps.

[MicroBob]

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They list LA, LV and Mexico City as their starting cities.
So obviously they're trying to NOT compete with the NFL directly in their markets.

Makes me think they will consider also trying to place teams in other non-NFL markets with perhaps decent enough stadiums.
Some of these might include San Antonio, Oregon, Salt Lake, maybe even Memphis, Hawaii, Birmingham, Albuquerque, Fresno. That might be stretching it a bit though. I'm trying to think creatively.

But they've got to put teams somewhere. And the NFL markets aren't very likely to let some other pro-league use their city's best stadium during the season.

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You are right, they are going after non-NFL markets. In terms of TV markets (which is mentioned in the NYT article) the NFL is missing from these markets:
#2 LA
#19 Sacramento
#20 Orlando
#24 Portland
#27 Hartford
#29 Raleigh Durham
#34 Columbus
#35 Greenville/Spartanburg
#36 Salt Lake City
#37 San Antonio

Birmingham is 40 and OKC is 45. Only problem with those is that HS football is HUGE there.

Also if you had the choice between living in an NFL city or living in Birmingham or Mexico City.... where would you want to live and work?

I wouldn't be surprised if a Canadian city like Toronto or Vancouver was looked at as well as Orlando, San Antonio.

That would get them to 6 or 7 locations with the 3 already mentioned.

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I haven't seen the NYT article yet. Only the smaller article linked in the OP.
Some of these markets look decent. Others I'm not so sure.

What kind of stadium do they have in Hartford for example? I'm not familiar with the area but don't know if they have anything too big.

Same for Sacramento. Not sure what they have there. Which is why I mentioned Fresno because at least they have something that can hold 30k-40k or so.

Orlando is a good one though. Forgot about the Citrus Bowl. UCF actually draws pretty well there.

Raleigh I was kind of ignoring because I thought they were more covered by the Panthers. But I guess they're far enough away from Charlotte.

Greenville? No idea about that area. Maybe I guess.

Columbus - Perhaps. If not the OSU stadium then they might be able to play in the MLS stadium for the Columbus Crew. (same for a team in Los Angeles too now that I think about it).

OKC I don't know what stadium is there. Norman and Stillwater have the big ones of course.
But sports seem to do very well in OKC.
The NBA team caught on pretty quickly.
Their minor-league hockey team is one of the tops in the country in attendance at the Ford Center.
Their minor-league baseball stadium is top notch and they get really good crowds there too.

Regardless of the high-school football situation...if they have a stadium to place a team in OKC they should definitely go for it.

high-school football could impact this stuff everywhere really. Including the San Antonio team.