Taking on the NFL in 2008

I would disagree slightly, because you can also throw in such states as Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania where high school football is more than just a friends and family crowd - none of which, it seems, would have a team in their state if they're looking at places which don't currently have NFL franchise. I guess in Florida's case, you could put a team in Orlando, but where else? Given a choice between the NFL, or some second-rate wannabe league where there are no Peyton Mannings or LaDainian Tomlinsons or the like, I struggle to see where people are going to say, "Oh yeah, I have to watch this glorified minor league football".

 

The salary cap makes the NFL vulnerable on keeping players. A lot of players are underpaid in the NFL because the cap keeps salaries artificially low. Theoretically, a new league could pay players more (and probably overpay some marketable skill position guys) and still develop a solid profit margin over time. Success would depend a lot on what level of backing the start-up league can muster because the business plan will have to call for some substantial losses in the early years. It will never work without getting some top names to jump ship, though.

 

But that waters down the quality of both leagues.

Unless they want to run the NFL out of business, doing the same product and having two leagues I do not think will work. Not with the NFL having so many teams, and of those teams, they are all healthy franchises. No fat to trim like in the NBA or NHL.

 

Stories I read said the new league is planning to have a salary cap as well, and its plan is not to go after stars but rather to feed off the good players who didn't quite make a roster for some reason.

The NFL's salary cap should allow the UFL to compete for players, according to the UFL's backers. Hambrecht, quoted in The New York Times, said former NFL coach Bill Walsh "used to tell me that the last 20 players cut from every team were almost interchangeable with the last 20 players to make the team."

 

Perhaps a JC stadium would be appropriate for Triple-A football.

 

It will be Arena Football played outdoors unless they compete for top-talent players. Nobody goes to a game to watch the last 20 players on a roster. Nobody even knows their names.

 

If it comes into being, the UFL will have terrible quarterback play. There aren't enough good QBs in the NFL, let alone for two leagues.

 

Cuban, for one, wants the UFL to someday be on par with the NFL.

http://www.blogmaverick.com/2007/05/30/competing-with-the-nfl/

 

This idea is proof that Cuban is crazy. He may have excellent business acumen, but pouring money down this hole is definitely not a good business decision.

No league that has directly competed in any way with the NFL has survived. No one wants to watch NFL castoffs playing in what will likely be smaller markets. It's football Triple-A. The graveyard of history is filled with failed football leagues. Besides, Friday nights are for high school football. Putting them on these nights will alienate many fans who'd probably rather watch their neighbor's kid play than a bunch of NFL has-beens or ne'er-do-wells.