Access Sunday Roundup

Mark Cuban, Michael Huyghue, UFL

Since UFLAccess broke the news of the 2009 debut for the league we have received a few emails and private messages from folks who read the site and want to share news they have heard. The first was from a source who wished to remain anonymous but is involved in a non-NFL football league and has contacts with agents. He said via email that:

From agents stand point there is positive interest because of who is involved, this is a real money league, not something like the AAFL, XFL etc. They will be able to sign real players and make a real push for mid-level NFL free-agents and draft picks, make a push for the top tier players up here in Canada and the AFL…. for instance the NFL vet. min. salary is $750,000, you could see guys going to the UFL for say a million, or somewhere between the 2 numbers.

He told us that he had first begun hearing whispers of a 2009 kickoff about a week ago as it became clear that if they were going to go in 2008 it would have to be with a six team, ten game season. [This timeline makes sense given the contrary sentiments Access received from the league concerning the kickoff year…. All of which were made to us prior to a week ago – Editor] It seems as if the league may have decided that such a small startup would be viewed as amateur and so they decided to give themselves more time to line up additional franchises and to do all of the necessary legwork for kicking off in a fully professional manner.

The fellow told me that he’d be shocked if they did not go with eight or ten teams in 2009 – certainly something I will ask Michael Huyghue about in our future interview. He mentioned something that I believe as well – six teams, especially if they rushed into a 2008 kickoff, would reek of a “junk” league and folks like William Hambrecht, Tim Armstrong, and Mark Cuban would not be involved in such an effort.

From both him and another person I have heard the United Football League is aggressively pursuing agents at the moment in hopes of building relationships with as many of them as possible, with the belief that this will help the league to begin signing players as early as this fall as the league ramps up for 2009. It was also confirmed that the UFL held a reception at the NFL Combine and that Huyghue attended the agents meeting as well. Huyghue and other UFL representatives have been at the various Senior Bowls, as well.

One interesting rumor I heard today that I’ll have to ask Commissioner Huyghue about is the possibility of having a “rights draft” this April in an attempt to grab headlines by having the initial six teams grab the UFL rights for college players who might play in the league in fall of 2009. I’ll see if I can track down more information on this rumor moving forward.

In summary it appears more and more likely that the six teams announced at the end of March will be the initial group to get the ball rolling as they seek to build momentum and buzz heading towards 2009. If the television deal is with a solid partner and other partnerships are announced – in addition to what should be six quality ownership groups as Huyghue has told UFLAccess – then it should be significantly easier to add teams over the next sixteen months. This is the same path that Womens Professional Soccer (http://www.womensprosoccer.com) has taken as they have been in the planning stages for three years and originally hoped to kickoff in 2008 before pushing back to 2009 in hopes of adding an eighth team and ensuring the stability and long term success of the effort. It seems that both efforts are coming at this from a similar viewpoint.

Nation Hahn @ February 24, 2008