Loading ...German Football Magazine Reveals More Plans
This article was originally posted yesterday evening, but had to be taken offline for a few minutes due to technical difficulties. Thanks for your patience! - Editor
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I was alerted recently to the fact that Michael Huyghue had recently given an interview to someone other than UFL Access – that source being Huddle, which is apparently a German American Football magazine – go figure! No one can ever say that the UFL won’t go to the ends of the Earth to gain proper coverage.
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At any rate, we managed to get our hands on a photocopy and my German-speaking friend translated a decent amount for us. Here is a link if you can speak German and want to track down a copy, although it wasn’t posted online: http://huddle.de/
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Commissioner Huyghue apparently told Huddle that if eight teams kickoff in August those teams will be: Birmingham, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Memphis, New York, Orlando, Sacramento, and San Antonio. Those markets sound about right, although my hunch - and this is an educated guess from a few “sources” I spoke to – is that if only six teams are a go in year one the markets will be Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Sacramento, New York, Orlando, and Memphis.
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As he has to me, Huyghue reiterated to Huddle that he wants 16 teams in fairly quick order. Huyghue apparently told Huddle – and again we are relying on interpretation here – that Frankfurt and London are very likely to have teams within a few years, which would bring an international cachet to the UFL that Huyghue referenced in my earlier interview for OurSportsCentral.
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Each UFL team will have 50 players on each roster and play 14 games. That is dependent upon having 8 teams. If the league only locks down six teams they will play ten games in year one.
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The article also had the (old) news that the league will have a $20,000,000 salary cap. The “new” aspect of the news was that they chose this amount because it is the amount the NFL spends on the last two dozen players on its roster, which are the players that the UFL wishes to aggressively pursue. The UFL is also interested in the last players cut from each training camp.
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The remainder of it wasn’t so much news as following up on what has been said in the past. Each owner will pay $30,000,000 for a team – or $60,000,000 if they wish to own 2/3rds of a team. This will lead to each franchise being equipped with $90,000,000 – insuring that the UFL will operate for a minimum of three years.
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The last bit of actual news bodes well for penny pinching UFL fans. The average ticket price for the UFL will be $25. [Less than many college tickets run! – Editor]
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So, assuming our interpretation was correct, here is some more news in addition to our exclusive interview.
Source: Huddle
Nation Hahn @ January 30, 2008
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Why is San Antonio not part of 2008? Is the Alamo dome not good enough?
I like that Huyghue is lining up the league for the future. Start out smaller, and then expand (to markets that will support a team). I like it that he isn’t forcing international teams right away.
While I can only speculate, it isn’t an issue of the Alamo dome not fitting the bill, but rather if the league has been able to secure such a stadium deal, if there are interested parties within the area looking to own part of the team, etc. There are a lot of business factors the league has to consider when looking into any particular market.