After the announcement of the “Premiere Season” earlier in the week, fans of the United Football League naturally had a lot of questions about the concept of multi-city teams, branding, marketing, etc. UFL Access reached out to United Football League COO Frank Vuono for answers.

According to UFL-football.com, Frank Vuono is one of the most prominent and influential executives in the sports marketing industry. Vuono was named Chief Operating Officer of the United Football League (UFL) in November, 2007.   As COO of the UFL, Vuono oversees all of the business aspects of this new professional football league including marketing, sponsorships, licensing and public relations. (Image, left, courtesy of ufl-football.com)

Vuono’s vast experience both on and off the gridiron has helped to set today’s marketing standard in professional football.  Having consulted for, or worked closely with, nearly half of the teams in the NFL, Vuono has negotiated record-breaking partnerships in naming rights, sponsorship, merchandising, and ticket and suite sales.  Most recently, Vuono worked with the New Orleans Saints (post Hurricane Katrina) securing over $11M in sponsorship revenue.  During his tenure as Vice President of Licensing for NFL Properties (NFLP), Vuono built sales of licensing products from approximately $300 million to over $2.5 billion and launched integrated marketing programs, including NFL Pro Line, NFL Pro Shop and NFL Throwbacks.  Vuono co-founded the NFL Quarterback Club, predecessor to what is now the NFL Quarterback Greats.

We emailed Mr. Vuono and asked him to describe the sponsorship challenges and opportunities that are presented to the United Football League in their inaugural season and within this economy. We also asked him how they will market the twelve regular season games the UFL will be holding in seven to nine cities this fall. Vuono’s answers should prove to be real eye openers to those with more questions following the announcement. Vuono also briefly discussed what the United Football League is considering for the naming of the inaugural four teams.

Frank’s email is below:

 Our sponsorship sales efforts will be different than any other football league, conference or team.  For the first time, league sponsors will be assured of an ambush free association with the UFL.  This is the result of our agreement with our TV partner to carve out eight major categories for exclusivity in game and with use of UFL marks.  Since we will be producing our own games, we will also have the opportunity to integrate our sponsors into our game broadcasts in new and innovative ways.  We may go so far as to have corporate identity on our uniforms and/or equipment, and further still, we would consider the ultimate vertical model of having our team name incorporate the sponsors name (i.e., The Red Bull MLS team). The current restrictions (on advertisers/sponsors because of the conflict between network advertisers and league/conference contracted sponsors) that exist with current NFL and college broadcasts will not be a burden for the UFL. Our sponsors will enjoy the benefit of being very visible in the game camera’s eye. We therefore feel we will, even in this economy and at this late stage of the planning process, be able to acquire sponsor partners and deliver quality results, even for our “Premiere Season”. We will seek multi-year agreements, positioning this season as a “trial run”.

Having our games be well attended is a priority. We will handle our ticketing through a centralized office that will aggressively market our affordable tickets to each specific game/event in each venue, in coordination with that venue’s ticket staff. We will also mount local marketing campaigns and coordinate grass roots/community programs which will be in keeping with our mission to be affordable, accessible and active community members. We will explore all possibilities for team names thoroughly. We may not have actual team names this season. Teams could play under the banner UFL East, West, North and South, for instance. Our team names will ultimately be carefully selected (hopefully picked by a fan on our website) to reflect the areas within which our teams will compete.