* The following is a UFLAccess.com editorial and is not indicative of the opinions held or expressed by the United Football League.

One thing should be clear after Monday’s press release for the United Football League – this league is making an effort to be about the fans. One factor that makes that obvious is that Commissioner Michael Huyghue gave UFLAccess.com an exclusive interview on what was a very busy day for him personally and professionally. Consider that for a moment – the commissioner of this upstart league who is extremely busy carved out thirty minutes from his day to chat with a fan site. The league has been very receptive towards our community and our site from day one. As I have told our forum readers before, at least some of the league employees stop by and read our site daily and read your thoughts and comments – and they are listening.

The league site also shows that the United Football League intends to focus on being fan friendly. Name the team contests occur fairly frequently but never has a new venture put the entire branding future of the league in your hands. Commissioner Huyghue made it clear in his interview Monday that they intend to listen to the fans and that Landor Associates and the others associated with the creative process will design the look from YOUR suggestion. The United Football League brain trust really feels as if this tactic is one of the best ways to create brand names that fit the community and names for the teams that will last the test of time, so we encourage you to submit your favorite names on ufl-football.com and then let us know on the forums what you submitted so we can keep track to see if UFL Access helped name the teams.

The UFL also started off as a fan venture in a larger sense with the TicketReserve campaign which helped them decide the pool of cities that were announced today from which they will pick the six UFL franchises for year one. The league will continue to embrace the fans going forward and to do so with what they plan on being a very active web presence as well as a fan friendly environment on game days beginning next fall.

The UFL can’t compete right off the bat with the NFL in terms of players or marketing muscle. It can’t throw around the money of the major leagues – although it will have a solid financial presence from day one unlike some other startups. The one way that it can differentiate itself and begin to carve out a niche in the sporting industry is to truly embrace the fans in every single aspect of the game. So far they have shown that they intend to do so and as long as they maintain that focus then I believe the United Football League can begin to make a name for itself.

All in all it was a good day to be a United Football League fan – sure, we didn’t hear everything we wanted to hear. We need to know more details about the ownership groups, truthfully we need to know ANYTHING about the ownership groups since we do not know much. We need to know who is going to show the games on television as a TV deal is essential for this venture. Despite all of those flaws they showed substantive progress towards kicking off in 2009. Now more than ever I believe we will be celebrating the end of year one of the UFL at this time next year and discussing year two. That is… if they embrace the fans in year one!