Week two of the United Football League is in the books, meaning we’re roughly one third of the way through the Premiere Season in turns of total games.

What did we learn last week?

The Tuskers are dominant and look to be dominant for the remainder of the season. Brooks Bollinger is bringing back echos of Tommy Maddox and his XFL days with inspired performances over the last two games. I am still not sold on Bollinger, it is likely due more to his supporting cast, but few could argue that he has not looked great so far.

You also have to give the Tuskers credit for doing well with a short turnaround as Coach Haslett mentioned after the game, “You have guys that haven’t played a game in a year or two, to play a game and be sore and tired and to play a game four days later is pretty amazing.”

The Locos offensive line needs help. JP Losman looked ordinary, although I suspect that most QB’s would look ordinary considering the rush that he faced. For the Tuskers to rack up six sacks in a league with the rules that the UFL has this first year is incredible, it also means Losman is holding on to the ball when he doesn’t need to do so.

Jim Fassel recognized that when he told the press that, “They outperformed us in the trenches and specialty areas and it’s just disappointing.  That’s not the kind of football I want to put on the field.”

They need to get better and fast.

Oh, and JP needs to find Samie Parker earlier in the game. Parker looked dominant, pair him with a healthy Andrae Thurman and the Locos could be back in the mix.

The question is whether or not Fassel is willing to take a page from Dennis Green’s playbook and change things drastically.

He might need to.

The Sentinels are far from where they need to be. They were close to dominating the Tuskers in the 1st Quarter of their first game and since then they have looked putrid. Quinn Gray has looked out of sync and Ingle Martin showed that if he is the answer then the Sentinels might be asking the wrong question – although, to Martin’s credit he only had one series after little practice time.

Ted Cottrell said he was sticking with Gray after the game Saturday night.

Getting a running game moving would help. I predicted success for them on the ground in the preseason and that has not happened.

Koren Robinson, however, offered a bright spot and seemed to be on track to recover from a nagging leg injury.

The Redwoods are not afraid to make changes.

Dennis Green made wholesale changes after week one, including bringing in eight new players and benching Shane Boyd. Green commented on the changes in the postgame press conference when he told reporters that, “It’s great to play at home and get a win.  It’s off to a good start for us.  We played much better defense, similar to how we started defensively last week.  Pretty good feeling of urgency on defense. Offensively, we sputtered a lot. Sometimes we looked okay, sometimes not so good.  But we did take advantage of some points there.  We added eight new players last week and I think in our first game, despite the fact that we had a legitimate shot against Las Vegas last week, we’re just too young.  I think this is turning out to be an excellent league.  The team to beat is Florida and they are loaded. They’ve got as much experience as most NFL teams with a lot of talent.  We had to get older and more experienced very quickly and we did it and now we probably need another week of practice with these guys.”

Mike McMahon looked Ok, but if I were Boyd I’d stay warmed up. McMahon looked erratic and against a better team his performance from Saturday night would have probably killed the team.

Cory Ross is the man and the Redwoods will continue to benefit from his running ability.

The Attendance Issue…

6,341 fans in the stands for the Redwoods home opener has led to some measure of hysterics among UFL fans. Some hysterics might be in order as it was not a good number but the league, and most observers, expected some games to come in well below average.

It is the nature of startup leagues.

The league average is just a shade under 11,000 (10,978 to be exact) through four games. Las Vegas is averaging 13,184 through two, with a third home game added to their schedule later in the season. Vegas has proven to be something of a success story and according to at least one individual merchandise sales have been very strong at each of their home games. Florida had 11,203 in the stands for their first game which happened on a dreary night and went up against the Florida-LSU game, a tough sale since Florida football is a second religion for many folks in the area.

The league is not pumped about an 11,000 average but it is far from unexpected. Going into year one they hoped to average 20,000 but those expectations were scaled down after the schedule took longer than expected and ticket sales began only a month and a half before the first game.

And bright spots are out there.

Orlando will likely have a good turnout this week following their 2-0 beginning and the fact that they are not competing against UF this week. Their game in St. Petersburg will have the promotional backing of the Rays behind it, as well as a concert from Switchfoot. The remaining Vegas game should be strong and one would expect The Championship Game to draw well if Vegas makes the game. Hartford might very well draw well as Northland has been promoting the game among their various properties.

New York will be a tough sell, with the Sentinels being 0-2 and the league only being able to afford to make a dent in the extremely expensive New York media market. The CitiField game will likely outdraw the Meadowlands game but I wouldn’t expect gangbusters at either. The same holds true for the San Francisco games that remain.

The league, however, has shown improvement and one employee promised continued improvement and flexibility in the weeks to come. They are going to do everything they can to build on what has happened already and to learn from the hiccups along the way.

The key for fans of the league who care about the long term survival of the venture is that they started the league with reasonable expectations and they have had tight cost controls thus far.

One comparison I have made before is with Women’s Pro Soccer which opened this year and averaged around 5,000 fans per game, compared to the previous effort WUSA which averaged 9,000 fans per game and had more games televised in a higher profile manner.

The comparison is a fair one to the UFL because WPS had tighter cost controls and less hype yet they are on firmer ground after year one than the WUSA, in part because they spent significantly less than WUSA.

The USFL, a shining light to many sports fans, drew 25,000 in 1983, 22,590 in 1984, and 24,375 in 1985 yet they lost hundreds of millions of dollars. The XFL averaged 24,000 but lost $60 million-plus and came in way under expectations.

Thus far the UFL has met many of their far more reasonable goals and they are on track to lose far, far less than previous efforts.

2010 will see more marketing, ticket sales beginning around the beginning of 2010 rather than two months before the season, a larger national footprint, and more of a push in general. The key is that they will be building off of a foundation from 2009 and that they will have less costs in terms of buying every single thing for the league for the first time.

League officials have been quick to point out that the fans who have attended have bought merchandise and supported the team. They also saw a rise in paid tickets for the Vegas game and luxury suites sold well in San Francisco. Perhaps most importantly, the fans have continually rated the games high in terms of professional experience, the product, and the price points.

This shows that the league has something to build from.

In 2010 I will worry more about attendance figures.

Quote of the Week…

And it relates to the attendance issue!

“Speaking as someone who thought he had a league built when I left, what’s critical is patience,” said former AFL Commissioner Baker. “Patience is more important than money. Putting butts in seats and selling sponsorships, T-shirts and TV are relatively simple operationally. There are businesses right now that can be overnight winners, like building an app for the iPhone, but football isn’t one of them.”

…from the Sports Business Journal

Quick hits…

The Sentinels must make some moves on offense but I actually think their defense has looked good… The New USFL might exist after all, former XFL Exec Mike Keller was mentioned in the Sports Business Journal and the league has apparently purchased the intellectual property rights for a lot of the old USFL teams… The league should do more pieces introducing the players to the casual fan… One hopes that the Redwoods give the Tuskers a good game Thursday, while three of the four UFL games have been more competitive than the score indicated – a competitive game or two that goes down to the wire would be nice…

Game ball goes to…

Cory Ross who continues to look like the best running back in the UFL despite others having lengthier resumes. He had the first 100 yard game in the UFL on Saturday night. Congrats Cory!