It's the most improbable story in the sports business industry so far this year.
While sports leagues try to figure out exactly how they're going to deal with this economic downturn, a new sports league is being announced today.
It's called the United Football League and its season, dubbed "UFL Premiere," is scheduled to kick off in October with four teams that will play a six-game season in at least seven cities.
Led by former NFL executive and agent Michael Huyghue as commissioner and prominent sports marketer Frank Vuono as chief operating officer, the season has been financed through $30 million of capital provided by a group of investors including investment banker Bill Hambrecht, Google senior vice president Tim Armstrong and Paul Pelosi, the husband of the Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi.
The cities where the teams will play are: Las Vegas/Los Angeles, New York/Hartford, Orlando and San Francisco/Sacramento. Players are expected to be signed, at what the league says will be salaries higher than NFL minimums, starting this summer. They will be trained and housed in Casa Grande, Arizona, where the league says a $20 million training complex is being constructed.
The league says the average ticket price will be $20 to $25 per ticket and the single-entity league will do its best to lure the crowds by assigning players to areas where they played their high school, college or professional football. The financial model hopes for 20,000 to 25,000 fans per game in the first season.
The announcement comes after the Arena Football League announced plans to fold up for at least the 2009 season, and maybe forever. It also comes eight years after the XFL played its first game. That league, co-owned by the WWE and General Electric, folded after one season.
Asked if he’s scared that people will immediately shoot down the idea of the league being successful given the XFL’s past and the fact that they’ll be playing during the NFL and college football seasons, Frank Vuono told us, “I kind of like that.”
“People have been telling me I can’t do things most of my life,” Vuono said. “That motivates us. That and the fact that the business community doesn’t really know much about what we’re going to do.”
Vuono says there will be advertising on jerseys and sponsors in eight categories will have exclusivity. He also said that when the league is established, the idea is to have it trade publicly. It was Hambrecht who convinced Google to use an internet-based auction for their IPO five years ago.
Unlike the XFL, Vuono says the NFL will be “quietly happy” with the startup. “It will be like putting 200 people on their practice squads,” Vuono said.
League officials say they are in final negotiations with a television network and the venues where the games will be played.
