Tagged As: NFL, Cowboys, UFL, XFL, football, Sports

Bucking the general downward trend of the economy, football, as an industry is expanding. Yes, in the next couple of years it looks like fans will have four more leagues to watch. Who knew that professional football would become a beacon for financial hope?

Still everyone remembers the debacle that was Vince McMahon’s XFL. The biggest selling point this league had was the lack of a fair catch signal on punt returns. I also like to think that this was due to the bursting of the Xtreme marketing bubble. With that said, let’s look at the four new leagues and their odds of making it beyond five seasons.

United Football League (UFL)

The league is definitely the most publicized of the four. That is a good thing. It also appears to have the strongest financial plan of the four.

The UFL is expected to begin this fall with games on Thursdays and Friday evenings. The big question is will people watch football on Friday night during football season? The next biggest question is will fans have time to watch these games when they already have to keep up with college and he NFL? The league might find that despite its intention to avoid direct competition with the NFL and NCAA, the season is just too saturated with games for them to carve out a market share, no matter how good of a television contract they find.

I like that the league wants to have a decent salary cap at $20 million. This is far less than the $116 million in the NFL, but it means that a couple of players could actually make over a million dollars a year. I think that gives the league some kind of validity in a put up the money or shut up kind of sense.

I do not think it is wise to avoid calling the league a minor league. This league, with four teams and a weird two-home field schedule, is not going to draw top talent away from the NFL (unless the UFL grants some sort of David Beckham exception to Michael Vick). Admit these players want to play at a higher level. The slogan is half way there (Where the future stars comes to play), so the league should just go ahead and call itself the Triple-A of football.

I give the league 5-to-1 odds to get to season two mainly because there are too few teams.

All-American Football League (AAFL)

This league may have a cool retro name, but it has already pushed the inaugural season back twice, first from the spring of 2007 to the spring of 2008 and then from 2008 to the spring of 2009.

The AAFL has had a draft and has signed coaches for their six teams though. The league has also been smart enough to target states that have a strong football tradition (Alabama, Arkansas, Michigan, Tennessee, Florida, and Texas) and that do not have the strongest baseball core. This is important because playing the spring means playing against the MLB schedule.

The salaries are miniscule, with initial expectations for the league to average $100,000 for year-round player employees and $50,000 for season-only players. Those numbers have shrunk since the NFL Europe has disbanded and the AFL has canceled its 2009 season. This is supposed to attract the best non-NFL talent, but those numbers might be too small to convince a college player that they should hold off starting a career in sales.

I give the league a 10-to-1 shot only because they have struck a deal to show their games on the NFL network. I doubt the entire league will sell as many tickets in an entire as the Dallas Cowboys sell for a single game. Also, if the AFL comes back, the league will simply face too much competition to survive and those odds need to increase exponentially.

United National Gridiron League (UNGL)

Who named this league? Vince McMahon. It sounds like a knockoff football game for Xbox. The league’s commissioner is named Joe Cribbs, which sounds like a knockoff of the legendary Coach Gibbs. The whole thing just sounds fake.

The league is expected to start next month on March 22 and that season will only last until April. Short spring season, eight teams (though the business has room for 14 more teams), and a presence in areas without MLB teams. This league is also smart enough to say they are a minor league system for the NFL.

I do not know though. The official web site is does not even have the teams up. Instead I can read about the investment opportunities. Feels kind of like an opportunity to build my wealth through an infomercial at 3 in the morning. I give the league a 100-1 shot.

The New United States Football League (USFL)

This league has the advantage of rebranding an established name in minor league football market. It also supposedly has 12 teams ready to go for the spring of 2010 and there is supposed to be a 16-game season. It all sounds good so far.

The bad news: the list of advisors for the league is growing, there has been little press, and the league is trying to add some new rules ala the XFL. Field goals over 51 yards are worth four points, a three point conversion is possible from the 10 yard line, and safeties are worth four points.

Is this American football or fantasy football? There is no real good reason for changing the rules football fanatics have come to know. I put this league at 200-to-1 to even play one full season.