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I knew it was too good to be true.
Wouldn't that be something.....$30 to own a pro football team?
When all is said and done that be all this UFL will be worth....you never know though.
You are correct sir! You win a cookie! Or something..
I knew it was too good to be true.
Wouldn't that be something.....$30 to own a pro football team?
When all is said and done that be all this UFL will be worth....you never know though.
I don't want this minor league either. It would just be another huge failure and disappointment for everyone when the league would eventually fail. I've seen Gunslinger and Rider games so I speak from experience. While those teams were fun to watch they were doomed from the start because of the all powerful NFL. What San Antonio needs is what me and our Mayor and many others want. And that's our own NFL team. There is no subs ute for the best. And that's what our great city deserves now more than ever. The best. So forget the UFL and all other flimsy minor leagues.
Uhh, replace Riders with Texans please.
Riders were the WLAF team, a league owned by the NFL. Granted, the NFL didn't handle that league very well, but still.
The NFL will never give San Antonio a team or approve a relocation here because of media market BS. The area only becomes even remotely appealing if you include SA and Austin together, but really that's just an excuse. The real thing with the NFL is they don't need to put a team here. They already have huge ratings from the Austin/SA area, better than most NFL home markets when the Cowboys games are on TV here.
Since most of the NFL's income is now from it's TV contract, it will only put a team someplace if it will help their ratings in some way and increase the value of their TV contracts. ASA will not help them, despite the size of the area.
In all likelihood, in the next 5 years or so, we'll probably see Jacksonville move to LA, and the NFL will call it good. If we're really lucky and they do end up adding a 17th regular season game like they are talking about, they'll play some games in domestic neutral sites as well as in their targetted overseas locations.
That's probably the best we can hope for from the NFL, unless one of these minor leagues starts taking San Antonio and Austin's attention away from the NFL and the Cowboys.
Just because the Austin-San Antonio market does huge ratings numbers for the Cowboys doesn't mean that this area will never have its own team. That is negative thinking at its worst. At 2.2 million people San Antonio is already ready to support its own team. The fact that their are lots of poke fans here doesn't change that. Think of all of the other cities who have recently joined the NFL who previously had no team of their own. For instance for decades Charlotte was considered Redskin territory. And it was for awhile. Joe Gibbs is even from NC. But Charlotte grew to the point where an NFL team in that market was warranted. Charlotte and San Antonio are very similar in size and makeup.
What really made it happen in Charlotte however was a concerted effort by both the city government and the local business community. The same thing will have to happen here if there is to be a team in San Antonio. To sum up, no one should ever believe that just because Dallas is popular that SA can never have its own team. That's faulty, negative, short-sighted, inferior thinking. And imo there's too much of it in San Antonio. And on this board in particular.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Antonio
Last edited by bresilhac; 07-11-2007 at 01:14 AM.
I think you're missing part of the big point. One is the NFL is not going to expand if it can help it. Right now they have a good setup with all divisions having the same number of teams, which leads to an easily balanced scheduled. If the NFL expands, it would need to expand by 4 teams and a massive realignment (2 conf, 3 div per, 6 teams per) to maintain the easily balanced schedule.
If any team does move, the NFL will try to force it into LA to fill that market and hopefully increase ratings in LA. The only teams that are truly possible of moving are really Jacksonville and New Orleans. New Orleans isn't going anywhere unless there's an utter collapse of season ticket purchases, which is not going to happen unless Benson tosses Brees, Bush, et al into the wind. Jacksonville will probably end up moving to LA. There's the possibility that the Chargers might move to LA, but that would probably end with the Jags moving to San Diego.
The NFL is a business driven by television. It is by far more advantageous to put teams in areas where ratings need to improve than a place where you already have excellent ratings.
I'm not doubting a team in San Antonio could excel and succeed. I believe that to the bottom of my heart. And it's something that I really do want to see.
However, from a business standpoint, it doesn't make sense for the NFL to put a team in San Antonio. It would not increase the value of the TV contract at all, and if it's an expansion team it would dilute the money from the contract and if it's a relocated team it may actually lesson the value of the contract.
I've said it before, and I'll say it again. If you really want an NFL team, ignore the NFL for a few years. That would get them thinking.
You're business aspect argument is partly right. But flawed in other ways. San Antonio is already a viable TV market now with better than 2.2 million people in it and it is growing like wildflowers. The league knows this. What Goodell has to come up with is a way to placate the all powerful Jerry Jones, whom as you mentioned does not want to see the rich, lucrative San Antonio market go away. But Jones will see his precious SA market go away imo. Another point you brought up was Los Angeles. Despite her size Goodell has already been quoted as saying that he is perfectly fine with there being no team in LA. In other words it isn't a priority for the league. Big time ratings notwithstanding.
What really excites me on the other hand is that San Antonio now more than ever is so close to getting her own team. The Saints could move here after the 2010 season and this time a new commissioner could approve the move.
And secondly the Chargers are nowhere near completing a stadium deal in San Diego. So, the Chargers could be here as early as 2009 if things work out in our favor. And these are real scenarios not pipe dreams. And these instances don't even include a league expansion or as of yet unnamed teams wanting to pack up and leave and move here.
As Much as I would love to see the NFL come here. I cannot see it. You would not only have to placate Jerry Jones, but also the Texans would also have a fit if a team was placed in San Antonio.
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/200...ufl/index.html
SPARTANBURG, S.C. -- Michael Huyghue, commissioner of the United Football League, rival to the NFL. Fancy seeing you here, at Carolina Panthers training camp.
"In the VIP section, no less,'' he said, laughing, the other day, sitting among the families and employees of the Panthers during a torrid afternoon practice.
The UFL is scheduled to kick off -- and I use "scheduled'' because one never knows what can happen with startup leagues -- a year from now, with a season that will last until Thanksgiving. Huyghue said there will be six teams: Los Angeles, San Francisco, Las Vegas, Orlando, New York and Hartford. Yes, Mark Cuban will be one of the owners, as, apparently, will be the Wilpon group of New York.
The New York team, interestingly, will play at the new Citi Field, home of the Mets. (I can't wait to hear what the Mets think about their field being chewed up by football during a pennant race next September.) Hartford. Hmmm. Not an optimum site; the team will play in East Hartford, at the UConn football stadium.
The big news, I suppose, from my talk with Huyghue was this: He said the chances of a UFL team signing Michael Vick to play the 2009 season are "98 percent.'' Strange percentage, but that's what he said.
"Michael's not going to be able to walk right back into the NFL,'' Huyghue said. "He's going to need some kind of buffer before he signs in the NFL, and we'll be able to provide that for him.''
Assuming the league gets off the ground, it makes perfect sense. Vick is due to get out of federal prison in July 2009, and in all likelihood he'll be suspended for the 2009 season by the NFL, which would also make him ineligible for the Canadian Football League. If the UFL is Triple-A football, or even Double-A, it's probably Vick's best option.
Vick would likely be able to recoup some of the money he lost while in jail. The UFL will have a per-team salary cap of $20 million, with most quarterbacks making between $1 million and $4 million a year. The coaching staffs will be capped at $3 million, with head coaches making in the range of $1.5 million. So the UFL could get some decent names. It wouldn't be folly for an NFL position coach or coordinator not immediately destined to be an NFL head coach -- Mike Tice of Jacksonville, Chris Palmer of the Giants, Mike Trgovac of Carolina, for instance -- to take one of the UFL head-coaching jobs for a payday for a year or two.
It also wouldn't be folly for players near the bottom of NFL rosters to make the jump, unless the NFL threatens to blackball them and make it hard for them to re-enter the big league. Huyghue said the league will sign players to contracts of one year plus an option, or two years. "If they sign the one-year deal,'' Huyghue said, "they'd be able to re-sign with an NFL team around Thanksgiving. So the downside wouldn't be that great -- and they'd be able to get the playing time they need to develop as players.''
Huyghue may have been welcomed here because before he took this job, he was a player agent, and he represented the Panthers' first-round pick in 2007, middle linebacker Jon Beason. But I wondered how Huyghue had been received in his trips to NFL camps. Seems to me he'd be the mortal enemy. He said no.
"Strangely enough,'' he said, "I've been very well-received in NFL camps. I think the NFL people think the league will be good for player development. The problem with NFL rosters is you can't really develop the player on the bottom of the rosters because they don't get much playing time. Plus, we're not going to be taking their prime-time guys anyway.''
That's why Huyghue was here the other day. He was checking out the Panthers' backup quarterbacks, particularly Brett Basanez, the energetic and interesting third-stringer. "If you're a third-team quarterback in the NFL like Basanez,'' he said, "how long do you wait before you take meaningful snaps in the NFL? Some of these guys have to wait three, four years before they get a chance to play in the regular season. We can give guys like him the experience they need so they'll be more valuable to NFL teams.''
After practice, I approached Basanez.
"Ever heard of the United Football League?'' I asked.
"No,'' he said.
"Well, they're here scouting you today,'' I said.
He was confused, so I explained the parameters of the new league.
"Hey, sounds great,'' Basanez said. "I'm interested.''
One more note about the UFL, which veteran player activist Muhsin Muhammad of the Panthers pointed out to me: The league could be a place of refuge for NFL players if it survives into 2011, the first year we might have no NFL games because of a possible job action.
It's all very interesting. Still, if I were an owner, I'm not sure I'd be rolling out the training-camp red carpet for Mr. Michael Huyghue.
Running this concurrently with the NFL is stupid hopefully their season kicks off sometime in early summer.
Actually it's not. They are planning on playing mostly on days the NFL can't, with the regular season beginning when the NFL starts preseason and ending up before the stretch run to the NFL playoffs.
They'll only be competing on TV on one game a week likely (Thursday nights where most viewers probably don't have NFL Network), and there's no ticket compe ion in most of the markets they are looking at. Not really that big a deal going concurrently under those cir stances.
Apparently they did numerous surveys, etc, and found that people just plain don't take spring leagues seriously and fall is really the only chance for more than minimal success.
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