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Sunday
August 1 2010
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PREVIOUS SPORTS
• Sideline: Yes, Non–Conference Games DO Count
• NCAA Preview 2009
• Sideline: Time For The Talking To Stop
• Sideline: In Memory of Air McNair
• Sideline: Will Goodell Hand Out Hard Time?
• Sideline: Marshall's Not Joshing
• NFL Draft: No Rush To Judgment
• NFL Draft Analysis 2009 (Part 2)
• Sideline: NFL Draft Thoughts (Part 2)
• Sideline: NFL Draft Thoughts
• Sideline: Will Play For Food
• Sideline: Wonderlic Scores
• Sideline: Manning and Sanchez
• Sideline: 2010 Leagues Sci–fi, or Fantasy? / March Madness
• Sideline: Break Out The Brackets
• Sideline: LaDainian Tomlinson On The Record
• Sideline: The Incredible Sulk Continues
• Sideline: Guildford Heat Fired Up
• Sideline: Super Bowl thoughts from the Valley of the Sun
• Sideline: I know I came in here for something
• Sideline: College Football National Signing Day
• Sideline: 27 Points — 27 Super Bowl thoughts
• Sideline: An Epic QB Matchup?
• Sideline: Appreciating Arizona for What They Were
• Sideline: NFL Divisional Weekend Preview
• Sideline: Bowl Season Hangover
• Sideline: Six weeks Later
• Sideline: Wildcard Weekend Preview
• Sideline: Santa's Sackings
• Sideline: A Weis Decision ...for Now
• Sideline: Eye on the Ticker
• Sideline: Lions — An Anagram of Losin
• Sideline: Ready for the Turkey
• Sideline: Making it to the Big Dance
• Sideline: Brighter Days Ahead for Chargers?
• Sideline: Unnecessary Hits To The Pocket / Upset: BYU
• Sideline: Romo's Pause / Seattle Seahawks
• Sideline: Weekend Prep: Red River and More
• Sideline: College Football's 'Crossroads' Weekend
• Sideline: Gramatical Error
• Sideline: Turning The Page
• Sideline: So Cal 'Quizzed
• Sideline: 3rd Tuesday Panic / Forté Yard Dash
• Sideline: Two and Oh; Oh and Two
• Sideline: No More NCAAffeine
• Sideline: Week 1 College Football
• Sideline: How To Spell Heisman / Chad Ocho Cinco
• Sideline: A Second Slice
• Sideline: The Favre story STILL won't go away
• Sideline: Olympic Notes / Ricky's Still Relevant
• Sideline: Committee Meetings
• Sideline: Let the QB Battles Begin
• Sideline: Slinging The Slinger — More Favre
• Interview: Clint Dempsey
• Sideline: Welcome to the 2008 season
• Sideline: Plus One
• 2008 NFL Draft Review
• Sideline: Draft: The Morning After
• Sideline: Draft: Thinking the Unthinkable
• Sideline: Draft: Ready For The Long Haul
• Sideline: Sofa–bound Sport
• Sideline: Post–Winter Wonderland
• Sideline: Six Impossible Things
• Sideline: Brady's Misdirection Play
• Sideline: Colorful Language
• Sideline: Let the Romo–bashing begin
• Sideline: Bowl Bites: The Wrap
• Sideline: All About The Coaches
• Sideline: Bowl Bites 3
• Sideline: Bowl Bites 2
• Sideline: Bowl Bites 1
• Sideline: Coach Situations Vacant
• Sideline: For Some, The Playoffs Are Now
• Sideline: A Certain Lack Of Welcome
• Sideline: Unrelated Notes
• Sideline: Two Thanksgiving thoughts
• Sideline: Halftime: NFC
• Sideline: Halftime: AFC
• Sideline: London / A Tale of Two Chads / Intimidation
• Sideline: Damp Squib / Other London Notes
• Sideline: Rock 'Em, Sock 'Em / Dolphins – The Aftermath
• Sideline: The Dolphins Did What?
• Sideline: Notes on the Defenses
• Sideline: Habits to be Broken
• Sideline: Overtime
• Sideline: This Week's Starters
• Sideline: USF: Covering The Spread / Fantastic Football
• Sideline: Grossman: The Final Act? / McNabb, the Epilogue
• Sideline: Eagles QB in Slight Controversy
• Sideline: Leftwich's Parting Gift / Boos cruise
• Sideline: Notre Dame M.I.A.
• Sideline: Looking Beyond NFL Wk. 1
• Sideline: Best Hope For Heisman
• Sideline: Coaching Hot Seats / AP Poll Feeling ’Appy
• Sideline: The NFL’s Prime Cuts
• Sideline: Michigan Falls to Killer Apps
• Sideline: Look Out Couch / The Taint's On You, Bud
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SPORTS
UFL: First Steps, not Missteps
The UFL may not be the next big thing in pro football, writes Richard L Gale, but it hopes to be the next small thing.
"What" a friend or mine asked, "is the point of a football league with only four teams?"
My answer: "To exist."
This fall, the NFL will be joined by a second professional football league. Roger Goodell's gang would be forgiven
if they didn't pay too much attention to the six week season of the UFL (United Football League) playing out on Versus.
Beyond watching the NFL waiver wire, the UFL probably won't be worrying too much about what the NFL is up to either.
Just existing alongside the NFL will be enough for year one.
If the UFL kicks off successfully in October of this year, it will have accomplished something that several other
leagues have failed to do in 2009. With the Arena League still mothballed until 2010, the All–American Football
League having conducted a draft in 2008 without ever taking the field, and a rebooted USFL still looking at Spring 2010,
the UFL will arguably have beaten their real competition to the prize of being the first choice for NFL wannabes and
not–quites who don't want to go north of the border.
Unlike the old XFL and many other leagues, the UFL isn't much interested in innovating, at least on the field. Their
selling point is their NFL–like product, a point aimed not just at football fans, but football players, boasting
four NFL–caliber head coaches — Jim Fassel, Jim Haslet, Dennis Green and Ted Cottrell — with the
experience to prepare players for easy insertion into the NFL when an opportunity presents itself. Neither the Arena
League nor Canadian Football League can offer an environment that replicates the NFL format. And of course, with only
6 games to play (at least this year), potential players have the opportunity to showcase themselves without
wearing themselves thin.
All of which much may still sound a little ambitious for a league that failed even to relay a live feed of one of its
own press conferences just four months before it is proposing to begin play. So far the league has appointed Commissioner
Michael Huyghue and former New Orleans Saints personnel guru Rick Mueller as VP, and worked out some NFL surplus such
as Quinn Gray and Jermaine Wiggins.
It helps capture my attention that the league founder is William Hambrecht, an investment banker whose work with Apple,
Adobe and Amazon mark him out as one smart cookie. All the same, when Bill Hambrecht talks about 'disruptive business models'
and delivering 80 per cent of market needs at 20 per cent cost, I can't help but wonder if, as it relates to sports instead
of technology, this equates to 'doing things on the cheap'. Are we talking about bargain basement football here?
I think perhaps we are. And I think perhaps that's the right way to go at a time when the world economy is such a shambles.
Hambrecht says he is confident that the UFL will be profitable in year three (which may just coincide with an NFL lockout
if negotiations between the league and players' union continue along their present path — coincidence?). Don't be
surprised if four teams double to eight by then.
The UFL may never rival the NFL, and it seems to me that the fledgling league is ready to accept that, just as the NFL
would have no problem with the UFL being a halfway house for Michael Vick and some of its other problem children.
For both Vick's football career and the UFL, the first step is to exist.
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