Ufl shake-up: Florida to virginia

[Aaronhere]

Day of upheaval in UFL: Florida Tuskers franchise to relocate to Virginia; Millionaire businessman Joe Moglia will not coach Destroyers, instead coach Omaha team

In a major shakeup within the United Football League and the fledgling Virginia franchise, the Florida Tuskers will fold and move their football operations to Virginia, according to an Orlando source.

Also, Joe Moglia, the multi-millionaire businessman introduced two months ago as the Destroyers' first head coach, instead will coach the Omaha team.

Tuskers head coach Jay Gruden is expected to remain in that position for the Destroyers and will bring an undetermined number of assistant coaches and football operations people with him. Doug Williams, the former Redskins star and recent NFL personnel official, will remain the general manager.

Gruden is the brother of former Oakland Raiders and Tampa Bay Buccaneers coach Jon Gruden.

It's unclear if former Washington Redskins star Joe Theismann, president of the Tuskers, will have a role with the Destroyers.

The move leaves the UFL, a fall-based league whose season runs from September through Thanksgiving, with just five teams. Virginia would have been the sixth team when the league begins its third season next fall.

Moglia was named head coach and president of the Omaha Nighthawks. He has lived in Omaha for the past 10 years, running the billion-dollar online brokerage firm TD Ameritrade. The Omaha job opened recently when the franchise chose not to keep head coach Jeff Jagodzinski.

The Tuskers advanced to the UFL championship game in November, but had a difficult time gaining traction with fans and advertisers in football-saturated Florida. The Orlando-based team averaged approximately 10,000 fans per game, playing home games at the 70,000-seat Citrus Bowl.

The Destroyers will play home games at the Virginia Beach Sportsplex, which is being expanded and refitted to accommodate approximately 20,000 fans.

http://www.dailypress.com/sports/dp-spt ... 8935.story

The league still wants a sixth team in 2011. It is getting late in the game for a franchise to get some traction going.....

[Sam Hill]

[quote=""Aaronhere""]It's unclear if former Washington Redskins star Joe Theismann, president of the Tuskers, will have a role with the Destroyers.[/quote]

If he doesn't, then either...

1 - Theismann didn't really "buy" a UFL team.
2 - Theismann folded his hand really early.
3 - Someone's on drugs, because that makes the most sense for everybody, wouldn't you think?

[lams712]

I mean, I saw the Tusker games on TV and the attendance was NOT good and dropped a little from season one to season two. The stadium must have been too big. Omaha and Sacramento had some sellouts at a smaller venues.

Does this mean the UFL is learning from the mistakes of older leagues and cutting away from a market that was not really gaining traction before it was too late, or does it mean the UFL is on the verge of collapse and was unable to succeed in a market that should have been a good one for football?

The best example of a team's attendance actually improving while moving to a smaller stadium is the Montreal Allouettes. When they played at cavernous Olympic Stadium they did not draw very well, the atmosphere sucked and the fan experience was poor. They moved to a smaller stadium at McGill Unversity (due to a U2 concert at Olympic Stadium) and drew better because of a more intimate setting and better fan experience.

It will be interesting to see if there will be a 6th UFL franchise, and if so, where.

[Buffalo Super Fan]

[quote=""Sam Hill""]If he doesn't, then either...

1 - Theismann didn't really "buy" a UFL team.
2 - Theismann folded his hand really early.
3 - Someone's on drugs, because that makes the most sense for everybody, wouldn't you think?[/quote]

Sam I pick number 2. Just my opinion but who wouldn't get cold feet with the amount of $$$ money the UFL is losing yearly. Your talking alot of money to run a UFL football team. I think the UFL has some problems. Let's Go Buffalo

[Sam Hill]

I'd have gotten cold feet before I handed over a check. The amount of time between when Theismann supposedly "bought" the Tuskers and yesterday was <100 days. For all the bluster of Theismann at the time of the announcement (bluster? Joe?) to dissipate this quickly, something must have been up.

[jcompton]

[quote=""lams712""]
Does this mean the UFL is learning from the mistakes of older leagues and cutting away from a market that was not really gaining traction before it was too late, or does it mean the UFL is on the verge of collapse and was unable to succeed in a market that should have been a good one for football?
[/quote]

I think it's pretty clear that the UFL's entire business model relies on a labor incident disrupting the 2011 NFL season. Years 1 and 2 were just meant to work out the logistical kinks of "being an outdoor football league", avoiding some of the embarrassing missteps of the XFL's one-and-done season (such as mid-season rule changes) and so forth. They wanted to be ready as the only viable professional outdoor game in town if the NFL was dark in September 2011.

Certainly they can't seriously expect fans to develop a passionate relationship with a four/five-team league. They just want to be the only dealer in town who can provide a Sunday fix, so to speak, if the NFL is off the market.

I predict that if the NFL kicks off on-time, there will never be another UFL snap.

[preeths]

Then there's this:
http://blogs.dallasobserver.com/unfairp ... _suit.php#

[preeths]

[quote=""jcompton""]I think it's pretty clear that the UFL's entire business model relies on a labor incident disrupting the 2011 NFL season. Years 1 and 2 were just meant to work out the logistical kinks of "being an outdoor football league", avoiding some of the embarrassing missteps of the XFL's one-and-done season (such as mid-season rule changes) and so forth. They wanted to be ready as the only viable professional outdoor game in town if the NFL was dark in September 2011.

Certainly they can't seriously expect fans to develop a passionate relationship with a four/five-team league. They just want to be the only dealer in town who can provide a Sunday fix, so to speak, if the NFL is off the market.

I predict that if the NFL kicks off on-time, there will never be another UFL snap.[/quote]

I still don't see it. I mean if the UFL's entire strategy was to take the NFL's place, why start play in 2009 and lose probably a minimum of $50 million before the NFL had any chance of shutting the doors in 2011 due to labor strife? Why not be much more aggressive, now if not last year, in bringing on more markets? Why not go after at least one player the NFL wanted? I just can't see how the league positioned itself to be an NFL replacement.

I think their real strategy was to become the new WLAF/NFLE, but a more cost-effective, entirely domestic version. The UFL would develop players who would then be ready to move right over to the NFL during the season as injuries warranted. IMO, the UFL wanted to use the player transfer fees to force the NFL to buy a piece of the league, because it would eventually be less expensive than paying the fee every time. Didn't work. That's how I read it, anyway.

[jcompton]

[quote=""preeths""]I just can't see how the league positioned itself to be an NFL replacement.
[/quote]

Your points are valid. At the same time, with generic uniforms and an erratic playing schedule, I can hardly see how they expected to be considered as an NFL alternative in 2009, either. The 2010 season was a little less ridiculous, but I've been watching off-brand football long enough to conclude that anything less than eight teams is insufficient to maintain any sense of novelty and interest. That's not something I can prove or disprove, but I think the case against a five-team league feeling vaguely legitimate is pretty solid.

I expect that the two-year ramp-up would give them plenty of time to try to perfect a "turnkey business model" in anticipation of the cancellation or delay. The idea being that if the NFL season was a washout, they could quickly sell teams either to local business magnates or one or more broadcasters.

I.e., Fox/NBC/CBS Sports would be in a position to say, "Okay, we've got no NFL product but we still want to show local Sunday football in eight of the top ten metros and we're willing to put up some capital to make it happen," then you could have UFL Chicago and UFL NYC and etc. teams go from zero to the field in six months or whatever.

I'm not saying I think this was a brilliant scheme--it seemed like a moonshot, but perhaps they ran numbers that said "If the NFL doesn't show, we turn that $50M into $250M within five years" and were willing to risk the other side of the coin being a total loss.

IMO, the UFL wanted to use the player transfer fees to force the NFL to buy a piece of the league, because it would eventually be less expensive than paying the fee every time. Didn't work. That's how I read it, anyway.

This is an interesting idea as well, although the street free agent pool is so large I don't think it was any better of a way to gamble $50 million.

Either way, I don't see how a four/five-team league expects to be taken seriously as a national entity in-and-of itself, and it sounds like we're both agreeing that it's all done in pursuit of a different goal.

[preeths]

I certainly can't argue with you about the number of teams. Not only was it more difficult for fans to sink their teeth into the league, but it made the UFL appear tentative and unsure of itself. I think that really hurt the perception of the league. Even if it had started with six and then grown to eight last year, I think it would have made a difference in perception at least. I defer to a sportswriter in Fayetteville, NC who wrote about a hockey league, "Five teams is not a league. It's a group." It's too bad. The league made some progress last year, but maybe not enough to make a difference in the long run.