[OC] Lost Leagues- Part I: History of the United Football League

The NFL is the king of professional football in the United States. No other league out there comes close. The NFL might be not only the most powerful league in the USA, but with some smart and calculated international expansion, could end up becoming the most powerful league in the world. It’s amazing what the NFL does in terms of generating interest. Sundays seem made for football. Anyone that doesn’t watch the Super Bowl is viewed as an outcast; it’s become a holiday that transcends sports. Just this past week, they got hundreds of thousands of people for the NFL Draft. Think about that- over 100,000 people showed up to hear a commissioner walk up to the podium and announce a person’s name.

Yes, the NFL is king. And, when you’re the king, people try and come for you. Fortunately for the NFL, nobody has come close in recent years.

This is a series that I’ve wanted to do for a while, and now that finals are done, school is out, and I’ve got nothing to do for at least a month until online classes start, I’m starting it up. This series is called Lost Leagues, and as the title suggests, it’s all about the leagues that tried to compete against the NFL in one way or another, and failed. I’m excluding the AAFC and AFL from this list, since they actually succeeded, but every other professional football league is up for grabs. Some of these you’ve probably heard of. Others… not so much. This is examining what went wrong with those leagues that tried and failed to go up against the NFL, because for every success story, there are about ten stories of failure.

So, with that being said, let’s take a look at the first league on the table, the United Football League.

Part I: Overview & Creation

When I created this series and had this in mind, the UFL was the first one that I wanted to do. I knew that from the very beginning. The reason being is simple- I actually had a vested interest in the UFL. I went to a UFL game. I actually still have a UFL pennant and a UFL mini helmet. I remember watching the overtime period of the first ever championship game in my grandma’s house on the day after Thanksgiving, and didn’t leave to go Black Friday shopping until after the game was finished. I legitimately missed the first few innings of Game 6 of the 2009 World Series to go to a UFL game (but more on that later). This was a league that not only I knew about, but that I cared about and wanted to succeed.

Unfortunately for me and for anyone else like me, as we all know, the UFL failed. It wasn’t a spectacular failure in the ways that the XFL and WFL were, but rather, more of a quiet failure where the league was on and off until they finally shut the door after poor communication.

But how did this league begin? In 2007, it was an idea by Bill Hambrecht, who actually owned the Oakland Invaders of the USFL back in the day. The stars seemed aligned for this league- it would have eight teams, begin play in August of 2008, and they had Mark Cuban as an owner. By the time the league actually began play, it was September of 2009, it had just four teams, and Mark Cuban was not an owner. That should’ve been red flag number one.

However, when the league kicked off, they had 4 teams- the Las Vegas Locomotives, the Florida Tuskers, the California Redwoods, and the New York Sentinels. For me, part of the beauty of sports is the unexpected. The possibility that against all odds, your team can make it to the championship game. When 50% of the league makes it to the title game and when you’ve got just a 4-team league, that’s lost. Leagues have started too big before, but the UFL started way too small. Having four teams is just not enough. Personally, my goal would be at least 6 teams in year one (though 8 is the ideal number), at least 8 teams in year two, and at least 10 teams in year three. Having a league ridiculously small doesn’t benefit anyone.

Of these 4 teams, only one (Las Vegas Locomotives) had a permanent home. The Florida Tuskers played 2 of their games at the Citrus Bowl and one game at Tropicana Field. As for the other 2 teams, they just played their games in the geographic region that their name suggested. Actually, I can’t even say that- the New York Sentinels played a home game at Rentschler Field in Hartford, Connecticut. Tough to care about a league if there aren’t many teams, and tough to care about a team if they’re constantly playing all over the place.

As for the TV contract, it wasn’t terrible. Half of the games were on Versus (now NBC Sports Network), which considering the fact that the league was playing at the start of hockey and basketball season and during the middle of college football season, isn’t too bad. However, nobody knew when the UFL was on. Games were played on Wednesdays, Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays. The first 4 games that the Florida Tuskers had were on 4 different days of the week.

If you’re going to have a fall league (which I don’t think is a bad idea), play the games when, you know, people aren’t watching football. Play the games on Tuesdays and Wednesdays when there’s literally nothing to do. Don’t play the games on Thursdays when you’re going up against Thursday Night Football (the Tuskers had their final 2 games of the season directly against TNF, since at the time, TNF was only for half the season and wasn’t every week; those games generated an average attendance of 6,019), don’t play the games on Saturdays when you’re going up against college football, and don’t play your New York team at the same time as the World Series when the New York Yankees are in.

So let’s recap how this league is starting. It’s too small for people to really care about, the teams are playing all over the place so fans can’t really care about their specific team outside of Las Vegas, and nobody knows when the games are even being played. Did I mention the league was going with a 6-game schedule? This league got off on the wrong foot.

Part II: The Inaugural Season

The inaugural season was a bit of a mess. Again, nobody knew where the games were being played. The Sentinels were supposed to play a game at Citi Field, but less than two weeks before that game, they moved it to Shuart Stadium on the campus of Hofstra. Unsurprisingly, that game drew the second lowest attendance of the season (and I was at that game; no way was the number that high). The Locomotives played all of their home games in Las Vegas, but that wasn’t even by design- they were supposed to play one of their home games in Los Angeles of all places. And even though they played their games in Las Vegas, they practiced in Phoenix. Because that makes perfect sense. Could be worse- you could be the Sentinels and practice at Vero Beach. When the schedule was released, a lot of stuff changed in between.

In this extremely abbreviated season (as in, it started on October 8 and finished on November 27), the average attendance was just 9,678 per game. To be honest, it looked a lot smaller than that most of the time. This was the highest attended game of the season. This was the crowd during the inaugural game between the Las Vegas Locomotives and the California Redwoods. Again, this was the largest crowd of the season, and that’s what it looked like.

Attendance was a major issue. Playing the games on different days didn’t help; amazingly enough, the commissioner actually said this was by design. Not knowing what day you’re actually going to have a game is completely planned. You can see why this league failed. The New York Sentinels played three games. Both of their games in New York went directly against the World Series, and their third was in Hartford, and drew just over 5,000 fans. This was the highest attended California Redwoods game- a season finale against the Florida Tuskers. Unsurprisingly, both of those teams were nonexistent by the start of the 2010 season.

The championship game was pretty good, going into overtime. In that game, the undefeated Florida Tuskers lost to the Las Vegas Locomotives on a helmet catch game-winning field goal by Graham Gano of all people, and the Locos won the first ever championship. The crowd doesn’t look terrible, but obviously, it’s not a sellout (or anywhere close to one).

One thing that I did like about the UFL during this season was the Black Friday championship game. I always thought MLS should do that (until they settled on the date of the Heisman ceremony, which I’m 100% fine with), since it’s a big day that’s relatively unoccupied in sports. For all the bad scheduling the UFL did, I thought this was a good idea. So naturally, the league got rid of that the following season and scheduled the championship game on a Saturday during the same time as the Ohio State/Michigan game. Decisions, decisions.

Even though the UFL season in 2009 was a failure, it wasn’t a catastrophic one. The league wanted a formula that would minimize risk at all costs, and went into 2009 as a trial run instead of a true first season. The 2010 season would be when the UFL truly established itself and made its mark on the professional football world. How did that turn out?

Part III: The 2010 Season

The Locomotives and Tuskers stayed put. Gone were the days of changing stadiums every week; teams would now have a true home where they would play all 4 of their home games. The schedule expanded to 8 games and 10 weeks, and the league expanded to 5 teams. Again, way too small, but it’s something at least. The Sentinels moved to Hartford and became the Colonials, the Redwoods moved to Sacramento and became the Mountain Lions, and a new team called the Omaha Nighthawks joined the league.

The league was starting to get some recognizable players. I wouldn’t say they were that good at this point, but they were recognizable, to say the least. Josh McCown was the quarterback of the Colonials. Jeff Garcia was the quartback of the Nighthawks, and Daunte Culpepper was the quarterback of the Mountain Lions. After Graham Gano left to go to the NFL, the Locomotives replaced their void at kicker with Steve Hauschka. The talent was starting to improve. The schedule was starting to stabilize- games were being played on Fridays and Saturdays for the most part, and while the original franchises were struggling with attendance, the new ones were picking up the slack.

While Hartford’s attendance was decent (though not great, as you can tell by this video which shows how empty it is), Sacramento was actually doing pretty well. One thing I will give the league credit on is its selection with new franchises. The first franchises had terrible selection- playing in either occupied markets (like the Sentinels and Redwoods) or carnivorous stadiums (like the Tuskers and Locomotives) makes for a bad product. But for the most part, of their four new franchises, I’d say that three of them worked (Hartford is the one that’s a bit iffy). The Mountain Lions legitimately sold out games. Granted, this was Hornet Stadium, but still, 20,000 fans is nothing to scoff at. They sold out 2 of their 4 games, and another one drew just shy of a sellout at 19,000 fans.

The real winner, though, was the Omaha Nighthawks. The Nighthawks had name recognition with Jeff Garcia and Maurice Clarrett. They had fans, selling out 3 of their 4 games and drawing at least 21,000 for every game. I kid you not, they even had Nelly do a halftime show for their inaugural game. They got Nelly, and I don’t mean a washed up Nelly, but rather, a Nelly that just had “Just a Dream” come out a few weeks earlier and get blasted all over the radio. Nelly isn’t even from Omaha; how they got him to do a halftime show, I have no idea. They even made it on SportsCenter; I distinctly remember this play from a game-winning drive by Jeff Garcia being on SportsCenter. The UFL struck absolute gold with Omaha. What the Portland Thorns are to women’s soccer (that one team that just performs better than everyone else in terms of attendance and it’s not even close), the Omaha Nighthawks were to the UFL.

However, only having five teams in the league by year 2 is a black eye. To the league’s credit, they realized this and tried expanding. They looked at San Antonio, which did not work, and even places like Salt Lake City, Austin, and Los Angeles. I’m skeptical of how a Los Angeles franchise would’ve done considering there’s so much else to do sports-wise in Los Angeles compared to watching second-tier football (although in fairness, that’s not stopping Rams fans from showing up to games). Austin, provided the games weren’t played during Texas games, could’ve worked. Salt Lake City would’ve been a very good choice, especially because the stadium is in place (Rio Tinto Stadium where Real Salt Lake play), and a San Antonio franchise could’ve been really good, so long as they avoided dates where the Spurs had home games.

They had the right idea with these new markets. The new markets would’ve been in stadiums that wouldn’t be carnivorous, and that wouldn’t have too much competition on the sports scene. Unfortunately, the league could only add one new franchise with Omaha (remember that the Mountain Lions and Colonials were really relocated franchises), and that was it. Granted, they hit a home run with Omaha. Commissioner Michael Huyghue flat out said, “If we had 10 Omaha markets, we would have a very successful league.” Unfortunately, they could really only find one. Instead of getting deals done for expansion, they were getting deals done to make Betty Boop a mascot of the league. Because that’s what the league was missing- Betty Boop.

The weight of the other two original franchises was weighing the league down. The Locomotives struggled in 2010 and couldn’t ride that championship momentum, as in 4 games, they drew over 9,800 fans just once. This is at Sam Boyd Stadium, mind you, so every game looked empty. The Florida Tuskers had just one game over 9,400 fans, and their highest attendance of the season was just 10,066. This is at the Citrus Bowl, where it looks even more empty (side note- the Tuskers had Jay Gruden as their head coach). The league was making good steps, but they started so poorly that they had to work on correcting their mistakes before they could go any further (with the Tuskers and Locomotives). And in the end, that’s what killed them.

The 2010 season ended in Omaha where the Locomotives played the Tuskers in the championship game, yet again. They chose Omaha as the neutral site for this game due to their attendance and embracing of the league, and the crowd was solid, especially since the Nighthawks weren’t in the game. Based off of the 2010 UFL season, if I’m creating a football league, I’m going to Omaha. They drew over 15,000 fans at a championship game on a Saturday during Thanksgiving weekend that didn’t even involve their team. Mad respect to the Nighthawks fans on that. As a trivia question, this was the last event ever at Rosenblatt Stadium. It was not a College World Series game. It was the 2010 UFL Championship.

After 2 seasons, the league was at a crossroads. They had hit a home run with the Nighthawks, and gotten a solid double with the Mountain Lions, but the Colonials didn’t really offer much, and the Tuskers and Locomotives were in financial trouble. Despite their success, they had poor attendance, had trouble financially, and were in danger of having to shut down operations. With only five teams in the league, the 2010 season that was supposed to be the first real season (if 2009 was a test run) really wasn’t too much better.

Part IV: The 2011 Season

The UFL had a golden opportunity in 2011 to capitalize. Instead of having to compete against the NFL, they had a chance to capitalize on the lockout. Remember that during the painful 2011 offseason, there was nothing happening in the NFL besides intense negotiations on a new CBA. If the league wasn’t so stubborn and instead, moved to a summer schedule starting in June or July, this could’ve been the game changer. People were starving for football, any kind of good quality professional football, at this point. And for all the terrible things the UFL did, I can’t knock the quality of play. I’ve seen much worse.

Instead, they squander this opportunity bigly. They stick to a fall schedule, and actually lost a team when they lost the Hartford Colonials. The writing was on the wall for that franchise from the very beginning; why they moved the team to Hartford when the one game in 2009 that the Sentinels played in Hartford drew just over 5,000 fans, I’m not sure. Omaha and Sacramento were still going strong, unsurprisingly, but the other two original franchises were in deep trouble.

The Tuskers folded in 2011 and ended up moving to Virginia to become the Virginia Destroyers. The Locomotives were thinking about moving to a smaller stadium so that the rent wouldn’t be as high, but decided to stay at Sam Boyd Stadium for the 2011 season. Teams were either incredibly stable or not even remotely, and there was no in between with this league.

By year three, the league was really starting to feel financial pressures. The league had lost $100 million in the first two years, and it was one of the reasons why the Colonials were contracted. Commissioner Huyghue called it a shrinking down to get the house in order, but in the end, this was anything but. This was a last minute desperation move. The league also lacked an identity; the league wanted a partnership with the NFL, but then, charged UFL players who voided their contracts to sign with an NFL team. It really didn’t make too much sense.

The league also lacked a television deal. The deal with Versus expired, and while the UFL tried to negotiate deals with CBS and TNT, nothing ended up working out. With no television deal, just four teams, and a significant loss of money, you can pretty much figure out where this is going. By the time the season started, the lockout was over, so there was no ability to capitalize off of that.

Along with the financial difficulties of losing $100 million, they were in some serious legal trouble. Mark Cuban sued the league after they never paid him back on a $5 million loan. Cuban wasn’t the only one that pulled a Chris R on the UFL, as players started to claim that they had never been paid. The championship game bonus that the Locomotives were supposed to be received? Nonexistent. A Sacramento PR firm also sued the league, along with the Mayo Clinic. While the UFL eventually paid off the debts owed to these people, amazingly enough, the league was in deep financial trouble.

For this 2011 season, the league had no TV deal, and just four teams. The Virginia Destroyers actually had some good crowds, and they had to expand their stadium, the Virginia Beach Sportsplex, just to accommodate the fanbase. The Mountain Lions drew good crowds (every game drawing over 17,000), and so did the Nighthawks (every game drawing over 15,000) in their new stadium, TD Ameritrade Park (built for the College World Series). The Locomotives only had one home game, and drew just 6,500 fans. Not good.

Attendance is pretty sharp, all things considered. Sure, the league is small and in massive financial trouble and doesn’t have a television deal, but at least the attendance is good for three of the four teams. They finally found their markets.

However, what transpired next might be the funniest thing any professional football league has ever done. Because they held a surprise championship game.

You’re telling me you’ve never seen a surprise title game before? Imagine if the NFL just decided after week 9 that the rest of the season would be cancelled and that week 10 would just be the Super Bowl and a bunch of other consolation games. I love how the press release for this was so nonchalant, as if this is a regular occurrence. Even the Facebook post is nonchalant; I tracked down their Facebook page (and can confirm that this is the real page, as I actually commented on this page a few times), and this was the first post mentioning it. No breaking news or apology, just a side note that by the way, the championship game is now this week and the rest of the season is cancelled. As you can probably tell, though, when you’re cancelling the season halfway through and just calling it early for a championship game, the writing is on the wall.

There’s no positive way you can possibly spin the season being cancelled. That didn’t stop the UFL, though. The league finally realized that having a 4-team league was not sustainable, even though I could’ve told you that in middle school (and I did; I genuinely commented on the UFL Facebook page back in 2011 modeling out a plan for expansion). The impromptu championship was televised on Veetle (I’ve legitimately never heard of that company before today), and was taking place at the same time as a consolation game between the Nighthawks and the Mountain Lions (a cheap game so that the league wouldn’t have to refund Nighthawks ticket holders). The Nighthawks had former Heisman winner Troy Smith at quarterback, for what it’s worth.

The league saved roughly $3.5 million by cancelling the rest of the season, but the people calling the shots assured that this was normal, and that cancelling the season would be how the league could go forward in 2012 and 2013. Amazingly enough, the UFL even posted an article on their Facebook page from the Las Vegas Review Journal that was titled “Logistical Challenges Could Block UFL’s Hopes of Continuing”. Imagine if the Jacksonville Jaguars, back in 2009, shared on their Facebook page an article saying that the Jags are likely moving to Los Angeles (obviously now, this will not happen, but back in 2009 when the Jags were blacking out every game, it was a legitimate possibility that they’d be out of Jacksonville). Probably wouldn’t be received so well.

After the 2010 season didn’t exactly improve on 2009 by much, the 2011 season was a colossal failure. There’s no way to describe it. They cancelled their season, were in massive financial trouble, and were down to just 4 teams with no TV contract. The finish line is in sight for this league, and they probably would not return for the 2012 season.

Part V: The 2012 Season

Amazingly, and I don’t know how, the UFL was on for its fourth season in 2012. They would not let this league die, even though the league was a shell of its former self. Michael Huyghue resigned, and the league didn’t do anything in the offseason. They got a deal with CBS Sports Network, which was good. The bad was that the UFL had to pay CBS Sports Network to televise their games, and had to pay them $150,000 per game. Additionally, the Mountain Lions (who actually drew crowds) had to move to a smaller stadium in Raley Field, which was roughly half the size of Hornet Stadium.

They announced the 2012 schedule on August 1. On September 6, they pushed the schedule back a week, because they needed more time to prepare. Remember the scene in Monty Python where the Black Knight had just one leg and no arms but yet still wanted to fight, even though he had no chance of winning? That’s what the UFL was in 2012. There was some cautious optimism in 2010 after the success of Omaha and Sacramento, but by 2012, nobody in their right mind thought this league was going to succeed.

Finally, on September 26, they kicked off the first game of the season between the Virginia Destroyers and the Las Vegas Locomotives (keep in mind that camp didn’t even start until September 17, so ten days before the opener, nobody even knew if the league was still around). The league was still at four teams (remember how they said they needed at least 6 teams to survive? Good job taking your own advice), and the crowd showed up by the thousands hundreds tens to support the Locomotives. This was their opening day crowd.

That’s not an exaggeration- their week 2 game against the Omaha Nighthawks, in a stadium that seats roughly 40,000 spectators, drew 601 fans. If you want to know what a crowd of 601 fans looks like, here you go. Let’s give some comparison. This is Vert Stadium on the campus of High Point University. It’s a gorgeous stadium, especially for soccer and lacrosse. In a Big South game between HPU and Liberty in September of 2016 over Family Weekend, the attendance was 1,843. When it’s full, it looks something like this. Keep that in mind (there’s also no end zone seating or bleachers on the other side).

So again, imagine this stadium. Now cut that stadium by a third. That’s 614 fans, so even cutting Vert Stadium by a third, you’re overshooting by about 10 or so fans. The Locomotives got 601 fans for their second game, and that was in a 40,000 seat stadium. That should tell you everything you need to know about the state of the UFL at this point.

Eventually, the league got so bad that even Omaha started dropping in attendance figures. In their 2 games of 2012, the Nighthawks drew 3,563 fans and 2,234 fans. Nighthawks fans were so fed up with the state of the league that they just stopped showing up, and got sick and tired of the waiting game of whether or not the league would play that week. The Mountain Lions struggled to generate fans at Raley Field, generating an average of just 6,616 fans per game. Amazingly enough, that was, without a doubt, the best average attendance in the league that season. And their stadium was not even remotely suited for football. The Virginia Destroyers got 5,316 fans for game one, and then did so poorly in their final game that they didn’t even release an attendance figure. You can be the judge for yourself on the attendance at this game based off of this highlight video of the game.

Before I go on, I would be doing you guys a disservice if I didn’t bring up this promo video for the Locos, which might be the greatest thing I’ve ever seen. Picture an NFL promo video, and now, picture the exact opposite. It’s like a bad car dealership commercial. And just incase you were wondering if this was a parody video or an amateur video… nope. The UFL actually endorsed this. They were so in debt that they lost their marketing department entirely; the sad part is that even though I’m making that up, that could be true.

In fact, that video was so good that they had to post it twice. All while not having a website or rosters of the teams. Tough to have a league when, you know, you don’t even have a website about the league. Although they did have a Facebook page… which was pretty poorly run. I have no idea what’s happening here. All of this is still up, by the way- you can see the madness for yourself on the UFL Facebook page. Another highlight from the Facebook page includes the league pretty much begging fans to watch. Imagine if the NFL made a Facebook post asking fans to comment on what channel NBC is on where they live just so that people knew how to watch Sunday Night Football.

By 2012, the league was hobbling. It got so bad that the league still did not have a website, and unofficial websites and Twitter accounts were how fans got their news on the league. If you wanted stats on the UFL, you had to go to the Sacramento Mountain Lions website. The UFL website did not work.

October was a grim month for the league that year. At halftime of a game, Mountain Lions owner Paul Pelosi had a very important announcement about the future of the league. That announcement? That everyone would get paid. That… that shouldn’t be something you need to announce. That should be a given. When I think of a big announcement, I think of announcing an expansion team, or the site of the championship game, or a big signing. Paying the players and coaching staff should be a given. The fact that this even needed to be said was worrying. As for how that would play out… you’ll find out, but it goes about how you’d expect.

After week 3, the league folds the league carries on. Despite a report from a Philadelphia newspaper indicating otherwise, the UFL called them out, calling them fake news. The report was false, as the league was here to stay.

It stayed for another week. After week 4, it folded.

I love how proud the league was that it wasn’t folding after week 3. They really showed that Philadelphia newspaper. I’m partially convinced that they stayed in business for one more week just because that report came out, and had that report not come out, they would’ve folded after week 3. They just wanted to prove something and perform with a chip on their shoulder.

The league didn’t officially fold, but rather, announced they were suspending operations for the 2012 season, but would resume play in the spring of 2013 and then play another season in fall of 2013. There was never an official statement about the league folding; it just happened very quietly. After a financial implosion, as Mike Florio called it, it was only a matter of time before they called it off. Nobody even knew that the fourth season happened. If you click on that link, the UFL website now links to a site that has Super Bowl XLVIII highlights, and the Las Vegas Locomotives domain does not exist anymore. Turns out, the Virginia Destroyers never even had a website to begin with.

Then, 78 players filed a lawsuit against the league demanding that they be paid, and even Marty Schottenheimer sued the league at one point. Amazingly, the lawsuit wasn’t exactly asking for much- the players were only seeking $10,000 in damages, along with attorney fees. It added up to around $1.5 million.

Nancy Pelosi refused to pay $1 million to Dennis Green when he coached the Mountain Lions… even though he lost the arbitration. That’s not how it works. Green never received any money because Pelosi refused to pay; seven months after that article, Green passed away.

The league never filed for bankruptcy and, according to that Sacramento Bee article, stored all of its assets somewhere in Jacksonville, the city where good football goes to die. Unsurprisingly, the league did not resume play in 2013 like they promised, and is dead at this point.

Part VI: Conclusion

I desperately wanted the UFL to succeed. But over time, there was no chance that this league had. They were playing catch-up from day one, as none of their first four franchises were any good in terms of attendance and in terms of making money. If they had started with more teams and had started with Omaha, Sacramento and Virginia as some of the initial franchises, maybe they could’ve gotten something done.

But at the end of the day, this was a league that had too much dragging it down. From poor finances to no good television contract to poor attendance all the way around, this league was doomed. They had a golden opportunity in 2011 to capitalize off of an NFL lockout, and blew their opportunity. How they came back after the 2011 season where they cancelled everything, I’m not sure, but 2012 was one of the biggest embarrassments in the history of professional football on any level.

Were any positives taken from the UFL? I’d say there was one, and that’s Omaha. Right now, Omaha has nothing outside of the College World Series. They have no professional sports. The Nighthawks gave the city a pro sports team, and the city absolutely embraced them. For that first season in Omaha, you probably could’ve fit 35,000 people into Rosenblatt Stadium if you wanted to; their opening game was completely sold out, standing room only, with a week to go before the game. Much like the great attendance in Jacksonville for WFL and USFL games ended up being somewhat of an influence in the city getting the Jaguars, maybe the Nighthawks could become a springboard for something bigger if that time ever comes.

But aside from that, the UFL was weird in that it really didn’t have a legacy. There were no rule changes that made the UFL different than the NFL. It wasn’t like the USFL or the WFL where ideas later got implemented, and it wasn’t like the XFL which was so spectacular in its mess-up that its legacy writes itself. The UFL was nothing more than minor league professional football, whether or not they wanted to admit it or not. The quality wasn’t terrible, but it offered absolutely nothing new, except in markets like Omaha where they had nothing else.

Next Sunday: To kick off the new millennium, a brand new football league in the spring would be created. No, I’m not talking about the XFL. I’m talking about the Spring Football League, a professional league that started in 2000 and had an extremely 2000s logo to show for it. What ever happened to the SFL?