The United Football League ends its inaugural season with a championship game on Friday pitting the Las Vegas Locomotives (4-2) against the Florida Tuskers (6-0).“The who vs. the what?,” you might ask.
The UFL experiment looks like a failure. Attendance has been miniscule. The games are broadcast on the low-rated, hard-to-find Versus sports network and HDnet. And the UFL has had to compete with college football and the National Football League for attention this fall.
The UFL tried to position itself as a minor league to the NFL. But now it looks like it will end up on the trash heap with the Arena Football League, XFL, United States Football League and World Football League.
One of the goals of the UFL was to bring pro football to markets that didn’t have teams. But the markets for two of the four teams in the inaugural season weren’t that inspired. The California Redwoods play in the San Francisco Bay area, home to the NFL 49ers and Raiders. The New York Sentinels plays in the same region as the NFL Giants and Jets. The other teams are the Florida Tuskers of Orlando, Fla., and the Las Vegas Locos.
Officially the UFL has committed to a second season and plans to add more teams in 2010. Expansion teams are planned for Hartford, Conn., and Los Angeles.
In the meantime, the UFL championship game on Friday afternoon will have to compete with college football and Black Friday shopping madness.
By the way, the Florida Tuskers have already played the Las Vegas Locos twice this year and beaten them both times.
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