UFL football game a fun outing for kids

I took my 7-year-old son today to the season opener for Connecticut’s new professional football team, the Hartford Colonials of the United Football League.
He didn’t want to go, but ended up having a good time.
The Colonials beat the Sacramento Mountain Lions, led by former NFL quarterback Daunte Culpeper, 27-10 before an announced crowd of 14,384 at Rentschler Field in East Hartford, Conn.
The Colonials played a solid game, highlighted by an outstanding performance by former UConn running back Andre Dixon, who rushed for 94 yards.
Colonials quarterback Josh McCown, an NFL veteran who rejected an offer from the Chicago Bears two days before Hartford’s training camp opened, was 11 of 21 for 265 yards and three touchdowns, according to the Hartford Courant.
UFL games make for good family entertainment thanks to affordable tickets ($15 to $30), quality football and stadium entertainment.
The stadium speakers pumped out lots of pop music between plays and whenever the Colonials scored men dressed as Revolutionary War colonial militia fired a cannon. Plus, there were lots of pretty cheerleaders on the sidelines.
The halftime entertainment was recording star B.o.B who performed his hit songs “Airplanes,” “Nothin’ on You” and “Magic.”
Not everything was perfect though.
The lines at the concession stands were astronomically long. And the souvenir stands didn’t sell any of the tri-corner colonial hats that some fans had procured elsewhere.
Talk about a missed opportunity.

United Football League preps for season 2; Hartford Colonials set to debut

Connecticut will get a professional football team this fall in the Hartford Colonials of the United Football League.
As a Connecticut resident, I plan to support the fledgling league and new sports franchise.
The tickets are a lot less expensive than NFL games. Colonials tickets range from $15 to $30. By comparison, New York Giants tickets cost $85 to $700 each. Ouch!
But I’ll have to drive a little further to see the Colonials play. Rentschler Field in East Hartford, Conn., is 66 miles from my home in New Canaan, Conn. By comparison, New Meadowlands Stadium in East Rutherford, N.J., where the Giants and New York Jets both play, is 49 miles door-to-door. But traffic’s worse in the New York metropolitan area so it’s probably a wash.
My only wish is to see some quality football.
The UFL’s inaugural season last year was kind of a disappointment. Attendance was low and the league didn’t get much coverage from the traditional media.
I’ve written quite a bit about what I call “fringe sports” and how difficult it is for them to break through to a mainstream audience. Factors that help this transition include television coverage, superstar players and uniqueness. (See earlier post.)
Last year, UFL games were broadcast on the Versus cable network and HDNet. This year a third TV network might be added, according to UFL Access.
In its first season, the UFL had four teams and played six games each. This year, the UFL has five teams and an eight-game schedule.
The Las Vegas Locomotives and the Florida Tuskers of Orlando are the only returning teams. The California Redwoods of the San Francisco Bay area relocated to Sacramento, Calif., as the Mountain Lions. The New York Sentinels moved to Hartford, Conn. The newest team is the Omaha Nighthawks.
San Francisco and New York City already have two NFL teams each so they never should have gotten UFL franchises in the first place. The UFL says it’s focusing now on markets not served by the NFL, which is a smart move.
The rosters of the UFL include many ex-NFL players and those who were overlooked by the NFL draft.
The hope for the UFL is that it becomes a minor or developmental league to the NFL. Some players even made the jump from the UFL to the NFL last season.
The Hartford Colonials kick off their season with a Sept. 18 home game against the Sacramento Mountain Lions.
Here’s hoping that the Colonials do better than the Sentinels did last year. The Sentinels went 0-6 and were the worst team in the UFL. No place to go but up!

United Football League has an uphill climb

The United Football League finished its inaugural season Friday with the Las Vegas Locos beating the Florida Tuskers 20-17 in overtime for the UFL championship.
It was a good game, but one that few watched.
UFL officials really need to get some butts in the seats to generate some excitement. That means cutting ticket prices and increasing advertising and promotion.
Las Vegas Review-Journal columnist Ed Graney estimated the attendance for the championship game at 8,000. If people aren’t interested enough to see a game in person, why bother watching it on TV? Crowds attract crowds.

Photo: Las Vegas Locos running back DeDe Dorsey scores a touchdown in the UFL championship game Friday in front of a sparse crowd. As my brother Bill says, “There were a lot of fans disguised as empty seats.” UFL photo.

United Football League championship game: Final game of the season or forever

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.

Sports writers knock UFL as ‘Unseen Football League’; Opening attendance sparse

The United Football League kicked off its debut season last night and sports writers had a field day making light of the sparse crowd at the first game.
With the lack of interest in the new league, the UFL should stand for the “Unseen Football League,” said CBS Sports online columnist Mike Freeman. He wrote:

The United Football League had its debut on Thursday night and in its infinite brilliance went against college football and the baseball playoffs. In other words, someone threw the UFL a shovel and told it to start digging its own grave.

The Las Vegas Locomotives beat the California Redwoods 30-17 at Sam Boyd Stadium in Las Vegas.
“UFL officials were hoping for a crowd of 15,000, but the actual draw wasn't even a third of that,” the Las Vegas Review Journal reported. However, the official attendance was announced as 14,209.
The four UFL teams will each play six games in the regular season. (The two other teams are the New York Sentinels and the Florida Tuskers.) The championship game is set for Nov. 27 in Las Vegas, the Associated Press says.
The UFL might have a better chance for success in the spring when football fans are starving for gridiron action. As it stands, the odds are stacked against the UFL succeeding.
It’s hard enough for fringe sports turning pro, much less upstart leagues in established sports trying to make a go of it.

Are you ready for even more football? UFL and Lingerie Football League set to debut this fall

There’s no shortage of professional sports leagues, including upstarts that hope one day to be as successful as the top four leagues in the U.S.: MLB, NFL, NBA and NHL.
This fall, we’ll see the start of a rival to the National Football League called the United Football League. This fall also will bring to life every man’s fantasy, the Lingerie Football League, where beautiful, busty women in lingerie have a pillow fight … er, play football.
I’m fascinated by what it takes for a sport to go from nothing to a big deal with the American public. Why do some pro sports attract legions of fans and exhaustive media coverage, while others do not? At what point do people decide they’d like to plunk down real money to watch a game in person?
Earlier I speculated on some of the factors behind a pro sport breaking into the big time. Those factors include superstar players who give the sport a face, some personality and a human interest story. Television coverage is another critical factor. And of course, amazing athleticism is vital too.
But then there are the X-factors, those intangibles that are hard to gauge. Those intangibles helped push pro beach volleyball and the X Games onto the main stage.
In Chicago, we have Major League Baseball’s Chicago Cubs and Chicago White Sox, the NFL’s Chicago Bears, the National Basketball Association’s Chicago Bulls and the National Hockey League’s Chicago Blackhawks.
But wait there’s more.
Move down the food chain a level and you’ll find a host of young pro sports teams and leagues hoping to make it big. We have soccer (Chicago Fire of Major League Soccer and the Chicago Red Stars of Women’s Professional Soccer). We have lacrosse (Chicago Machine of Major League Lacrosse), more hockey (Chicago Wolves of the American Hockey League), indoor football (Chicago Slaughter) and even women’s roller derby (the Windy City Rollers). There’s also minor league and independent league baseball in the Chicagoland area.
Many sports teams and leagues have come and gone in recent years, including the Chicago Storm soccer and Chicago Shamrox lacrosse teams. The Chicago Rush of the Arena Football League was out for the 2009 season, but the AFL is trying to return in 2010.
With that as a backdrop, the UFL and LFL hope to make a go of it.
The United Football League plans to begin its premiere season in October and conclude with a championship game in Las Vegas over Thanksgiving weekend.
The Lingerie Football League kicks off Sept. 4 at the Sears Center in Hoffman Estates, Ill., with the Chicago Bliss vs. Miami Caliente.

In the current economic climate, they'll need a lot of luck.