Unlike most alternative professional football leagues since the 1980s, the UFL played all of its games in the traditional fall season, competing directly with the NFL, college football, and high school football.
The UFL occupied the second tier of professional football in the United States, behind the National Football League. The UFL primarily consisted of players who had previously played for an NFL team. Although the league had no connection with the NFL, and had never intended to foster any such connection, some speculated that it could have become a minor or "developmental" league for the NFL, including the UFL's own commissioner.
Early news reports had speculated that based on the UFL's initial plan the league would become a "competitor" to the NFL. The UFL seemed poised to capitalize on fan disgust with the NFL should the established league lock out its players prior to the 2011−12 season. The thought was that the NFL would fail to reach an agreement with the NFL players' union after the end of their collective bargaining agreement. This would have led to the 2011−12 NFL season being delayed or cancelled, leaving the UFL the only pro football available. The NFL did lock out their players, but the situation was resolved in July 2011, before the start of the NFL season. This negated any benefits the UFL might have hoped to reap from the labor dispute.
The league was beset by frequent operational interruptions, stemming from systemic financial shortfalls, especially from summer 2011 onward. The United Football League announced on October 20, 2012, that it was ceasing operations immediately, after four weeks of play. The official line from the league was that they intended to resume operations and complete the unfinished 2012 schedule at an unspecified time in spring 2013, then revert to a fall schedule in fall 2013 without a full off-season. This announcement, however, was met with widespread skepticism from both within and outside the league, skepticism that was proven to be warranted as the league never returned.
Over the course of the league's history, the Las Vegas Locomotives were the most successful team, winning two of the three championships, appearing in (but losing) the third, and having a perfect record for the season at the time of the cessation of operations.
The United Football League was founded by Bill Hambrecht and Tim Armstrong. The UFL initially had plans to start with eight teams with $12–20 million rosters playing in targeted sites in the fall of 2008. T. Boone Pickens and Mark Cuban had originally been in discussion with the league as potential owners, but both backed out prior to the 2009 season. On February 9, 2009, it was announced that Paul Pelosi, husband of Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, was one of four investors who had stepped forward to invest $10,000,000, plus a personal commitment to cover opening-season losses up to another $10,000,000 for a one-half interest in four franchises to play in the league's 2009 inaugural season. The league was under the overall direction of William Hambrecht, a former Wall Street figure who had sold his old firm, Hambrecht & Quist, to what was then Chase Manhattan Bank for US$1.35 billion in 1999.
Michael Huyghue, a former executive with the Jacksonville Jaguars and the head of a sports agency service, was the league's first and only commissioner.
The league had identified 21 cities that they deemed possessed strong economic bases, passionate football tradition, and a high number of average TV viewing households as potential team locations. Target markets in the US included: Austin, Birmingham, Columbus, Hartford, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Louisville, Memphis, Milwaukee, New York City, Oklahoma City, Orlando, Portland, Raleigh-Durham, Sacramento, Salt Lake City, San Antonio, and San Jose; as well as international markets in London, Mexico City and Monterrey.
With their planned launch date arriving soon and only a couple owners in hand, the UFL decided to go ahead and do a "soft launch" in 2009, similar to the one used by the Arena Football League in its inaugural season in 1987,[19] rather than delaying play another year. The soft launch called for opening the league with fewer teams than planned and playing an abbreviated schedule. They hoped a functioning league would yield the UFL a superior position for attracting potential owners over competing leagues still under development (like the New USFL, which at the time was trumpeting a spring 2010 launch).
During the week of August 10, 2009, the four team names and their uniform jerseys were revealed. Each of the uniforms (and the team logos and helmets that were unveiled on October 2) incorporated the UFL's signature color scheme into their designs, including silver (primary color for the Las Vegas Locomotives), blue (Florida Tuskers), black (New York Sentinels), and lime green and white (California Redwoods). Each of the team jerseys had the same design template, complete with a horizontal arc across the top front that resembles the arc on the UFL's logo.
One of the Redwoods' games was moved to San Jose; the other two were played in San Francisco (the move to San Jose was a short-notice move due to poor attendance in San Francisco; however, the San Jose game ended up being even more poorly attended). The league was unable to secure a fiscally reasonable deal for a stadium within New York City, forcing the league to have the Sentinels play one home game each in Hartford, Connecticut; on the campus of Hofstra University in Long Island, and in New Jersey. In addition, one of the Tuskers' games was played at Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg, Florida, in part because the Tuskers shared ownership that year with the Tampa Bay Rays; this was not reprised in 2010.
The Florida Tuskers finished 2009 with a 6–0 record. The Las Vegas Locomotives were next at 4–2, the California Redwoods were 2–4, and the Sentinels were last at 0–6. The Locomotives played the Tuskers in the 2009 UFL Championship Game; the Locomotives won the title on a field goal in overtime.
Before the 2010 season, the New York Sentinels permanently settled in Hartford, Connecticut, becoming the Hartford Colonials. The new name was chosen by fans through an online vote. The California Redwoods relocated to Sacramento, California, and chose the name Mountain Lions, also from a fan vote. In another change for the 2010 season, each UFL team would gain their own uniform color identity, loosening them from the standard league colors.
For 2010, the league indicated that five markets were under consideration for expansion teams: Omaha, Nebraska; San Antonio or Austin, Texas; Portland, Oregon; and Salt Lake City. On April 15, 2010.
Mark Cuban, who was mentioned as a potential franchise owner in the league's formative stages, loaned the league $5 million in April 2010. He did not own a franchise and he was not involved in day-to-day operations of the league nor of any of its teams. In January 2011, Cuban, the owner of the Dallas Mavericks and majority owner of HDNet (now AXS TV), a cable channel and Web-streaming service which had broadcast some games of the league's inaugural two seasons, filed a federal lawsuit against the UFL for their failure to repay the loan by the October 6, 2010, deadline.
For the 2011 season, the UFL announced the addition of a franchise in the Hampton Roads (Norfolk metro area) region of Virginia, originally owned by former CFL owner Jim Speros and managed by former NFL and USFL quarterback Doug Williams. Soon after Speros' ownership was announced, he relinquished control of the team to the league and allowed bidding to be opened again. Williams later joined his alma mater Grambling State University as their head coach, resigning as Destroyers' general manager.
The UFL announced former TD Ameritrade CEO Joe Moglia as the first head coach and president of the Destroyers in November 2010;[30] however, in January 2011, the league announced Moglia would instead coach the Omaha Nighthawks. At the same time, the Florida Tuskers ceased operations in Orlando and moved to Virginia, with Jay Gruden initially remaining as the Destroyers' coach; however, Gruden was hired the next month by the Cincinnati Bengals of the NFL.
For possible 2011 expansion, all cities that were in consideration for 2010 (Portland, San Antonio, Austin, and Salt Lake City) remained in consideration, as well as Raleigh, North Carolina; Los Angeles; and Honolulu. In regards to future expansion, Huyghue has said that they "may never have more than eight teams" depending on the league's economic situation.
The league announced it would expand into the Hampton Roads region of Virginia prior to the start of the 2011 season, giving the Virginia Destroyers time to organize. During UFL Championship Week 2010, the league announced it had a seventh franchise in place, with Huyghue indicating that it would most likely be in Los Angeles, and that the team would not be officially announced until an eighth franchise was confirmed. As events would turn out, neither franchise would materialize.
The league suffered a setback when they had to fold the Florida Tuskers in January 2011. The league moved most of the Tuskers' staff to the Destroyers and reassigned the coaching staff already in Virginia to Omaha, firing the previous Omaha coaching staff. After this, the league reduced their goal to six teams, with Portland, Oregon; Salt Lake City; and new contender Chattanooga, Tennessee, still in consideration, and Los Angeles no longer in consideration for the third consecutive year. If a sixth team had been added, the schedule for each team would have expanded to ten games.
The schedule for the 2011 UFL season, released June 9, 2011, confirmed that the league would be locked at five teams for the season, with no expansion. The 2011 season was to shift from a traditional late fall schedule to a late summer/early fall schedule beginning in August 2011 and ending in October; however, in July 2011, the UFL announced it would delay the start of its season until mid-September due to financial issues. The league was in negotiations with CBS and TNT for coverage after Versus dropped the UFL as part of its rebranding to NBC Sports Network, but was unable to get any, and the league also lost its existing television partners. After this postponement, the league confirmed it was considering even further contraction, with the Hartford Colonials potentially on the chopping block. On August 10, 2011, the UFL announced that it would "suspend operations" of the Colonials and go forward with a four-team league.
Jerry Glanville, a UFL consultant who had previously been announced as the new head coach of the now-suspended Colonials, began a listening tour of Chattanooga, Salt Lake City and Jackson, Mississippi, in October 2011 to gauge support for UFL expansion franchises. He has stated that of the three, at least "one has a UFL team and one may get a UFL team."
On October 16, 2011, immediately after each team's fourth game, numerous reports indicated that the remainder of the 2011 season had been cancelled and that the 2011 UFL Championship Game between Las Vegas and Virginia would be moved up to the date of Virginia's last home game, which would have taken place against Omaha on October 21. This is in fact what happened; in addition to the championship game between Virginia and Las Vegas, the season concluded with a third-place game (on the same day) in Omaha between the other two teams, the first such game in outdoor professional gridiron football since the demise of the NFL's old third-place game, the Playoff Bowl, which was last contested in January 1970 following the 1969 season.
Despite the difficulties of 2011, UFL officials were on record as wanting to move ahead on future plans for the league. An April 2012 Las Vegas Review-Journal report indicated that the UFL would announce plans on May 1 to field a five-team league for the 2012 season, including the four 2011 teams plus a fifth expansion team. (The Review-Journal report mentioned San Antonio, Southern California, and Portland, Oregon, were expansion candidates.) The report also indicated that the UFL was arranging a broadcast TV deal with CBS Sports Network (a deal the league had desperately sought) to go along with regional supplemental coverage. However, May 1 came and went without any official announcement by the UFL on their future plans. The league had previously entertained input on the possibility of moving from a fall schedule to the spring.
Michael Huyghue, the UFL's original commissioner, resigned from the position on January 31, 2012, citing in part the league's severe financial problems and philosophical differences with the league's owners on how to move forward. Instead, the league dispensed, at least for the time being, with a central office and owners Bill Hambrecht (Las Vegas) and Bill Mayer (Virginia) oversee the league's business operations, while Locos' coach/president Jim Fassel oversees football operations. Before the fourth season starts, a rebuilding and restocking of personnel will need to take place. To conserve much-needed funds the Virginia Destroyers relocated to much smaller office space by February 2012. The league remained silent throughout winter, spring and early summer 2012, raising fears that the league had quietly folded, in the same way the proposed All American Football League, without ever actually taking the field, had done in 2010 after repeated delays of its announced inaugural schedule. However, on July 26, 2012, news broke that the UFL would indeed play a fourth season in 2012. Terms had not been finalized, but initial plans called for four teams playing an eight-game schedule (which would require an unbalanced schedule) on Wednesdays and Fridays beginning September 19, 2012. The league did reach a deal to have their games broadcast on CBS sports. On the league's official website on August 1, 2012, an official schedule for 2012, with the September 19 starting date and each team playing an unbalanced, eight-game schedule was posted, matching the earlier speculation. As of that time, final postseason plans remained undecided; the date for the championship game, Friday, November 16, was set, although the location was not. Also left unanswered was the question of whether last season's unusual third-place game would be repeated. On September 6, a revised UFL schedule for 2012 was posted on the Omaha Nighthawks website showing the season rescheduled to begin on Friday, September 28, and end on Saturday, December 1, along with the claim that CBS Sports Network was in full concordance with this revision.
All teams but Sacramento used the same home stadiums as in 2011; the Mountain Lions moved to the Triple-A baseball stadium (Raley Field) of the Sacramento franchise of the Pacific Coast League, the Sacramento River Cats. In addition, the Las Vegas Locomotives also negotiated backup plans with Cashman Field in Las Vegas, although the team was able to play its first two home games at Sam Boyd Stadium.
On October 20, 2012, after four weeks, continued financial shortfalls, an uncertain stadium situation in Las Vegas, and dramatically reduced attendances across all four markets, the UFL ceased operations for the remainder of the 2012 season. According to head of public relations Larry Weismann, the league intended on resuming the canceled schedule some time in spring 2013, with those games counting toward the 2012 season standings, then come back yet again for the next season in fall 2013.
By spring 2013, 78 players from the 2012 season, two head coaches from 2011 and four assistant coaches from the 2012 season had sued the league ownership for failure to pay their salaries. The Destroyers' business license expired on March 1, 2013, and that team's remaining offices were closed before that date. On March 28, 2013, a report in The Wall Street Journal noted that both the spring 2013 resumption and the fall 2013 season were canceled, and that if the league were to return, it would not have been until spring 2014 at the earliest.
As of 2016, all of the remaining non-liquid assets of the league sit in a warehouse in Jacksonville, Florida, with an estimated value of $100,000. The ownership lost or settled most of the lawsuits against them in 2014. The league still owes approximately $1,000,000 to the estate of Dennis Green; under a court ruling, the league itself is liable for Green's salary, as the owners had not personally guaranteed it. Hambrecht has also allegedly not paid the 78 players who sued him for back pay, even as the players won a $2.4 million judgment against Hambrecht. Frank Vuono, an executive with the UFL in its early existence, stated that Hambrecht had simply stopped paying the league's bills.
The UFL abandoned its trademarks by 2017, when Vince McMahon filed a trademark on the United Football League name. In 2018, he instead announced a new XFL, a brand used by McMahon's defunct football league that played one season in 2001; the new XFL began play in 2020 but went on a two-season hiatus due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
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