UFL officials are "determined to stay in business for a fourth season" in ’12 despite "mounting losses," according to Steve Carp of the LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL. To do so “will require new teams, new investors, a new television deal and smarter business decisions, all of which will need to be done soon.” UFL Commissioner Michael Huyghue Friday before the Las Vegas Locomotives-Virginia Destroyers Championship game said, “We're looking at making a decision sometime in January. A lot depends on expansion. We are looking at eight (teams) for 2012." UFL Founder and Locomotives Owner Bill Hambrecht said that he will “settle for six, provided all are on solid fiscal ground.” Hambrecht: “We definitely can't continue the way we're currently constructed. If we're going to be taken seriously, we have to have more than four teams. Eight would be a good number, but we can get by with six." Hambrecht Friday said that “unless new investors are found and more corporate sponsorships secured, staying in Las Vegas will be difficult” for the Locomotives. Huyghue said that the UFL “cut its losses from $50 million in 2010 to approximately $20 million this season.” Hambrecht added, “Now, we're starting fresh. We're looking at expanding the league. We're looking at getting a TV deal that's realistic and brings in revenue. We've been able to maintain a good, quality product on the field. Three of the four current franchises have good support. I'm still very optimistic this is going to work." Destroyers Owner Bill Mayer “shares Hambrecht's optimism.” Mayer: “This can succeed. It's really not that complicated. But we had to repair what we did, and that's what this year was about” (LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL, 10/23).
EXPANSION TALKS: Huyghue said, “We would not have played this year if we thought it would be the last year. This season was really about teeing it up for 2012 and 2013.” Mayer added that the UFL “lost more than $1 million per game played this season, so shortening the season saved about” $3.5M. In N.Y., Mike Tanier notes in ’10 the league “lost more than $45 million” and ended the year with $6M “in debts, including tens of thousands of dollars in unpaid salaries and bonuses to players and employees.” Costs have been “brought under control, and markets like Virginia and Omaha have proven to be supportive,” leading UFL execs to believe that the league is "making progress." The league is “talking about expansion” to possible cities such as Chattanooga, Tenn.; Wichita, Kan.; Des Moines, Iowa; and Jackson, Miss. New markets “would not only increase schedules and make broadcast rights more attractive, but would [bring] new owners with a fresh influx of capital” (N.Y. TIMES, 10/23).
FUTURE NOT PROMISED: In Virginia, Bob Molinaro noted despite Friday night’s championship game at the Virginia Beach Sportsplex, which had a “standing-room-only crowd of 14,172," very little "is known about the UFL -- and much of that unfavorable.” It is “almost possible to overlook the drip, drip, drip of rumors, reports and disappointments highlighting UFL dysfunction.” But “league rhetoric aside, a UFL future is not promised Hampton Roads any more than the last two game checks were guaranteed the players.” Minor-league football “has been tried before, and always with the same result, so in addition to its economic challenges, it’s not as if the UFL has history on its side” (Hampton Roads DAILY PRESS, 10/22). In Omaha, Steven Pivovar noted Sacramento Mountain Lions Owner Paul Pelosi, “one of the three principal investors in the league,” said that he “believes the UFL has an '80-20 chance’ to come back in 2012 for its fourth season” (Omaha WORLD-HERALD, 10/22).
