Though the UFL is short on teams and will involve only a six-game regular season, the upstart pro football league will be killing plenty of trees.
We’ve obtained a copy of the UFL’s “Standard Player Contract.” It’s a 25-page document, a length that becomes even more impressive when considering that none of the terms are negotiable.
Among other things, the document (and the memo to players and agents that we obtained on Wednesday) contains an “NFL Exemption,” which contemplates that players will have an opportunity to return to the NFL after November 28, 2009, the completion of the UFL season.
And players will be permitted to commence negotiations with NFL teams after November 1, but they are prohibited from participating in any try out or workouts or other activities until after November 28.
The contract also sets forth an extensive laundry list of prohibited activities, including: "(i) parachuting, sky-diving, hang gliding, snow skiing, snowboarding, water skiing, rock or mountain climbing (as distinguished from hiking), mountain biking (as distinguished from bicycling on a bicycle path or road or other regular surface), rappelling, and bungee jumping; (ii) any contact martial arts, fencing, fighting, boxing, or wrestling; (iii) auto racing, or driving or riding on a motorcycle, all terrain vehicle, or moped; (iv) riding in or on any motorized vehicle in any kind of race or racing contest; (v) piloting an aircraft, being a passenger in a single engine airplane or private plane with an unlicensed pilot, hot air ballooning, horseback riding, horse racing, harness racing, snowmobiling, bobsledding, luging, ice hockey, ice boating, skateboarding, any ‘extreme’ sport, ice skating or figure skating, spelunking, white water canoeing or rafting, kayaking, jai-alai, bicycle racing, motor boat racing, polo, water polo, rugby, rodeo, surfing, hunting, boating, any weightlifting not prescribed by or approved in advance by Club, participation in any ‘Superteams’ or ‘Superstars’ or ‘Strongest Man’ activities (or any similar activity) or other athletic competitions that are filmed or broadcast in whole or in part on television or for which any admission is charged to persons who attend, or other sport, activity or grossly negligent act involving a reasonably foreseeable substantial risk of personal injury or death.”
The document also has a section regarding the integrity of the game, which expressly prohibits players from taking bribes to throw games or shave points.
It’s a good thing that they’re spelling this out; it prevents anyone from trying out the time-honored George Costanza excuse: “Was that wrong? Should I not have done that? I tell you, I gotta plead ignorance on this thing, because if anyone had said anything to me at all when I first started here that that sort of thing is frowned upon . . . you know, because I’ve worked in a lot of offices. And, I tell you, people do that all the time.”
