UFL UNVEILS LOGO, LAUNCHES WEB SITE

The UFL, a new American pro football league that plans to begin its first season in August 2009, unveiled on Monday its official logo, and launched its official web site. The league is still looking for owners of six teams that have yet to be given geographical homes, even as the league invites fans to submit suggestions to name the teams. Per SportsBusiness Journal, owners must commit to investing $30 million to $60 million into their franchises. The teams will have annual salary caps of $20 million, and salary floors of $12 million. Per a press release issued by the league, three teams will be situated on the West Coast, and three will be headquartered on the East Coast. Games will be played on Thursday and Friday nights. The release identifies the following cities as potential locations for teams: Hartford, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Monterrey (Mexico), New York, Orlando, Salt Lake City, and San Francisco. An announcement could soon be coming regarding a cable television partnership, which will result in the national broadcast of one game per week. We’re still not quite sure what to make of the UFL, but we’re keeping an open mind. We have long believed that the NFL needs a minor-league system with games during the traditional football season and a pipeline for calling up game-ready players. There are too many quality college football players who get left in the cold as the sport narrows from 120-plus Division I programs to 32 NFL teams; for some of these guys, live reps in real game situations could allow them to blossom into great players. The UFL could become that minor-league system -- assuming that the UFL doesn’t try to antagonize the NFL, and that the NFL concludes that a real benefit could be derived from cultivating a lower level of the sport in which young players can continue to develop their football skills. If the UFL puts any of its six teams in cities that currently host an NFL franchise, the front end of that equation will fail miserably.