Friday, April 22, 2011

Six Teams in 2011?

According to the Las Vegas Review Journal, the UFL is still considering adding a 6th team for the 2001 season.


The UFL is undecided on whether to add a sixth team, with Portland, Ore., Salt Lake City and Chattanooga, Tenn., under consideration. If a sixth team is added, the schedule will expand to 10 games. If the UFL remains a five-team league -- Las Vegas, Sacramento, Omaha, Hartford and Virginia (replacing Florida) -- the eight-game schedule will continue.
"We're still talking to possible investors," Huyghue said. "We think we could get that sixth team up and running fairly quickly."

I find it hard to believe that the league could still be thinking of adding another team, but if a TV contract is riding on the line, there may not be much of a choice. The question is, what quality of play would we get from a hastily-added expansion team, only four months from the proposed kickoff date?

The one thing that I can say in favor of this is that the staff in Hartford is being assembled with amazing speed. Jerry Glanville was only hired last month but news about position coaches and coordinators arrives every other day.

But Hartford already had a tentative roster, uniforms, a stadium and so forth. A new team will not only have to contend with finding coaches and player personnel, but finding a venue, new uniforms, sponsors, etc. A tremendous task to go through in only a few months. I'll be thrilled if it happens, but color me skeptical about our odds of seeing, say, the Chattanooga Barracudas, the Portland Octopi or the Salt Lake Monsters.

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