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UFL relocating four teams?

Houston should've stuck with the Gamblers, although it would've made absolutely no difference. You could've put them at NRG, gave away the tickets, w/a free hot dog and a Coke included, and it still wouldn't have made any difference. The 500 or so fans would have just been less sweaty and burping Coke.

Memo to the next genius who thinks a football team, not a part of the NFL, can make it in Houston, Texas: Don't do it. It has never worked, and never will. Houston is too much of a fair weather sports town.

It's for the same reason that I don't expect the Arlington/Dallas/Metroplex Renegades are much longer for the world, either. If it ain't the Cowboys up here, it just ain't.
 
I'm disappointed the Panthers will be moving. Despite increased attendance and a really good performance by the team on the field this season, it looks like the team will be leaving Detroit. I wish they had been able to bring another title (I say another referring to the 1983 Michigan Panthers title from the original USFL) while they were here, but it didn't happen. I don't see spring football coming back to Detroit. I hope these realignments enable the league to survive.

The Panthers did give the Lions Jake Bates, so that will be a legacy that remains.
 
CTListener said:
It's only the executives at the TV networks and the sports betting operations who think we need professional spring football at all.
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Professional baseball has winter leagues that give marginal players additional game experience. The NBA has its summer league for player development and evaluation. Why can’t football have a spring league for the same reasons?
rosecitymedia said:
That's what college ball once was, and should still be now.
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College football provides entry level players for the NFL, but the league doesn’t have any avenues of its own for marginal players to develop their skills unless you are on the practice squad, which doesn’t give you any real game experience.
Loverofradio said:
What about those who graduated who still love the game? Just last week I interviewed a 61-year old football player
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There are plenty of semi-pro leagues, some of which have been around for a long time. There are also developmental leagues such as the GDFL. However those players for the most part never had the talent, skills and ability to make it in the pros.

I won’t bother with indoor football, which has pretty much turned into a gong show.
 
Don CT said:
Who wants to watch that on TV. Good for him but honestly there is no entertainment in that.

The NFL rules football year round. Nobody cares about other leagues. They are fail.
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Exactly. But the networks need something to get them through the post-Super Bowl blahs. And the sports books need more weekend events to generate betting handle.
 
CTListener said:
Exactly. But the networks need something to get them through the post-Super Bowl blahs. And the sports books need more weekend events to generate betting handle.
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If nobody is watching does it matter. The networks are just wasting money.

You can bet on paint dry. Sports books don’t care.
 
umfan said:
I disagree. There should be a non-college path for talent.
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With how ever many colleges there are with football programs now paying their players, any HS player with any sign of talent should get a college offer. There are remedial college class where if you show up you get at least a C to keep you eligible. The instructor looks down at his list when he calls roll so who really knows who is taking the test*. Now with online class a student can get "help" from someone off camera when taking a test.

I really wish the colleges just make the football and basketball team players employees of the university and give up on the "college athlete" myth. Baseball has the "farm system", the NFL has college football.

*Please don't ask me how I know, I am not sure if the statue of limitations has ran out.
 
umfan said:
I disagree. There should be a non-college path for talent.
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There is, umfan. It's called college. Just have a gander at some of the bright lights a number of these schools are churning out. They simply get pushed through the academic process in order to maintain eligibility at game time. Listen to some of the interviews conducted during, or after, the game. Brutal.
 
Don CT said:
Who wants to watch that on TV. Good for him but honestly there is no entertainment in that.

The NFL rules football year round. Nobody cares about other leagues. They are fail.
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Ratings proved your point as all the Friday night games on Fox got around 600,000 viewers and the ESPN games even less this past season. The ABC games got a bit more around 900,000 or so.
 
Mediafrog+ said:
Professional baseball has winter leagues that give marginal players additional game experience. The NBA has its summer league for player development and evaluation. Why can’t football have a spring league for the same reasons?
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The difference is that the Arizona Fall league and NBA Summer league are intended for training and evaluating talent, not having large TV audiences. They are paid for by the MLB and NBA.

The UFL is basically the opposite those things. It's designed only for the TV audience, and you can count the UFL players who have become regulars in the NFL on one hand, two of them as kickers (Brandon Aubrey with DAL and Jake Bates for DET).
 
PTBoardOp93 said:
The difference is that the Arizona Fall league and NBA Summer league are intended for training and evaluating talent, not having large TV audiences. They are paid for by the MLB and NBA.
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I don’t disagree with that. I was just pushing back a little at the notion that certain sports should be confined to specific times of the year (although snow skiing and related outdoor activities would be an exception…🤣).
PTBoardOp93 said:
The UFL is basically the opposite those things. It's designed only for the TV audience
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The long running joke about the NFL is that it is purely a TV show with the stadium crowd serving as the “live studio audience”.)

I have the feeling that the UFL will play the 2026 season, the TV ratings will drop further, and the plug will be pulled after that.

The attendance numbers given by the UFL are greatly inflated. I went to several Roughnecks games here in Houston, and the crowd was much less than announced. At one game where they claimed ~6,200 I had done a hand count during one of the TV timeouts, and there were maybe 1,000 people actually there.
 
Ford Field looked like COVID year for Michigan Panthers games and high school football championship games a day after Thanksgiving on Fri & Sat. When watching Lions games always a packed house when there at home. I watched Panther games was hoping they win the UFL Championship about 6 weeks ago but didn't happen and stop watching when DC was all but won the game.
 


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