As the National Football League prepares to launch the 2007 season, stories
about dealmakers Bill Hambrecht (pictured at left) and Mark Cuban's United
Football League have surfaced again. The latest to report on the effort is
CNNmoney.com.
The UFL reportedly will compete with the NFL head-on during a future fall
season, but it expects all games to be on Friday night when the NFL is legally
prohibited from playing as part of an effort to protect high school football
games. In addition, the UFL expects to enter media markets where there are no
NFL franchises like Las Vegas, Los Angeles and Orlando, Fla.
Most analysis stories suggest that despite the failure of the USFL and more
recently the XFL, the UFL could succeed, especially in light of the growing
number of available cable channels. The key is to find potential owners
willing to accept losses in the short term — something XFL partners WWE and
NBC reportedly weren't willing to endure.
Interestingly, CNNmoney suggests the NFL's best weapon against the startup
isn't necessarily TV contracts or deep pockets, but Electronic Arts Inc.'s
Madden video game franchise. —Matthew Wurtzel
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story from CNNmoney
See
post from BloggingStocks
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earlier post
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