Football in L.A. - sort of

Welcome to the United Football League, the brainchild of stock underwriting maverick Bill Hambrecht and Google senior executive Tim Armstrong. They've plunked down $2 million each to get things going, and they have billionaire Mark Cuban down as the first franchise owner. Now all they must do is find seven other deep pockets, including one in L.A. (Eli? Ron? Kobe?). As explained by the NYT's Joe Nocera, each owner will put up $30 million, giving him an initial half-interest in the team; the league will own the other half. And each team will be selling shares to the public (Hambrecht had to have an underwriting scheme somewhere in this). One potential plus: the UFL would like a Friday night TV deal, when the NFL is dark.

Let’s now take a moment to consider what the U.F.L. will be up against: a monopolistic sports league utterly unafraid to take advantage of its monopoly power. Over the years, the N.F.L. has squashed four competitors, most recently the NBC- and World Wrestling Federation-backed XFL in 2001. Right now, Arena Football is an alternate league, but it’s a marginal thing, with negligible TV ratings and an average of 12,000 fans per game. And with eight players to a side, games in the N.F.L.’s off-season and a field that looks like a hockey rink, it’s not exactly “real” football.

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The N.F.L. doesn’t really have to worry about where its teams are located, since most games are televised and the bulk of the league’s revenues come from its network contracts. What’s more, with the right stadium deal and enough corporate sponsorship, team owners can make as much (or more) money in smaller cities as they can in larger ones. That’s why the N.F.L. does just fine despite not fielding a team in 21 of the country’s top 50 markets — including such enormous metropolitan areas as San Antonio, Las Vegas, Orlando and (of course) Los Angeles. Nor does the N.F.L., which now has 32 teams, have much incentive to expand. On the contrary: expansion dilutes the TV money. (Greg Aiello, the N.F.L.’s spokesman, told me that “expansion isn’t on the table right now.”)

That's just in case anyone was still thinking about the NFL in L.A.