The Unseen Football League

Look, UFL. I went to your and inaugural game last night at Sam Boyd Stadium and gave you a chance. Really I did. But if you want to successfully put the "U" (that's me) in UFL, then heed what I'm about to tell you.

1. You need to market your league better. I live in Las Vegas. I watch sports on Las Vegas TV. But if it hadn't been for (a) CK mentioning the "new football league with a team in Las Vegas" to me, and (b) me finding a pair of promotional tickets to your inaugural game laying unclaimed on a table in the Red Rock Casino sports book during last Sunday's Jets game, I never would have known about the UFL, the Las Vegas Locomotives or the fact that a semi-professional football game was being played last night about 25 miles from my home.

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that I'm your target demographic -- male, 18-35 years old, sports aficianado, lover of football and Asian women, and with no way to actually see anything remotely resembling a professional-quality football game. If you can't find a way to reach me, your target demographic, your league is doomed no matter how great it is.

[Also -- if you're going to give away tickets to your game, try to give them to your target demographic, instead of people who will laugh and then leave them laying unclaimed on a table in the Red Rock Casino sports book.]

2. You need to establish team identities. This is kind of an offshoot of point #1. I get that someone in your league front office thought it would be cute and show league unity if the team logos and the colors of the uniforms in your four-team league all shared elements of the league logo. But when I watch a game (either in-person or on television), I don't want to have to strain to figure out which team is which. And if it's confusing for me watching, I can't imagine what it's like for poor maligned J.P. Losman trying to throw the ball. At least he'll have an honest excuse this time around when he throws it to the wrong team.

Team identity is crucial to building a fanbase. If all of the teams look and feel interchangeable, nobody will give a rat's ass about any of them.

3. Don't lie to the fans. You should assume that even the average fan is able to put two and two together. If you announce the crowd at 15,000 when everyone can see it's probably closer to 8,000, and then add that all seats for next week's game are $10, we're going to do the math and realize that you're already hitting the PANIC button.

4. Don't schedule against behemoths. You're already in the position of trying to capture a small slice of the sporting public. Don't further handicap yourself by: (a) scheduling your inaugural game against the MLB playoffs or (b) scheduling your championship game for noon PT on the Friday after Thanksgiving. I can assure you that nobody will be watching either game.

Those are just some friendly tips to get you started. It's up to you, UFL, where you go from here. Hopefully you've already learned your lesson from the NFL about parity. I'd hate to see all four teams in your four-team league finish the first season with identical 3-3 records.