Bill Hambrecht is looking for a few good billionaires. His goal: to start a football league, the UFL, to rival the NFL. They would put teams in major markets that lack an NFL franchise such as Los Angeles, Las Vegas, San Antonio, and Mexico City. (The NFL currently has teams in 29 of the top 50 television markets in the United States) They would play games on Fridays; the NFL doesn't play on Fridays because of the arrangement they have with southern Congress people as part of their antitrust exemption. High school football is traditionally played on Friday nights. But here's the kicker: they plan to play in the fall.
The USFL, WFL, and XFL have all gone against the NFL and failed. The WFL and XFL both started out very strong but lacked staying power once the curiosity wore off. The USFL gained a foothold but then made the mistake of taking on the NFL head-to-head by moving their games from the spring to the fall and going after their antitrust exemption. The gamble failed; no network would risk offending the NFL by televising USFL games so the league became radioactive. The moral: football hasn't yet reached its saturation point in the United States, just focus on the NFL's offseason and don't rely on gimmicks.
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