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UFL needs a new game plan for team names
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It's going to be hard for the UFL to get great fan support, but it'll be even harder if the league goes ahead with some of the ideas floated out by Frank Vuono, the league's Chief Operating Officer in a recent email to UFLAccess.com.
In part of his email, Vuono stated, "We may go so far as to have corporate identity on our uniforms and/or equipment, and further still, we would consider the ultimate vertical model of having our team name incorporate the sponsors name (i.e., The Red Bull MLS team)."
There's no problem with corporate sponsorship on team uniforms, but to have a league filled with teams that are nothing more than sponsor names doesn't work. For example, what happens when the sponsor goes out of business or no longer wants the deal? Does the team name change like stadium names around the country have changed too often to name?
Vuono also added "We may not have actual team names this season. Teams could play under the banner UFL East, West, North and South, for instance. Our team names will ultimately be carefully selected (hopefully picked by a fan on our website) to reflect the areas within which our teams will compete."
Allowing fans to vote on team names on the league's Web site is a great idea, but if the ones the fans vote for aren't the ones that eventually are used, what was the purpose of telling fans they can vote for team names?
What kind of marketing efforts to sell merchandise will be used to get people to purchase a jersey for team UFL South? And why would someone spend money on that if the team name wouldn't be the same the following season?
There are definitely aspects of the UFL that make one think the league can succeed -- the talent level should be very good and a TV deal is rumored to be close to done. However, fans won't latch on to teams named after directions on a compass or those that simply have sponsors as names.
Yes, the New York MLS franchise (which plays all its home games in New Jersey) does have a sponsor as a team name, but is the MLS model really one to follow? David Beckham, the league's savior, has been looking to bend it somewhere else after just two years in the U.S.
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