NFL rival to reveal West Coast football teams soon

By Ben Klayman

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - A planned competitor to the National Football League has identified the eight markets it would like to open with next year, and hopes to unveil some of its West Coast teams in the next month.

"I think we're going to have an announcement, probably next month, relative to the first three or four (teams) on the West Coast," United Football League Commissioner Michael Huyghue told Reuters on Thursday. "Once we do that, you'll know more about where we stand with respect to the rest of them."

The UFL, with initial funding from investment banker Bill Hambrecht and Google Inc executive Tim Armstrong, said in May 2007 it would begin play with eight teams in August 2008. However, it postponed the launch to 2009 to allow more time to attract owner-investors, negotiate a TV broadcast deal and build league branding, Huyghue said in an interview at the Sports Lawyers Association conference in San Francisco.

The UFL would be the latest in a series of leagues to compete with the NFL since the 1970s, including the World Football League, the United States Football League and most recently the XFL -- all of which failed.

Billionaire Mark Cuban, owner of the National Basketball Association's Dallas team, is among the owners, and Hambrecht, the San Francisco area-based founder of WR Hambrecht + Co, may join him, Huyghue said.

Huyghue, a former executive at several NFL teams, declined to reveal other owner names, but said "they're well known, very financially strong people who either have some (ownership) interest in soccer or football or baseball primarily."

He said each owner would put up at least $60 million initially, and they have been told to expect losses of $25 million to $30 million a year for the first three years. Profits would follow somewhere in the third to fifth years.

The league will run from August to just after Thanksgiving on Thursday and Friday nights. The plan is to begin with eight teams -- although it may start with six -- in markets not served by the NFL, such as Los Angeles and Las Vegas.