United Football League

The United Football League (UFL) is a professional football league having its "Premiere" season, featuring four teams, in the fall of 2009. The UFL will play its games on Thursdays and Friday nights beginning in October with a championship game on Thanksgiving weekend.

The Florida Tuskers ended the first season undefeated but lost to the Las Vegas Locos in the first ever UFL Championship game.

While the League hopes to become the unofficial Minor League system of the NFL it is a fine league in of itself. Heading into year two they have moved their teams out of markets with a heavy NFL presence and selected markets that have little or no NFL presence.

The New York Sentinels have moved from New York City to Hartford, Conn. And be renamed the Hartford Colonials. The California Redwoods have moved from the San Francisco Bay area to Sacramento and been renamed the Sacramento Mountain Lions.

The UFL also added an expansion team for its second season the Omaha Nighthawks. http://www.inquisitr.com/71582/ufl-to-five-teams-in-year-two/

This league is also moving from a single entity business plan where the league office operates the teams, to a more traditional set up where the five teams operate somewhat independently of each other. In season two each team will have its own General Manager, and front office staff.

This league will conduct a player draft on July 2, 2010.

• California Redwoods

• Florida Tuskers

• Las Vegas Locomotives

• New York Sentinels

• Las Vegas Locos

• Florida Tuskers

• Sacramento Mountain Lions formerly California Redwoods

• Hartford Colonials formerly New York Sentinels

• Omaha Nighthawks expansion team

The United Football League was organized by Wall Street investor William Hambrecht and Google executive Tim Armstrong. Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban also expressed his interest in owning a team in the new league. According to Cuban, the league will fill its team rosters with players from the National Football League which include players selected late in the NFL Draft, undrafted free agents and released players. The league was founded in 2007 and expected to held its inaugural games in August 2008, but the opening was pushed back one year to October 2009.