Locos remain part of league’s future

Despite being part of a venture that will lose at least $30 million this year, the Locomotives will be back at Sam Boyd Stadium in 2010 as part of an expanded and revamped United Football League.

The Locos, who finished the UFL's inaugural regular season 4-2 and earned a spot in Friday's inaugural UFL Championship Game against regular-season champion Florida, led the league in attendance with a 13,225 average, according to figures supplied by the UFL.

"Las Vegas was the poster child for what this league wants to be," UFL commissioner Michael Huyghue said Wednesday at the league's media day at Sam Boyd. "We've had great support from the fans."

Huyghue said the UFL will play next year, beginning in September. Six teams will play 10-game schedules, with the title game set for Thanksgiving weekend. This year's season began Oct. 8 with the four teams playing six games each.

It's unlikely all "Original Four" teams will be back in 2010. Huyghue said the league wants to play in non-NFL markets as it attempts to gain a foothold in the American pro sports landscape. But after New York and San Francisco failed dismally at the turnstiles trying to lure fans from the four NFL teams in those two cities (the Sentinels averaged 6,637 for three games, the Redwoods 5,836), he said both franchises likely will relocate for 2010, with New York moving to Hartford, Conn., and San Francisco probably heading to Sacramento, Calif.

"It makes more sense to play there and not go head-to-head with the NFL," Huyghue said. "We thought we might be able to carve out a niche in those two areas as an alternative to the NFL, but it didn't work out."

As for expansion, Huyghue said he hopes to announce the two new additions before the end of the year. He said the UFL will have a presence in Texas in 2010, either in Austin or San Antonio. The other new franchise would come from Salt Lake City, Omaha, Neb., or Portland, Ore. Huyghue said with the growing interest in the NFL returning to Los Angeles, the UFL has decided to put plans for an L.A. franchise on hold until at least 2011.

Whether there will be a league by then remains to be seen. Huyghue said the UFL will lose at least $30 million this season, perhaps more, in what he called the league's "dress rehearsal."

"We were prepared for that," he said of the eight-figure losses. "The plan is through better marketing, higher attendance, more corporate sponsors and improved television ratings that we'll cut our losses in half next year and hopefully break even in Year Three."

Meanwhile, the Locos and Tuskers had a serene media day. No TV reporters in wedding gowns proposed marriage to quarterbacks J.P. Losman or Brooks Bollinger. No one asked Las Vegas cornerback Wale Dada or Florida running back Michael Pittman if they were a tree, what kind of tree would they be. A Super Bowl buildup it was not.

Still, Locos coach Jim Fassel, who coached the New York Giants in Super Bowl XXXV in 2001, said anytime you're playing for a championship, it's an exciting thing.

"I told our guys whatever money they make from this game, which isn't much (each member of the winning side gets $5,000, the losers $2,500 each), that'll be gone in less than a year," Fassel said. "But if you win and you have that ring, you've made history, and no one can take that away from you."

Contact reporter Steve Carp at scarp@reviewjournal.com or 702-387-2913.