UFL STRIKES DEAL WITH COMCAST’S VERSUS

Despite some skepticism as to whether any of the UFL’s six-week slate of games involving four franchises would be televised in any format other than local public access, the fledging football league has struck a deal with VERSUS. The league announced on Monday the arrangement that will place one game per week on the cable network owned by Comcast, which coincidentally could soon be dumping NFL Network from its cable system. “The UFL’s business model is to align with companies who are willing to grow with us and embrace the UFL’s vision of innovation, accessibility, excitement and entertainment,” Commissioner Michael Huyghue said in a release. “As a national sports network with more than 75 million viewers, we felt there was no better network to showcase the UFL’s ‘Premiere’ season. The UFL is very excited about many of the enhancements our television broadcast will have during the season. Airing our events on VERSUS will allow us the opportunity to provide our at-home audience with a true inside look on game day.” “We are excited to be the television home of the UFL in its “Premiere” season,” VERSUS executive V.P. of programming, production and business operations Marc Fein said in the release. “The UFL has put together a great management team and sound plan and we are looking forward to the opportunity to expose these games to a national audience each week.” For its first season, the UFL will host teams in Las Vegas, New York, Orlando, and San Francisco. Some games will be played in Hartford and Los Angeles. A championship game will be played on Thanksgiving weekend in Las Vegas. (We’d again crack wise at this point that it’s good they picked Thanksgiving weekend because there’s not much other football to watch on television at that time, but the sarcasm was lost on a few readers the last time we made that observation.)