This may be your last chance to see this:
The UFL’s California Redwoods are headed up I-80 to Sacramento, where they’ll play at Sac State’s Hornet Stadium and undergo a name change as well. As part of the deal, the team is footing the bill for a new playing surface, perhaps a new Field Turf or next gen Astroturf. Will the new nickname have something to do with the river (a la River Cats), or the oft-used gold miner theme? Dry your tears, people, there’s plenty of other football in the Bay Area.
Follow-up: Apparently there’s rumor going around about the NFL being interested in buying a major stake in the UFL. If true, ~$50 million is relative chump change for a league that could effectively replace the defunct NFL Europe as a feeder/development league, with owners in tow. Now that’s a lot more than the $6.1 million shelled out to buy the assets of the AFL in a bankruptcy sale, but it’ll take much more to its successor, AF1, up and running again.
newballpark.org 
Who?
Seriously though, did anyone here bother to go see any of this roving team’s games last fall? I mean they’d already made it clear at the end of last season they were moving from SF to SJ. Guess they changed their mind on the ultimate destination. No one in SF or SJ will notice.
or Sacramento, nobody cares
Hi. I went to one game in each city. I rather enjoyed it, as did everyone I went with.
The move to Sacramento is a good one. I wonder if they considered playing in the new football stadium at UC Davis as well. I have yet to catch a game at UC Davis, though the last time I went to Hornet Stadium it was not a very impressive place.
I wonder if they might start putting teams in more triple a baseball/mid sized TV markets, like Oklahoma City, Albuquerque, San Antonio, etc.
Well they’ve already moved the NY team to Hartford, CT. And the other two teams are in cities that currently lack pro football teams. I think that’s their strategy, GTFO of cities where there is any competition.
Speaking of Arena Football…anyone heard about this?
http://www.sanjosewolves.com/
Opening game for the new Arena Football team is Saturday at the Cow Palace. Apparently, they play in something called the AIFA. I hadn’t head a thing about this, until I did a Ticketmaster search for random events the next 7 days.
How are these prices sustainable, for a unknown/third-tier product at an out-of-the-way facility?
http://www.sanjosewolves.com/news/season-tickets-now-on-sale.html
How odd that the San Jose Wolves will play in San Francisco (basically).
I saw a commercial for the team today.
San Francisco Dragons played in SJ their final season. And the San Francisco 49ers may soon be in SC… it’s not unheard of around here. It frankly has always amazed me how unified and at the same time divided the bay area is between the 3 big cities.
It seems normal to have a team play in San Jose or Oakland and go by “San Francisco.” It is kind of backwards for the opposite.
That’s slowly changing as people realize the “center” of the Bay Area is shifting southward.
Absolutely. They should change the team name to the “San Jose Giants of San Francisco.” 🙂
San Francisco Giants of San Jose
I just love how the cow palace keeps on truckin’. Gun shows, quilt shows, arena ball, concerts, whatever. Kind of like that older “working girl” that still has a few pieces left. Bless her heart.
You’d think that the Cow Palace could undercut the other venues on rental fees for concerts if they really wanted to and host more of those. Good to see it’s getting a regular tenant (for at least one year).
For people that love football, these leagues are a god send, especially if you don’t have a ton of disposable income to spend on NFL tickets. I was a season ticket holder for the SF Demons XFL team. We had a blast at every game and for $25 a ticket, its hard to beat. Especially in this area, why pay $80 per ticket to see a losing NFL team when you can pay 1/3 as much to watch some decent ball. Plus if you are taking small kids, they don’t really care who is on the field. The talent level in the UFL is much better than any start up league in recent memory.
There are Niners season tickets for $29/$39 a game. There are Raiders season tickets for $26/$36 a game. Not to mention there were games for both teams last year where you could get tix on CL for half face or less. Preseason games could be seen for free or almost free.
If I’m doing non-NFL football, I’d rather spend my money on Stanford (Family 4-Pack of season tickets last year for $200) or Cal ($80 kids season tickets) than the UFL. Maybe that’s just me…
I will never disparage a fellow “Mark” – I just think that people are too hard on these new leagues and it is easy to bash them and make jokes. For the people that go to the games, though, it is generally a good experience.
Those uniforms are absolutely hideous.
As an alumus of the University of Oregon, I feel that I need to stand up for a fellow violator of the Uniform Tradition Code, but I can’t, they really are awful.
The Oregon green uniforms and white uniforms are not bad. The yellow ones are a little iffy. But still not in the league of the Cal Redwoods unis. They chose a uniquely noxious shade of green – it’s the color of snot.
I actually like a lot of unis others hate. For example, the old Tang-colored Tampa Bucs unis. I also prefer the old powder blue Chargers unis over the current ones.
But the Redwoods? Sorry, can’t work with it.
I too liked the light orange with the swashbuckling Pirate of Penzance dude on the helmet… Good stuff.
I actually liked the Padres Taco Bell uni’s. I think it is a shame they decided to go blue over brown. Everyone has blue.
Other favorites: Frankfurt Galaxy, Sacramento Surge, Iowa Barnstormers, Memphis Mad Dogs, San Antonio Wings, I could go on searching these things forever.