UFL: Colonials Owner Speaks on New Financing Model to Help with Debt Issues

Three weeks ago, United Football League commissioner Michael Huyghue acknowledged that the league owed creditors $six million from the 2010 season.

Although some could understand a new football league having debt within its first three years of existence, many still wondered how such a debt can sneak up on a professional football league.

According to Courant.com, Hartford Colonials owner Bill Mayer informed them that the debt was from an unexpected spike in workers compensation insurance from the 2010 season. The $seven million charge was something the UFL wasn’t ready for and lead to the overall financial problems that the league is currently working out.

Investor Mark Cuban’s $five million lawsuit has been resolved according to Bill Peterson, the UFL’s chief operating officer. But the UFL is still dealing with suits from a Northern California public relations firm as well as a suit from the Mayo Clinic claiming unpaid medical bills.

Mayer said there were problems with the way the UFL handled finances in the past years, and stated changes were going to be made for the upcoming season.

"We're going to have a team president and we're going to start meeting with [creditors] one-on-one," Mayer said. "The explanation [for the non-payments] is pretty clear. Now that we have local control and not central control, things will change. We have a list of who we owe money to and who we don't owe money to. We'll sit down and say now we have control over all of this and let's work together. We're starting to sound like we're repeating ourselves, I know, but it's true...look, I don't want to have the local community thinking about us in that way. And they won't in the future."

"This year, people will know exactly who they're dealing with," Peterson elaborated. "It's a good concept when launching a league to centrally control everything. But after it's on its feet, it's impossible to do business that way."

Early debt in any start-up business, whether it be a local clothing store or professional football league is understandable to a degree. If the UFL wants to last past the third season and continue growing, they need to make sure headlines of lawsuits stay away from the local papers.

It seems like they’re making necessary changes to avoid problems like this from happening again.

This article can also be read at www.uflaccess.com