Professional football will be coming to Hartford in October, but fans will be seeing much less of it than expected, the upstart United Football League announced today.
Following months of speculation over whether the UFL would launch its inaugural season in Hartford, the league announced today that New York and Hartford will be sharing a team, meaning home games will be split between the two cities.
The original plan called for the inaugural season to feature teams in six cities, but the economy forced the league to cut back a little bit, said league spokeswoman Rachel Gary.
“We’ve changed directions based on the economy,” Gary said. “We went back to the drawing board.”
The details of how many games each city will host has not yet been determined. Neither has the location for Hartford’s games, though Rentschler Field seems like the obvious candidate at this point.
Depending on the league’s success and the state of the economy next year, the UFL would “absolutely” consider giving Hartford its own team, Gary said.
The UFL, headed by Windsor native Michael Huyghue, is positioning itself as a developmental league that would feature talent with National Football League potential. Former New York Giants head coach Jim Fassel has been signed on as a coach for this season, and there has been speculation that disgraced quarterback Michael Vick — currently in jail for his role in a dog fighting ring — could return to professional football through the UFL.
Other cities in the league are Las Vegas/Los Angeles, Orlando and San Diego/Sacramento.
The league will last six weeks, much shorter than the 10 weeks the original plans called for.
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