Dallas Cowboys Legend, Exec Moose Johnston Blames UFL for Attendance Problems
Fan support in stadiums, outside of the St. Louis Battlehawks, has been spotty at best in the inaugural season of the United Football League.
Of the UFL’s eight teams, only the Battlehawks are winning at the gate. St. Louis is averaging 34,362 fans through four home games at the that The Dome at America’s Center. That’s about 3.5 times the average of the rest of the league combined.
Together, the other seven teams are averaging 9,834 fans an outing. This past weekend, both the Houston Roughnecks (6,527) and Memphis Showboats (6,387) announced crowds of less than 7,000 fans. The league totaled 33,298 fans for the weekend -- a drop off of 30,000 from Week 8 -- for an average of 8,325.
That can’t go over well in the league office. And the league office is taking the blame.
“I think there’s responsibility on our side with us not getting the (XFL-USFL) merger done as quickly as we had hoped to,” UFL executive vice president of football operations Daryl “Moose” Johnston told Action News 5 in Memphis recently.
“You know early on in the season, we’d only been a league for a short period of time. Your marketing groups not up, your ticket sales aren’t up, you haven’t finalized your schedule yet, so how can you have ticket sales?”
The three-time Super Bowl champion with the Dallas Cowboys is aware of talk that the Showboats, who are 1-8 going into the last week of the regular season, are among the teams targeted for potential relocation next season.
Still, Johnston doesn’t think any of the current teams are moving to new cities. At least for now.
“At this time I don’t see any changes in the markets,” he said.
There is one week left before the start of the UFL playoffs. The Battlehawks, Birmingham Stallions, San Antonio Brahmas and Michigan Panthers have already clinched postseason berths.
The UFL Championship is set for June 16 at The Dome at America’s Center. Should the Battlehawks make it there, expect a sizable crowd from their rabid fanbase.
After what’s happened for much of this season, Johnston and the UFL would surely welcome more butts in seats.
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ART GARCIA