UWFFL Slighted In Uni Watch Thanksgiving Column

by Russell Kammel
United Press Syndicate

The UWFFL received a stunning blow Thursday in the annual Thanksgiving Uni Watch column when Uni Watch creator Paul Lukas thanked the many contributors to the website but failed to mention the UWFFL or UWFFL founder and Uni Watch contributor Rob Holecko.  Every year in Uni Watch Lukas thanks the many contributors to his site, writing Thursday, "...I’m super-duper-thankful for all the people who keep this here (sic) site running, including interns Mike Chamernik and Garrett McGrath (two great new additions to the Uni Watch family), 'Collector’s Corner' columnist Brinke Guthrie, weekend contributors Terry Duroncelet and Catherine Ryan, webmaster John Ekdahl, and of course bench coach and weekend editor Phil Hecken, by far the hardest-working and most loyal collaborator anyone could ever hope for."

The UWFFL has been a steady weekend contribution to Uni Watch since their inaugural season launched this year, but has found it's contributions buried towards the bottom of the Saturday columns every week.

UWFFL founder Rob Holecko didn't seem surprised by this latest setback.  "To tell you the truth," Holecko stated late Thursday, "I'm not that surprised.  I don't think it was an intentional slight.  I think they just don't really consider the UWFFL, for whatever reason, a 'part' of Uni Watch.  It's disappointing, but not surprising.  I think they look at is as something that we contribute, but it's still 'outside' of Uni Watch, not officially sanctioned.  I'm proud of the GUD, that is a separate project, and they are more than glad to want to be a part of that, but this project is specifically for Uni Watch, to be a part of Uni Watch, to grow with the community, but it doesn't really seem to be taking a hold, to be top of mind.  It gets mentioned once a week, barely noticed, and then the perception is that it is forgotten until the following week."

"I mean, we see it every week, we can provide more content or less content, it doesn't matter.  Whatever we do, we get literally no response from the Uni Watch community in the comments.  It really makes me question the viability of the UWFFL going forward.  When we launched our first game back in August we got a prominent location on the site and received nearly a thousand votes in our first game.  Last week we put the Anchorage-Rapid City game in, a marquee matchup between two up and coming teams, and barely got over a hundred votes.  And our regular season games off the page, where we ask people to come to our site to vote?  Those get around forty, if we're lucky."

"We have great participation among the people that are actually in the league.  But as an entertainment product for the Uni Watch community as a whole?  I'd say for the most part we've failed."

2013 UWFFL Week 1 - "Patches Optional, Fun Mandatory"

Here's what's going on in the UWFFL this week. We were concerned that people were just looking at uniforms and voting without really taking the time to follow the teams and storylines and find out what's going on behind the scenes. So starting today, and for every week of the season, we'll be bringing you, here at the UWFFL Webpage, a Uni Watch-esque rundown of all the league happenings. All of you who clicked through to here from Uni Watch today, it's your lucky day -- it's like getting a whole second Uni Watch for free - two for the price of one. Check it all out and then vote further down below. For discussion and debate about all that's going on here in the UWFFL and it's affiliated minor leagues, be sure to check out and participate in the comments at Uni Watch. Voting on this week's games begins at 7 AM, Saturday September 7 and ends promptly at midnight, Monday September 9. All Times Eastern. + + + + + Sponsor Patches Update: Recently the league backtracked on its' stance on sponsor advertising patches on game uniforms. The state of advertising patches in the UWFFL is an ongoing debate. At first the league decreed that all teams were going to have them in all games, but some team owners balked at that, and the league softened its' stance and made the wearing of patches optional. But apparently some voters feel that sponsor patches are some sort of an instrument of corporate douchebaggery at work and perhaps would intentionally vote against a team merely because they were wearing a patch when their opponent wasn't. Therefore a team with a sponsor patch, while at a possible financial advantage, may be at a competitive disadvantage against a team without a patch, so the league decided to give teams with a patch that are scheduled to play an opponent without a patch, the option of not wearing the patch for such matchups. But at least one team has decided to keep wearing the ad patch in all of their games, even if it may hurt them in games against teams without sponsor patches. So now what we have is a mish-mash of standards where some teams will wear patches all of the time, some teams will wear them some of the time, and other teams will wear them none of the time. Sheesh. Be forewarned, however, that it may cost you more to attend a game if your team isn't wearing a sponsor's patch. What started out as an initiative to bring additional revenue to teams that wouldn't involve raising ticket prices, has therefore wound up backfiring and resulting in the exact opposite result than what they intended. + + + + + UWFFL News: Week one of the UWFFL season is getting underway, the Chicago Cyclones are at the New York Sharks, and the game features New York wearing its' standard white at home look, with visting Chicago in red. Chicago may soon be announcing both an alt and a new throwback uni, so stay tuned...New York, meanwhile, has recently come out with an alt of its' own...Detroit and Miami are wearing standard home and aways, but those road unis don't look half as good on the Demons as they do on a member of Detroit's famed Succubi cheer squad...The Tampa Terror are wearing their gold helmet for the first time, while the Minnesota Mustangs are wearing their blue home unis on the road, giving us our first color-vs-color matchup...The Texas Timberwolves are going mono-green, while the San Diego Storm are going mono-teal...Meanwhile, the Storm's opponent, the Seattle Superbeasts, are wearing their fourth different combo in as many games - perhaps they truly are the "Oregon" of the UWFFL...Fearing voter backlash, the Atlanta Flying Fleet removed their Comfort Suites sponsor patches (see also 'Sponsor Patches Update' above) for their game against the ad-free St. Louis Slaughter. Atlanta won it's first two preseason games without any ads, but after adding the Comfort Suites patch two weeks ago, they lost their preseason game against Birmingham...In that Mustangs-Terror matchup, Tampa has recently added grocery chain Publix as their uniform sponsor, however with the Mustangs going sponsor-less, they will wait until next week to debut a Publix patch. Sorry Tampa fans, I guess your tickets to the game might be a few bucks more, too. + + + + + Eastern Association News: The Roanoke Giraffes broke out a unique "Girafflage" uni set for their game against the Washington Huskers. The set is intended to honor the military and support the Wounded Warrior Project...The Raleigh Aeronauts chose to open their league schedule wearing mono-red against the Brooklyn Mariners. This game is the battle of comfort foods as the Mariners are sponsored by Benny's Beef Franks, while the Aeronauts are backed by Mean Street Pizza...The New York Garbologists looked like they just stepped out of Derek Jeter's closet as they opened the season wearing white at home (or should we say "Pinstripe At Home"?), forcing the Florida Geckos to wear their home green unis on the road. It is belived the Garbologists will wear this Yankee-esque combo at home all year long...Meanwhile, the Hartford Whalers debuted their home unis, white with green pants, and they looked like they just stepped out of the NHL, while their cross-state rival opponents, the Connecticut Convicts, are wearing one of their mono-orange alts with the chain-link decoration. With the prison motif, I guess you could say "OFOS" (Orange For Orange's Sake) because after all, Orange Is The New Black...The Brooklyn Uni Watchers, the always nattily attired barometers of good athletic aesthetic taste, open their home league schedule wearing green jerseys and white pants. Look for them to always wear green with white or white with green. "The monochromatic white look that we saw them wear in the preseason just looked horrible. Why would you go monochromatic, when you have uniform choices that look as good (as those two combos) do," said a source who chose to remain anonymous. They appear to be heavily favored against the Carolina Kronik this week, but then you never really know...Speaking of the Kronik, they are apparently considering a name change for next season. + + + + + Central League News: All five Central League games look pretty standard this week...The Eagle Harbor Portals are in their only uniform of course, the gradient, however it was recently discovered they had been wearing the 'Eastern Association' patch by mistake. It has been fixed...It is the battle of monochrome in Nashville where the Swisshelm Express went all white against the Nashville Rockets who are wearing all blue. I hope the Rockets are ready to play -- all week I've been watching their head coach running his mouth on ESPN...Sure, the Youngstown Bobcats wore white-over-beige on the road, but which white-over-beige? Did you know they have three different road white jerseys? What's up with that?...The Cleveland Bearcats are the only team in any of the UWFFL leagues to wear a large letter, the letter "C" for "Cleveland" (or maybe it's for "greatness"?), on the front of their jersey where a player number usually would be. Instead they wear it on the upper right, where most teams wear their league patch. And they wear the league patch on the upper left, where some teams have sponsor patches...The league has been asked about Cleveland's non-standard template, and an unnamed source said that the commisionner's office accepted the Bearcat submission because it was "close enough" to the league mandated template. + + + + + Pacific Coast Conference News: Not only are the Portland Gamblers going white at home, but they are wearing their 1952 throwbacks with the dollar sign on the side of the helmet. Is it just us, or does Portland have a lot of alts and throwbacks? We've lost count of how many they have, and it's is hard to keep them straight...The Dallas Outlaws, a recent entry into the league, joined too late to play a preseason game, however, they make their league debut today against the Las Vegas Lightning...The East Bay Executioners would like to remind everybody that the red on their shoes comes from the pools of blood of their victims that they would be standing in as they perform executions...The Oakland Ad Dragons made a last-second change from silver pants to black pants and we think it makes all the difference. (Still gotta do something about that luchidor mask on the side of the helmet, however. Although, I'm not sure what the Los Angeles YouTubers are thinking in that mono-red set with the white helmet, either)...Speaking of the YouTubers, they announced they have agreed to a sponsorhip arrangment with Google. No conflict of interest there? Anyone?...Rumors are that the Vancouver Seawolves have decided that their charcoal uni set will be their main home uniform, while the green uniform will be their alt, but that's always subject to change, y'know? They open their season against the Anchorage Orcas, the early favorites to win the PCC...Speaking of rumors, the Sacramento Scorpions have been rumored to be on the move to the East all summer long, but apparently they are staying put in the PCC for now...The only two teams not playing this week are in the PCC, the Promontory Golden Spikes and the San Antonio Black Knights both have byes. + + + + + On The Airwaves: 970 KDSF's Dick Schaefer Show previewed the first week of UWFFL action on Friday. You can check out the podcast here...Be sure to follow 970 KDSF all season long for the best UWFFL coverage, not only of their hometown San Francisco Reign Fire of the UWFFL, but league-wide news as well...Monday will be the debut of This Week In The UWFFL, a short fifteen minute weekly podcast hosted by Jackson Tate and Drew Abernathy that will wrap up each week's action...It and all of 970 KDSF's programming is part of the SportPuck Network. + + + + + Want To Join? It's never to late to sign up for the UWFFL. We're always accepting new expansion teams into our minor leagues. Depending on when your team starts playing, you may or may not be eligible for the post-season, but you can at least get a few games under your belt and some practice for next year. E-mail us or check out our Google+ pages and start working on your uniforms today! + + + + + In The Kitchen*: Here at UWFFL Headquarters we like meat too -- there's no vegetarians here -- but I don't have a big green egg to fire up, any prime cuts of beef, veal or pork in the freezer, nor a trendy little butchery down the road. So I did the next best thing, I cooked up some frankfurters (fancy term for hot dogs) that I had sitting in the fridge. These weren't just any hot dogs, discriminatorily made from only either 100% chicken, 100% beef or 100% pork. No these were true egalitarian hot dogs, made up of mechanically separated pieces of chicken, pork and beef. A true hot dog for the people! And rather than spend over three bucks on some fancy-schmancy all-beef bun length franks that don't leave much room in the bun for even a simple bead of ketchup, these babys were "Gwaltney" traditionals (sorry, Benny's Beef Franks!) that I got for 94 cents at the Bi-Lo. What a deal! I was kind of in a hurry, so instead of bringing a pot of water to a boil and doing it the slow way, I slapped a couple of them down on a paper towel and threw them in the microwave and Voila! - Thirty seconds later I had a meal! I also had some hot dog chili sitting in the pantry, but I decided to leave it there - the chili gave me heartburn last time I had it, and I had a webpage to get back to anyway. The only dissapointment was I forgot to shake the ketchup, so for the first squirt I got a nasty splooge of that ketchupy-watery stuff that comes out if you don't shake it properly. But all in all it was a good meal.    I didn't invite any friends over for a backyard get together for this feast. I dined alone.    (*-The name Culinary Corner was taken.) + + + + + Coming next week - the debut of the UWFFL Power Rankings. Find out how your team stacks up against the competition! Enjoy the games, get out there and vote -- and we'll see you next week! Then head back to the Uni Watch comments, dish out a heapin' helpin' of trash talk and troll away!

Removal Of Sponsor Patches May Lead To Increased Ticket Prices

reprinted from The Seattle Post-Dispatch, Thursday, September 5, 2013
 
     SEATTLE - A source speaking on the condition on anonymity admitted Wednesday that the Seattle Superbeasts may choose to raise single game ticket prices to make up for a shortfall in revenue that would occur if they do not wear sponsor patches in all fourteen regular season games.
      On Monday the UWFFL announced that a competitive disadvantage may occur if one team wearing a sponsor patch is playing another team not wearing a sponsor patch.  The Atlanta Flying Fleet, for instance, won their first two preseason games while not wearing sponsor patches, yet they added their Comfort Suites sponsor patches for their August 25 game against Birmingham and lost 64-40.
     In the UWFFL, games are decided by fan vote.  If fans are specifically voting against teams just because of the presence of a sponsor patch, then it would lead to an unfair situation whenever one team with a sponsor patch is playing another team without.
     Since wearing a sponsor patch may therefore hinder a team's performance, both on the field and in the polls, the league decided to make the wearing of the patches optional, and if a team with a title sponsor was playing a team without one, the team with a sponsor would have the option of not wearing their patches in those games.
     After meeting with their corporate partners, who in some cases have put up millions of dollars to have their image and products adorn the UWFFL teams' uniforms, they agreed that if sponsorship advertising was not worn by some teams in some games, the league would have to rebate some of the sponsorship fees that the advertising was going to generate. 
     In the case of the Superbeasts, that means a possible shortfall in revenue.
     "All I can tell you," the source stated off the record, "is that when we were approached by the league with the sponsorship program guidelines, including the increased revenue that the program would generate, we adjusted our projected profit margins accordingly.  Now with the modifications to the program, that revenue does not meet those projections.  The team's Board of Governors, however, approved an operating budget and expenditure plan for the 2013-14 fiscal year based on those projections.  The shortfall would have to be made up somewhere, and after a careful analysis of our whole operation, the simplest and easiest solution is to raise ticket prices."
     "Since season ticket holders are already locked in at their fee structure, the difference would be applied just to single game purchases.  We decided the the fairest thing to do was to just apply the rate increase to games in which the team will not be wearing the sponsor patches.  Therefore for games in which the Superbeasts are not wearing their sponsorship patches, we will see an increase in single game ticket prices of between $8-$30 per ticket."
     "We would love to keep the sponsorship patches on for all games, however we are also committed to putting the most competitive product on the field that we can.  When you tell me that we may lose a game because we are wearing a sponsor patch when our opponent isn't, then it's an easy call for me -- we lose the patches.  Unfortunately what comes with that is a decrease in revenue, which has to be made up somewhere."
     "I think if you ask real, true Superbeasts fans about that, they want to win, if it costs them an extra eight to thirty dollars a game, then 'so be it,' they'll say.  These fans deserve a championship, and we want to bring it to them.  In fact some of these fans, a few I spoke with today, I feel they are proud to do their part in helping the team.  They feel like by paying an extra $20 or so, if it helps make the team a winner, then they feel like they are doing their part."
     "If you want to blame anybody, blame the liberal voters who are opposed to sponsorship patches and vote teams down for wearing them.  These people vote on these games with an agenda, and that agenda is to removes the ad patches from the game, they don't want them in the game.  When they vote like that, in these kind of numbers, it affects the outcome of games, I think the league had no choice.  It is a shame that something as innocuous as a patch on a football uniform has to be politicized and made a pawn in this greater debate."
     "It is truly a shame, that because of this agenda, these regular joe working class Americans now have to shell out more dollars to see a football game.  It's just sad."
     Calls to the Superbeasts' PR department and general manager's office, as well as league officials, were not returned.
     The initial UWFFL plan regarding team sponsorhips indicated that all teams would wear sponsor patches in all games, however some team owners balked at that.
     Said Jeff ("The") Provo, owner of the Minnesota Mustangs on July 7, "Discord will rule Equestria before the Mustangs put a (darn) ad on their jerseys."  Shortly thereafter the league decided to make having sponsorship (and patches) optional.

Giraffes To Honor Wounded Warriors With Special Uniforms

     For their Sept. 8th game against the Washington Huskers, the Roanoke Giraffes release their "Girafflage" unis. Jenna Marquis, one of the Giraffes' PR reps, says, "The uniforms are combining the natural camo of the Giraffe with the Woodland's color palette previously worn by the US Military. Since we will be focusing on troops past and present with this uniform, we will auction off the jerseys and helmets after the game to raise funds for the Wounded Warriors Foundation."

     When Coach McManus was asked about the uniforms he replied, "I don't normally like changing from our standard uniforms on gameday. They represent Roanoke, the Giraffe herd, and our team. They did keep my suggestion to use the spotted pattern and we'll look good on the field. I hope we can raise enough money from the auction to help a few families in the area."

Atlanta GM Blames Loss On Advertising Patches

reprinted from The Atlanta Vindicator, Tuesday, August 27, 2013
 
     ATLANTA - Atlanta Flying Fleet GM Mickey Lollis blamed his team's preseason loss to the minor league Birmingham Vulcans this weekend on the presence of advertising patches.
     "I don't want to take away anything from what (the Vulcans) did on the field, but when you see the outcome, the two teams that were matched up.  I think what happened was obvious.  Yes, it was because of the patches.  It had to be."
     The Fleet lost to the Vulcans 64-40 in their first game wearing the sponsorship patches of the Comfort Suites, a nationwide hotel chain that is affiliated with Choice Hotels, Inc. 
     The Fleet had been 2-0 and had won their first two preseason games, not wearing any advertising patches, by the scores of 645-492 and 285-256.  Their win in the UWFFL Preseason opener on August 4 against the San Francisco Reign Fire set multiple league records for votes received.
     "You're gonna tell me that a team gets almost 650 votes without a patch and then only gets 40 votes when wearing a patch is just a coincidence?  I was born in the dark, but not last night."
     "I don't think it says anything about Comfort Suites.  I've always had a great time every time I've ever stayed in one of their hotels.  Friendly people.  Nice mattresses.  Always a good night's sleep.  The staff is always wonderful."
     "If I have anything to say about the Comfort Suites that is not complimentary, it would be, and it's not their fault, but the occasional jackass that I'm usually behind when I'm checking in.  It's always the same kind of guy -- he had a request because he wanted to be on a particular floor, and they didn't have it.  This one guy the other night -- he complained that the luggage carts wheels were low on air.  Can you believe that!?  The luggage cart!  Who complains about that?!"
     "What a jackass."