SFL Report
HOUSTON, TX --- Here we go again. A new professional football league is about to form. The Spring Football League, Inc. ("SFL") has announced its intention to play a 12-week schedule of games in the Spring of 2000. Potential investors, including former NFL stars Eric Dickerson, Bo Jackson and Tony Dorsett, are discussing a pro football league with games to be played in March and June.
The SFL plans franchises in Birmingham, AL, Canton, OH, Houston, TX, Jackson, MS, Los Angeles CA, Miami, FL, San Antonio, TX, and Washington, D.C., Mark Rice, chairman of the SFL board of governors, told Houston's KRIV-TV on Friday.
The inaugural season of 2000 projects ten individually-owned teams playing a 12-week schedule of games with Memorial Day weekend designated as the annual date for the SFL Championship game. Each season's schedule will be arranged backward from Memorial Day weekend to determine the opening dates for training camp and the regular season.
Each year the NCAA produces over 4800 football players and other collegiate athletes who have exhausted their college eligibility and could qualify to play in the SFL. The 1999 NFL Draft had more than 500 registered football players not being selected and the NFL 1999 pre-season saw NFL teams releasing over 300 players who did not make the final cut.
"It seems like a really good opportunity and I might be involved with the Texas team,'' Dickerson said.
Jackson said he was considering investing in the SFL. "I can't make any big announcements of whatever, but I'm very interested in this new league,'' he said.
Over the two-day weekend of January 21 and 22, the SFL will conduct a national combine in Phoenix, Arizona. More than 400 players will be invited to participate excluding punters and placekickers. Only 16 candidates per position will be invited.
