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For those looking to be innovative and drum up some free publicity, social media offer an infinite number of possibilities, especially if you're, say, a fledgling pro-football league looking to seize any spotlight away from the $9 billion National Football League.
So while the NFL, embroiled in seemingly unending labor strife, began its annual player draft last night at swanky Radio City Music Hall, the 2-year-old United Football League will conduct its own player draft this coming Monday – on Twitter.
“We believe this will be a social media first, as our head coaches announce their selections exclusively to their Twitter followers,” said UFL Commissioner Michael Huyghue in a statement. “The UFL draft plays an important role in stocking our teams’ rosters, and we hope fans enjoy this innovative means of communicating each pick.”
Sure, who's going to be left after the NFL draft concludes Saturday?
The UFL draft starts Monday night at 8 p.m. Eastern. Huyghue himself will tweet all five of the first-round selections as they're communicated to the league office, and then each head coach will rattle off their picks over the subsequent nine rounds.
The roster of coaches reads like a who's who of '90s NFL head-coaching castaways. You've got former Atlanta Falcons coach Jerry Glanville leading the Hartford Colonials. Former New York Giants head coach Jim Fassel is in charge of the league-champion Las Vegas Locos. (Yes, you heard that right.) Then you've got former Arizona Cardinals head coach Dennis Green leading the Sacramento Mountain Lions.
Pro tip: Get Green to bring to this UFL draft some of the intensity that made him a YouTube sensation, and maybe this thing could be entertaining after all.
Photo: schargis/Flickr/CC
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