So it’s a long shot, but Michael David Smith from AOL started an interesting discussion. If Michael Vick were to be convicted of dog fighting and banned from the NFL, could he be the showpiece for The United Football League? It’s an interesting discussion that Michael started in response to Peter King’s comments over at SI.com.

I think I wondered this week if that new football league — you know, the Mark Cuban league — would take Vick as its marquee player. Don’t scoff. Imagine the TV ratings that league would get with Vick quarterbacking the New York Whoevers on Opening Night 2009.

I’ve been thinking pretty hard about it lately and if the UFL wants to compete with the NFL then they’ll have to get rid of the things that really bog down the NFL.

1. Speed Up the Game - A major problem with the National Football League is that fact that every game is going to take at least 3 hours of your time. I love the game just as much as the next guy, but I’d love to have that same intensity and emotion compressed into 2 hours or less.
2. Get Real Talent - One major flaw of the XFL was the fact that the league was comprised of wanna-bes and poor talent; the UFL plans on exploiting the salary cap and going after NFL players with substantial dollars, more than they’d probably make in the NFL.
3. Go International - By that I don’t mean NFL Europa or CFL, but rather have 3-4 teams in Europe or South America that are part of the UFL. US teams would have a two week visit to both Europe and South America and vice-versa giving the game a much broader international reach.
4. More Sponsors - Okay so that’s a given, but I’m talking about the Arena League style where sponsors are visible on the players jersey. Nascar does it, golf does it, arena football does it; it’s a no brainer.

These are just a few Matt McCracken and I came up with; see if you can think of some other ways that would contribute to success?