He plans on his investment group purchasing the team, and planting them in a baseball stadium located at the Beachline and International Drive, most likely the southeast corner by SeaWorld Aquatica water park.

I see two huge problems.

First, I don’t see the Tampa Yankees selling. Currently they say they are in “very preliminary talks” with Gutierrez, which means, essentially, “Yeah, he called us. So?”

The Yankees are middle-of-the-road in attendance for 2010 in the FSL, with 1,506 per game, making them 5th out of 12. Only three teams–the Charlotte Stone Crabs (Rays), Clearwater Threshers (Phillies) and Daytona Cubs (duh), in descending order–have attendance figures over 2,000 per game.

Plus, they play in George Steinbrenner Field.

Allow me to repeat that: George. Steinbrenner. Field.

He’s not even cold in the ground yet, and they’re talking about vacating his adopted home.

Well, they may not be. Gutierrez seems to think they do.

But if the idea of ceding Orlando to the Evil Empire isn’t unpalatable enough, look where they want to put it: the corner of the Beachline and International Drive.

I’ve looked at the Google Maps. Either it’s going in an armpit of the Orlando Hilton, or between an exit ramp and SeaWorld Aquatica.

To make matters worse, he plans on installing a baseball museum there as well. What are we going to do, have an exhibit on Joe Tinker? Erect a statue of Carlos Peña? In pinstripes?

When I saw that as the location, to me it gave the impression that this is for tourists, not Orlando.

I can’t support it. It needs two things: 1) A different location away from the tourist traps, and 2) a team other than the Tampa Yankees.

I myself think we can support up to Triple-A baseball. Yeah, fat chance of that ever happening. But if we’re going to start with Advanced-A, then at least let’s target one of the four FSL teams that are below 1,000 fans per game. We have Jupiter, Palm Beach, Bradenton and Dunedin, higher-to-lower.

The Dunedin Blue Jays only draw 576 per game. That sounds like a much better plan.

As it turns out, it’s for nine regular-season games. Not eight regular-season and one playoff game like I originally thought.

The Arena Football League is going to experiment with a format where each of the 19 teams play each other once in 2011. This means each team will play 18 games: 9 home and 9 away. This also means that any expansion for 2011 is already finished.

Also, single-game tickets are now on sale. They range $15-$30 each plus fees through Ticketmaster. For group sales, call 407-545-8123.

But according to the story, in addition the Arena Football League has big dreams for future expansion. They see the league potentially expanding to up to 40 teams. Personally I see this as their earlier vision to restore a second division, a new af2-style league.

Maybe Huntsville won’t be without a team for long.

Even bigger news is their idea to plant a 4-team division in Europe. NFL Europa, the NFL’s experiment to play American football overseas, was not an overall success but did have its individual success stories. It was fairly big in Germany, and still growing when the NFL pulled the plug, with a per-game average of 20,000 fans in their last year, 2007. The Frankfurt Galaxy broke 30,000 per game in the final year.

The AFL hopes to run an exhibition game in Europe, and is looking at the Predators as one of the teams.

The Alabama Vipers are leaving Huntsville and moving to Gwinnet County (NE of Atlanta) to resurrect the Georgia Force.

According to the Vipers ownership, they lost money for seven consecutive years in Huntsville, even though they won the af2 Arena Cup championship in 2008. They had come to the conclusion that they just could not survive any longer in the market.

To be fair, their home, the Von Braun Center, the Vipers’ home arena, only seated around 6,000 for arena football. The team averaged around 5,000. The Force averaged 10,200 in 2008 in Gwinnet County.

The move leaves the 2011 AFL roster at 19 teams.

The press release also announces that the new Arena Football League is looking to make the ArenaBowl a neutral-site game once more.

ArenaBowl XXIII was made the right of the top team in the final; that went to the Spokane Shock. But they have an attendance limit just under 11,000. Obviously they would like larger crowds and more fan tourism opportunities, the way they did in the last four seasons of the old AFL. ArenaBowls XIX and XX were held in Las Vegas, while XXI and XXII were held in New Orleans.

Orlando is a finalist for ArenaBowl XXIV. Considering the brand new arena and the team with the grand AFL history, it looks likely we’ll win if they go that route.

Season tickets for 2011 are on sale, and the seating chart has been updated to reflect the new Amway Center. It looks like initially they will close off the upper deck end zones, leaving approximately 14,000 seats available. Season tickets range $45-$216, with lower bowl tickets ranging $144-$441. This is for eight games plus the first playoff game.

Club seats start at $720, or $80 per game, and include access to the Amway Center’s club amenities, something that was unavailable in 2010 (or any other time in Predators history for that matter). The club sections are the lower halves of the sideline lower bowl sections, plus the loge boxes on the east side of the facility. Luxury suites will also be available.

The team will also be able to boast the largest video scoreboards in the AFL.

If you’re interested in buying season tickets, you can call the Predators ticket office at 407-648-4444. If you want to renew, contact your personal representative.

Clarett threw his NFL career away when he got kicked out of Ohio State after his 2002 freshman year for taking benefits from agents. He sued the NFL to enter the draft early, but failed. After that, he ran into a series of legal issues, culminating with a 2006 guilty plea for armed robbery, for which he served 3 1/2 years. He recently left a halfway house and has re-enrolled at Ohio State as a regular student.

His attorney stated he was in football shape, and had his head straight after his time behind bars. The Nighthawks made the following statement:

Maurice Clarett has paid his debt to society and through recent conversations with Maurice, his lawyer and his family, we believe he is sincerely working at turning his life around. Because we believe everyone deserves a second chance, and because Maurice wants to see whether he can still play the game he loves, we’ve agreed to work Maurice out as soon as the Ohio courts allow.  There are no commitments other than we want to help him take positive steps towards being the good citizen and solid family man that he aspires to be.

Omaha Nighthawks staff, coaches and players will not comment further on this matter.

A hearing on the matter will occur next Monday. Clarett hopes to join the team in time for next month’s season opener. If he makes the team, he would be joining former NFL players Jeff Garcia and Ahman Green.

He runs a ladies’ soccer team in Rochester. Totally different animal. Though judging by the success of the UCF women’s soccer team, doable here.

(You may have caught a message in my last Fantasy report, but according to league sources, Kenny McEntire was fired by the league for “inappropriate conduct”. The Sentinel only says “off-the-field issues”. I have a feeling it’s why McEntire told me, “My wife didn’t like the idea”, when I asked him about it.)

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The league has announced its first non-PPV show. LFL Friday Night Football will premiere at 11pm ET on Friday night, September 3, as a half-hour program providing highlights of the previous week’s game. The show will be produced by MTV, and aired on MTV2 in HD.

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On that same night, the Orlando Fantasy players will be engaged in a PR bar crawl in Downtown Orlando. They will begin at Wall Street Pub at 6pm, and work their way to Ember, where they will arrive at 9pm. It’ll be a great opportunity to meet the women of the gridiron in preparation of their first game, Friday, September 24.

Tickets are still on-sale through Ticketmaster, with two-game value packs also available. The 2-game value pack is available for $30 or $80 ($42 or $94 w/fees). The $80 seats are only the front three rows of club seating. You can get centerline seats for $30 for both, or $19 each.

After a scoreless first half, UCF came out flat in the second, and gave up both goals in quick succession early on to Tahnai Annis; the first on a turnover at 48′, the second on a breakaway at 52′.

UCF did outshoot Florida, 7-6, and conceded no corner kicks.

The real story is the record crowd of 2,141 in attendance. This smashes the previous soccer attendance record of 1,142, set in a victory over Florida State last year.

UCF’s next game is this Friday at 7pm against San Diego State. The men’s soccer team hosts a preseason friendly against Tampa tonight at 7pm, and against Saint Leo this Saturday at 6pm.