By: Tomas Ronolski - AllPennyStocks.com News

Thursday, December 10, 2015

American football is popular, wildly popular, to say the least. But, getting football fans to pay attention to anything outside of the National Football League has been a grand challenge going back decades. WWE (NYSE:WWE) chief Vince McMahon knows how hard it is, watching his XFL close its doors after only a year. Donald Trump’s foray into sports with the United States Football League (USFL) in the early 1980’s actually was drawing some fans and elite athletes until Trump made a major blunder in convincing other owners to switch the USFL to a fall schedule, where the NFL promptly crushed it. The direct competition with the NFL ran the USFL out of business. The XFL and USFL certainly weren’t alone in their demise, joined by many other pro football leagues, including the United Football League, World League of American Football (WLAF) and World Football League, to name a few. Where those have failed, Major League Football, Inc. (OTCQB:MLFB) hopes to succeed by taking a different approach. MLFB is aligning itself as a training league, a stepping stone if you will, for football players trying to make it to the next level. Oddly enough, the league seems to share a name with an existing 14-team football league (www.mlfaction.com). A call to the company on this matter was not responded to at the time of this writing. The company has been around since 2009, albeit in a quiet state until last year, and was formed by a group of former NFL personnel aiming to create a single entity, fan-owned league with games played during the spring and summer, during the NFL’s off-season. Further, Major League Football is targeting cities that don’t have a professional football or professional baseball franchise, looking to provide a sports team for these communities to embrace.

Last December, the company came public via reverse merger. Backers include president Wes Chandler, who played wide receiver for the New Orleans Saints, San Diego Chargers and San Francisco 49ers; brand manager Ivory Sully, a former cornerback for the Los Angeles Rams; CEO Jerry Vainisi, whose resume includes being the former vice president and general manager of the Chicago Bears and head of football operations for the WLAF; and senior VP Dean Dalton, a former assistant coach for the Minnesota Vikings. In October, Herm Edwards, a former cornerback for the Philadelphia Eagles, Los Angeles Rams and Atlanta Falcons and former head coach of the New York Jets and Kansas City Chiefs and current ESPN NFL analyst, joined the team as the Senior Advisor for the company and league. Facing the challenge of trying to get a fledgling league off the ground, the company is certainly headed up by men who have thrived in this type of environment.

Striking an economic incentive package deal with Manatee County earlier this year, Major League Football set up its headquarters in Lakewood Ranch, Florida. The company has recently been hosting “Pro Day” tryout events in various cities so players can showcase their skills for a January draft as the league plans to kick off its inaugural season this coming spring. MLFB is now honing in on its eight franchise cities, according to a news release on Thursday morning. The company said that it has entered into final negotiations with 14 potential host cities interested in a MLFB franchise. Given the interest, expansion in 2017 to more franchises, including teams in Canada and Mexico, is a possibility. Chandler said that finalists will be announced later this month, along with the teams’ head coaches and general managers.

Shares of MLFB have gotten sacked after hitting a high of $1.59 in September, losing more than $1 per share to open trading Thursday at 54 cents. The news has provided a little spark in morning action, lifting the stock by 11 percent to 60 cents, although on limited volume.

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