The Las Vegas Locomotives (called the Locos for short) were a professional

American football American football (referred to simply as football in the United States and Canada), also known as gridiron, is a team sport played by two teams of eleven players on a rectangular field with goalposts at each end. The offense, the team wi ...

team based in

Las Vegas, Nevada Las Vegas (; Spanish for "The Meadows"), often known simply as Vegas, is the 25th-most populous city in the United States, the most populous city in the state of Nevada, and the county seat of Clark County. The city anchors the Las Vega ...

that played in the United Football League. The team played their home games at

Sam Boyd Stadium Sam Boyd Stadium (formerly the Las Vegas Silver Bowl) is a football stadium in the western United States, located in Whitney, Nevada, an unincorporated community in the Las Vegas Valley. It honors Sam Boyd (1910–1993), a major figure in the h ...

, home field for the

University of Nevada, Las Vegas The University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV) is a public land-grant research university in Paradise, Nevada. The campus is about east of the Las Vegas Strip. It was formerly part of the University of Nevada from 1957 to 1969. It includes th ...

. Jim Fassel was the franchise's head coach, president, and

general manager A general manager (GM) is an executive who has overall responsibility for managing both the revenue and cost elements of a company's income statement, known as profit & loss (P&L) responsibility. A general manager usually oversees most or all of ...

. The Locomotives appeared in all three

UFL Championship Game The UFL Championship Game was an American football game held annually to determine the champion of the United Football League. The game was played annually from the UFL's first season in 2009 until the 2011 season, and involved the first and seco ...

s, winning both the

2009 File:2009 Events Collage V2.png, From top left, clockwise: The vertical stabilizer of Air France Flight 447 is pulled out from the Atlantic Ocean; Barack Obama becomes the first African American to become President of the United States; Protests ...

and

2010 File:2010 Events Collage New.png, From top left, clockwise: The 2010 Chile earthquake was one of the strongest recorded in history; The Eruption of Eyjafjallajökull in Iceland disrupts air travel in Europe; A scene from the opening ceremony of ...

iterations; the Locos were also the last of the four charter UFL franchises to remain in their original home city, to retain their original head coach, and to have played all of their home games at the same venue.

Franchise history

Las Vegas was one of the first markets to be considered for a UFL team, being mentioned as a location from the beginning. When the league released their tentative list of six markets for their inaugural season in early 2008, it included Las Vegas,

Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world ...

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States New York may also refer to: Film and television * '' ...

Hartford Hartford is the capital city of the U.S. state of Connecticut. It was the seat of Hartford County until Connecticut disbanded county government in 1960. It is the core city in the Greater Hartford metropolitan area. Census estimates since t ...

, Orlando, and

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17t ...

. When the league contracted to four teams prior to the start of the 2009 season, Las Vegas merged with Los Angeles, while New York merged with Hartford. Eventually, despite New York and Los Angeles being the larger markets, Las Vegas and Hartford were given sole rights to the teams, and Las Vegas never played a game in the Los Angeles metro area.

2009 season

Las Vegas was awarded a franchise for the inaugural season of the UFL in

. The team named Jim Fassel as head coach. Fassel led his team to a 4–2 record in his first season. In the

2009 UFL Championship Game The 2009 UFL Championship Game was the concluding game of the United Football League's inaugural season. The game was staged at Sam Boyd Stadium in Whitney, Nevada on Friday, November 27, 2009 (one day after Thanksgiving), and was won by the ...

, the Locos defeated the then-undefeated Florida Tuskers to become the league's first champions.

Schedule

Championship Game

2010 season

Prior to the 2010 season, head coach Jim Fassel added the title of general manager, replacing league-wide general manager Rick Mueller, who handled the duties in 2009. The team also made a small tweak to their color scheme with red replacing the league-standard teal color in the trim of the logo for the 2010 season. On November 27, 2010, the Locomotives won their second UFL championship, again beating the Florida Tuskers with a final score of 23-20.

Schedule

2011 season

Prior to the 2011 season, head coach and general manager Jim Fassel added the title of team president. Fassel assumed more authority over the team as part of the league's efforts to transform their original top-down business model into one in which teams are given more authority over their own operations. Among the reforms Fassel implemented was an increase in direct marketing and the establishment of the league's first team-run Web site separate from the main UFL Web site. The move initially doubled the team's season ticket base. Despite the gain in season ticket base, the Locomotives drew only 6,500 fans to their first home game, which was a factor in the league deciding to cut their season short and cancel the Locomotives' two remaining games.

Schedule

2012 season

The increasingly poor attendance at Sam Boyd Stadium jeopardized the Locomotives' future in Las Vegas. Hambrecht openly considered relocating the team to

Salt Lake City Salt Lake City (often shortened to Salt Lake and abbreviated as SLC) is the capital and most populous city of Utah, United States. It is the seat of Salt Lake County, the most populous county in Utah. With a population of 200,133 in 2020, th ...

Utah Utah ( , ) is a state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. Utah is a landlocked U.S. state bordered to its east by Colorado, to its northeast by Wyoming, to its north by Idaho, to its south by Arizona, and to its ...

, setting a late January deadline for his decision. On January 31, 2012, Hambrecht announced (the same day the league commissioner resigned) that, should the fall 2012 season go on, the Locomotives would stay in Las Vegas. The league also considered moving to Cashman Field, the home of the minor-league baseball Las Vegas 51s, but the team returned to Sam Boyd Stadium for the first two games in 2012. By the start of the 2012 season, the Locomotives proved to be the best team on the field in the UFL, decisively winning their first two contests against Virginia and Omaha. However, the Locomotives' off-field problems were becoming even worse. According to official figures, only 2,500 fans arrived at Sam Boyd Stadium for the first contest, followed by a paltry 601 fans at the start of the second contest, the worst attendance for a league of the UFL's caliber in modern professional football history. In both cases, the actual attendance was reportedly even smaller. Both games were held early on Wednesday evenings, which may have held down attendance. With already low attendance numbers dropping further across the league, the UFL suspended operations four weeks into the season, never to return. On January 16, 2013, the majority of the Locomotives' roster filed a class-action lawsuit against Hambrecht for unpaid salaries. The lawsuit was ultimately successful, although Hambrecht still has not paid the salaries.

Season-by-season records

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Home, away and neutral records

Logos and uniforms

In the inaugural 2009 season, all teams were to adopt color schemes from the UFL logo. The Locos were given silver as their primary color. They would wear silver helmets on both road and home, with silver jerseys at home and white on the road. The Locos also wore blue pants. For the 2010 season, teams were able to change their colors. The Locos kept the silver, but replaced the UFL blue with

UNLV The University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV) is a public land-grant research university in Paradise, Nevada. The campus is about east of the Las Vegas Strip. It was formerly part of the University of Nevada from 1957 to 1969. It includes th ...

red. In an attempt to "match with their environment", the Locos adapted the main color scheme of the stadium into their uniforms, emulating the colors of UNLV. The Locos had red jerseys at home and white on the road, with silver pants.

References

{{United Football League (2009) 2009 establishments in Nevada 2012 disestablishments in Nevada