The newest professional football venture, the All American Football League, is preparing to launch next spring with as many as eight teams playing in major-college stadiums.

Odds are Nebraska won’t be among them.

However, Marcus Katz, a wealthy San Diego businessman who is spearheading the AAFL financially, expresses hope that a Nebraska franchise in Lincoln might join the league in the future and perhaps as soon as 2009. League rosters will consist of former college players who did not make NFL teams, and the players must have their undergraduate degrees.

“I think the prospects of it being something that fans in Nebraska embrace is very, very high,” the 59-year-old Katz said Wednesday. “My girlfriend happens to be from Nebraska, and everybody she knows who ever got wind of this league says, ‘Oh, my gosh, that would be fantastic. How soon can we have a team?’ ”

Former NU chancellor and president Martin Massengale serves on the AAFL board of directors. Indeed, the seriousness of Katz’s undertaking is reflected in the makeup of the board, which also includes former NCAA president Cedric Dempsey, former ACC commissioner Gene Corrigan and former Tennessee and Florida head coach Doug Dickey.

“I’ve talked with (Husker athletic director Steve Pederson), and he indicated he’d be willing to look at it,” Massengale said. “But I don’t think at this time we’re ready to expand beyond the areas we’re looking at at the moment.”

Pederson was vacationing Wednesday and unavailable for comment. AAFL representatives have traveled to Lincoln to discuss with Pederson the potential for fielding a team that would play in Memorial Stadium, Katz said. At this point, it would require almost a miracle for Nebraska to field a team in 2008 because of red tape and other logistical issues.

As for the future, Katz said, “From the league’s point of view, it would be 100 percent definite if the University of Nebraska said they wanted in.”

Katz said he hopes to field eight teams in 2008 for a 10-game regular season that would begin in April and end in late June or early July. The league has received agreements in principle from Iowa, Purdue, North Carolina State, Florida State, Florida and Tennessee. A few other contracts with schools are in the works, Katz said. In addition, Texas, Oklahoma, Alabama, Michigan and Ohio State are among schools that have expressed interest for the future, Katz said.

Katz said he thinks having an AAFL team would be a good financial move for a university. For instance, he said, “A typical (college) stadium rents for about $100,000 a game, whereas we offer to pay the equivalent of about $500,000 a game.”

Massengale said he would want to see a market evaluation conducted in the Lincoln area before the university goes forward with helping to field a team. He points to a few factors — such as the requirement that players have degrees in hand — that might separate the AAFL from previous failed leagues such as the United States Football League in the 1980s and the XFL in 2001.  

“Anything we can do to encourage young people to get degrees is a good thing,” said Massengale, formerly chairman of the NCAA president’s commission as well as the defunct College Football Association.

Reach Steven M. Sipple at 473-7440 or ssipple@journalstar.com.