XFL and USFL Confirm Merger, with Newly Formed United Football League to Debut in March; ESPN, Fox Sports Aboard
by Patrick Hipes
December 31, 2023


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Dwayne Johnson and Dany Garcia on Sunday unveiled plans for the United Football League, the new spring pro football league born from the merger of the XFL and USFL.

During an appearance this morning on Fox’s NFL on Fox, the pair said the UFL‘s debut season will begin March 30, 2024 with a game between the Arlington Renegades and Birmingham Stallions, the previous champions from each league. More details are expected soon regarding teams and markets.




Last year was Johnson and Garcia’s only season as co-owners with RedBird Capital Partners of the resurrected XFL, which was competing with the USFL for NFL-offseason eyeballs.

The USFL itself was in its second season of its own revival, operating with a joint broadcast deal with both NBC and Fox, with the latter also holding a minority stake in the league.

A release today noted five UFL partners: former XFL owners Johnson, Garcia and RedBird’s Gerry Cardinale, Fox Sports (led by CEO Erik Shanks) and ESPN (led by chairman Jimmy Pitaro). ESPN was the XFL’s broadcast partner last season.




“We wanted to join forces for a few reasons,” Johnson, a former University of Miami star defensive tackle, said on Fox today. “No. 1, to grow the game of football — it’s a game we all love — and to create opportunities for players … and also to deliver for the fans.

If you think about it, this is 30 years of spring football starting and stopping, starting and stopping,” he added, “so with this merger … it feels like we’ve got a shot to establish that spring football is here to stay.”

https://deadline.com/2023/12/united-football-league-plans-xfl-usfl-merger-1235684077/

New United Football League Sets 8 Teams for its Inaugural Season, Though None out West
by Patrick Hipes
January 1, 2024


A day after revealing on New Year’s Eve on Fox that the newly formed United Football League will kick off in June, co-owners Dwayne Johnson and Dany Garcia took to ESPN to unveil the cities and coaches for the inaugural season.

The UFL, the pro spring league created via the merger of the USFL and XFL, will comprise two four-team conferences, Johnson and Garcia said today during an appearance on ESPN College GameDay.



In the new UFL, the USFL Conference will hold the Birmingham Stallions, Houston Roughnecks, Memphis Showboats and Michigan Panthers. The XFL Conference will hold the Arlington Renegades, D.C. Defenders, San Antonio Brahmas and St. Louis Battlehawks.

Houston had franchises in both the USFL and XFL in 2023; those were combined to create the Roughnecks.



Out of the mix are former XFL teams in Orlando, Seattle and Las Vegas, and former USFL teams in Philadelphia, New Jersey, Pittsburgh and New Orleans, meaning no teams on the West Coast or in the major L.A.-New York area markets for the UFL’s inaugural year.

This’s year’s UFL coaches are Skip Holtz (Birmingham), Bob Stoops (Arlington), Curtis Johnson (Houston), Reggie Barlow (D.C.), John DeFilippo (Memphis), Wade Phillips (San Antonio), Mike Nolan (Michigan) and Anthony Brecht (St. Louis).



Players in the new UFL will report to training camp February 24 in Arlington. Previous league champions Birmingham (USFL) and Arlington (XFL) will meet in the opener of the 10-game season March 10. Games will air on ABC, ESPN, Fox and FS1.

https://deadline.com/2024/01/united-football-league-teams-teams-cities-1235693463/

I suggest the New UFL would be a success for a good reason

Spring Football has started and stopped started and stopped for now almost forty years (the USFL was in 1983) is that few people want to watch it. I don’t understand for the life of me why they are still trying to make this work when it clearly doesn’t.

For some reason they think that people miss football in the Spring or off season. The truth is most of us don’t. Football (from high school to the NFL) goes from late August to early February. In the Spring there is the NBA, March Madness, then baseball. We have other sports to watch.

Second, some positions in the sport are very difficult to fill. Quarterbacks and kickers are two good examples. Again, people don’t want to watch NFL rejects. This sounds a bit harsh and it is, to even be thought about by the NFL for a shot means that they are decent football players even if cut. But if they are cut, they need to go on with their lives, because the UFL isn’t a career thing. Yes, a few players have gone from a minor league football team to the NFL, but that’s very few and far between.

Now because of NIL in college, college stars would rather stay in college and get paid rather than joining something like the “UFL”. An eight team league is kind of a joke. Already the old XFL dropped half of last year’s league because it didn’t work. The USFL was so goofy, playing all their teams the first year in one stadium which means that literally NO ONE was in the stands except for the home team Birmingham. Then they went to four “hubs” or something.

Spring football is like that saying that “Insanity is doing something over and over again expecting different results.

Considering Im a fan of the XFL, im looking forward to this.

I sooooo want to see an Ohio team in the UFL.

Even if they call themselves Ohio and play in Columbus...they'll be more supportive as an Ohio team, more so than The Columbus Blew Jackets!

We are less than 2 weeks away! Pulling for the Defenders to make a repeat championship appearance.

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It seems as if the UFL, the upstart spring football league that just completed its third season, is finding somewhat of a baseline when it comes to viewership.

The league averaged 674,000 viewers in its third season across ABC, ESPN, ESPN2, Fox, FS1, and NFL Network, up 1% versus average viewership in its second season (665,000 viewers), per data from Sports Media Watch. The increase is well within the margin that could be solely explained by Nielsen's shift to Big Data + Panel measurements, which have generally lifted viewership figures for live sports versus prior seasons.

UFL viewership is still well below what the league earned in its inaugural season in 2024, when an average of 850,000 viewers per game tuned in.