USFL and XFL merge

Spring football still struggling to gain a foothold.
https://deadline.com/2023/12/united...2fb95bdf916387b7d2ea6936a1d5940c4336463521675

 

Seems like these spring leagues would have a greater chance of success by choosing mid-level cities like Des Moines, Fargo, Omaha, etc. instead of cities with an existing NFL franchise. And of course, you can't have minor-league football without Memphis, Shreveport and Birmingham.

 

Well, they've gained some level of at least toleration by the NFL, with the heavy hand of FOX behind the USFL.

Certainly the USFL appears to have been an incubator for kickers, if nothing else.

But no matter how you cut it, this is essentially a 50 percent contraction. With no presence at all in any major markets, I don't see much real viewership potential.

 

I suspect stadiums are a big issue.
These leagues need either mid-sized markets where they can be a unique attraction; or markets that are big enough where two flies humping on a pile of dog crap can draw 20,000 people to watch. In either case, they need to play in a football stadium that doesn't give the appearance that they're in a high school or Division III venue. It's a difficult needle to thread, because the 30,000-seat stadiums that would be ideal for these leagues largely don't exist where they need them. All of the big-market stadiums are 60,000-seat NFL monsters whose primary tenants might not be keen on renting them out to a potential competitor. Anything smaller than that is probably an out of the way college stadium no one is traveling to for the XFL or USFL.

The cities you're describing, for the most part, don't have high-end college or NFL stadiums. The Fargodome would be great for this kind of league, but only holds 19,000. Drake Stadium in Des Moines holds 14,500. Omaha doesn't even have one. There are others, like Tulane's or Vanderbilt's stadiums, that might fit the bill, but might also have restrictions on their use. That's part of why Birmingham has been so central to all of these leagues — it checks a lot of these boxes.

It's a similar problem to what MLS had in its early years. Until it hung around long enough to build smaller soccer-specific stadiums, MLS was stuck playing in cavernous NFL stadiums. A decent crowd of 20,000 still left the place two-thirds empty and the optics were a punchline. Now that its teams have built a bunch of 25-30K stadiums, that same crowd creates a great atmosphere.

 

I'd think Fargodome would be fine except for the weather in "spring" and it being a slight nuisance to get there. And a 19,000-seat dome creates quite the atmosphere vs. a 19,000-seat outdoor stadium.

And at this point, the NFL has given its stamp of approval. No way Fox and ESPN are involved or have any ownership stake otherwise.

 

These teams charter to every game. The Fargo airport is about three blocks from the Fargodome. Pretty convenient.

If this league averaged 19k fans it would be a smashing success, something no other version of minor-league football has come close to achieving.

 

XFL 2.0 was doing pretty well in 2020 before the pandemic wiped it out. Most games drew 15,000+, and Seattle and St. Louis had well over 20,000 at their two home games. The DC team was averaging about 16,000 in a 20,000-seat soccer stadium for three home games, and was gaining a fast reputation for being a good time. Fans were doing beer snakes in the stands.
St. Louis, in particular, was really embracing its team as a "fuck you" to the NFL. There was talk of opening the upper deck at the TWA Dome for the next home game that was never played.
Who knows if it was sustainable? But it's kind of a shame that league got strangled in the crib because, at least in a few places, it seemed to tap into something people wanted.

 

Earlier in the year when I was rambling on about possibly 16 teams surviving out of this amalgamation, I noted that would work out very nicely for player development/informal farm team purposes: one UFL team for every two NFL teams.

As it turns out, the math still works out: one UFL teams for every FOUR NFL teams.
Or, you could affiliate then on a divisional basis: one per division.

It's not too likely that more than 25% of the players on any UFL rosters are going to be any credible NFL prospects, so there would certainly be room on the rosters to handle it.


Of course the huge stumbling block with that is that many teams would probably not want to get into a player development/informal farm team arrangement with their division rivals. So you'd probably have to figure out some alternate arrangements.

 

As long as there are 70+ P5 football teams supplying talent to the NFL, any sub-NFL pro team will be seen as inferior football. (That is, the players couldn't cut it with the shield so why watch.)

Even though the players and the play will certainly be superior to college football.

That is the paradox of football in America.

 

I’m not at all sure the players and the play will be better than college football.

The best skill players in the knock-off league will be vastly inferior to their college counterparts.

 

How so? They'll be taking the players from that same exact pool of talent.

 

Because guys like Marvin Harrison,Jr. could have spent the last two years in the NFL and are better than what you will see in the XFL or USFL.