This Easter weekend, you may have turned on your TV and tuned in to your local FOX station or ESPN to see soccer on the screen. This was the United Football League opening its 2024 spring football season.
“United Football League?” you might ask. Last year there was the US Football League and the XFL, right? ”Yes, in fact, in 2023 he had two separate spring soccer leagues.
During the “offseason,” the USFL and XFL merged to form the UFL. And for avid soccer fans, that has nothing to do with his UFL in the early 2010s.
The UFL will feature eight teams, four in the USFL conference and four in the XFL conference. Three of those teams are from the USFL and five are from the XFL. Technically, four from each league, but the USFL's Houston Gamblers rebranded to the XFL's Houston Roughnecks, but the coaching staff remained the Gamblers.
At this point, you're probably confused about the spring football situation. As someone who has been watching American Football since the Alliance of American Football in 2019, I wanted to recap the past six years of Spring Football to help you understand how we got to the UFL. Masu.
In 2018, WWE owner Vince McMahon, who founded the original XFL in 2001, announced that the XFL would be revived and played in 2020. Around the same time, Charlie Ebersole, son of former NBC executive and 2001 XFL co-founder Dick, also announced that Ebersole would create a new spring football league, The Alliance of American Football, to be played in 2019.
Eight teams participated in the AAF (Alliance): Orlando Apollos, Atlanta Legends, Memphis Express, Birmingham Iron, Arizona Hotshots, Salt Lake Stallions, San Diego Fleet, and San Antonio Commanders.
There was no kickoff for Alliance, with a 4th and 12th attempt onside, and a two-point conversion only after a touchdown. Although the season began immediately after Super Bowl III, the league concluded after eight weeks with Orlando leading 7-1.
Why fold it? money. As it turned out, a major financial backer pulled out before the season, but Ebersol kept quiet about it in order to continue playing in the league. Carolina Hurricanes owner Tom Dundon bought the league midseason and folded it in a powerful move. This is quite an oversimplification, but I would like to explain it briefly.
The Alliance of American Football filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy, but has not heard anything since then. No one knows why it happened, except for a random tweet from two of the teams a few months later.
With no competition in the 2020 season, the XFL added eight teams: the Houston Roughnecks, Tampa Bay Vipers, New York Guardians, D.C. Defenders, St. Louis BattleHawks, Seattle Dragons, Los Angeles Wildcats, and Dallas Renegades. He returned with support.
The XFL was extremely popular. It featured new rules such as double forward passes, one-point, two-point and three-point attempts after a touchdown that does not include a kick, and a kickoff format that the NFL had just approved a few months ago.
The league started right after Super Bowl LIV, but like everything in 2020, the league was suspended due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The XFL played for five weeks, with Houston leading 5-0. The XFL filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy and was sold to Dwayne Johnson, Danny Garcia, and Redbird Capital in August 2020.
The pandemic raged on in 2021, but spring football didn't disappear. The Spring League, a developmental league that began in 2017, has signed a deal with FOX for television rights to broadcast the season in Indianapolis and Houston. The linemen finished the season winning the Mega Bowl.
Spring League owner Brian Woods abolished the developmental league after that season and partnered with FOX to revive the United States Football League, the first-ever Spring Football League, which ran from 1983 to 1985. .
The new USFL featured an eight-team format, similar to the Alliance and XFL. As with the Spring League, all games were played at the Birmingham, Alabama location. The old USFL team is back in this league, starting in late spring 2022.
The teams featured are the Birmingham Stallions, Tampa Bay Bandits, New Orleans Breakers, Houston Gamblers, Pittsburgh Molers, New Jersey Generals, Philadelphia Stars, and Michigan Panthers. The Stallions defeated the Stars in the championship game at the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio, ending the professional spring football season for the first time in 21 years.
The XFL was scheduled to return in 2022, but owners postponed the return season to 2023 after a partnership with the Canadian Football League fell through. But after another year of waiting, the XFL kicked off after Super Bowl LVII and began his 2023 spring football season.
The 2023 XFL brings back the Roughnecks, Defenders, Battlehawks, and Dragons (now called the Sea Dragons). The Vipers moved to Las Vegas, the Guardians to Orlando, and the Renegades to Arlington, Texas. The XFL has introduced a new team, the San Antonio Brahmas.
The USFL and XFL both played seasons in 2023, but the USFL started later than the XFL. In the USFL, Tampa Bay became the Memphis Showboats. Arlington won the XFL championship and Birmingham won back-to-back titles in the USFL.
We all knew at this point that a merger between the two leagues was likely to happen, and fans received news of the intent to merge in September. The official announcement was made several months later, and the resulting league was named the United Football League in December.
The UFL features the Roughnecks, Stallions, Panthers, and Showboats in the USFL Conference, and the Renegades, BattleHawks, Defenders, and Brahmas in the XFL Conference. Players from teams that did not survive the merger were dispersed to the remaining teams in the league through the draft.
This is how we arrived at the current state of the UFL in 2024. The league plays a 10-week season, followed by a two-week playoff in June to determine the winner. If all goes well, spring soccer could be here to stay.
