How spring football plans to get bigger by getting smaller

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For more than 40 years now, visionaries, investors and the occasional future president have attempted to make spring football work in the United States. All have foundered or failed, struggling both to draw fans and to justify their own existence.

Here’s the big question that has bedeviled spring football since the USFL first kicked off in 1982: Is this a problem of product or presentation? Is the very idea of spring football flawed, or do its problems lie in the way it’s branded, marketed and offered up to the public?

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The United Football League believes it’s hit on an answer to those questions, and on Tuesday unveiled a range of strategies designed to maximize spring football’s strengths (it’s football) while minimizing its weaknesses (low attendance relative to NFL games). Starting in the 2026 season, three new franchises — the Orlando Storm, the Louisville Kings and the Columbus (Ohio) Aviators — will begin play in the eight-team league. They replace the Memphis Showboats, Michigan Panthers and San Antonio Brahmas, which played in the league’s first two seasons.

Two other teams, the Dallas Renegades and Houston Gamblers, have rebranded and moved to smaller soccer stadiums. Virtually all of the eight current UFL teams will now play in these smaller, sub-20,000-seat stadiums.

“Even though spring football has tried for 40 years, these stadiums that we’re putting the teams in didn’t exist 15 years ago,” UFL co-owner Mike Repole told Yahoo Sports. “There’s no bad seat in the house, the stadium, the soccer venues are built right on top of the field. You can touch the players from every seat.”

USFL + XFL = UFL

The UFL is the product of a 2024 merger between two spring football leagues, the USFL and the XFL, both of which were themselves new versions of previous attempts at playing football during baseball season. The original USFL, which included players like Steve Young and Jim Kelly and an ownership group that included then-real estate developer Donald Trump, fell apart in the early ‘80s after an ill-fated attempt to compete head-to-head with the NFL. The first version of the XFL, created by WWE impresario Vince McMahon, flared brightly and quickly sputtered out after just one season in 2001. New versions of both leagues with no connection to their predecessors but the initials began play in recent years before merging prior to the 2024 spring season.

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Repole, an entrepreneur who co-owns the UFL alongside a consortium that includes Fox, ESPN, Dwayne Johnson and others, bought into the league this past summer. In the course of his due diligence, he observed a massive problem that had an all-too-familiar feel.

“You can’t play (spring football) in a 65,000-seat stadium,” he says. “You get 15,000 in that stadium and it’s empty. It just doesn’t look right, it doesn’t feel right, and it doesn’t show right. The quality of football was high, but when I flick on ESPN or Fox and I see 10,000 fans, I feel like it’s a COVID game.”

The solution, Repole believes, is to shrink the tent and cater to a devoted few, with the expectation that they’ll attract a larger number of casual viewers. So for 2026, the UFL will focus on its eight cities — the five with new or rebranded teams, plus the Birmingham Stallions, St. Louis Battlehawks and Washington, D.C. Defenders.

“My priority is going to be the eight local markets,” he says. “You build a brand for those eight markets. And then, (when) those markets sell out when you put it on TV, no matter where you’re watching the game, it’s going to feel good.”

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That “no matter where you’re watching the game” element is key to the UFL, which has an enviable asset: broadcast deals with ESPN and Fox. That allows the league to leapfrog similar small startups — LIV Golf, say — which have struggled to draw eyeballs without a major-network broadcast deal in place.

“We need to build high quality football,” Repole says. “We’ve had high energy. We have to work inside the local community. We have to play in the right venues in the right markets.”

That strategic direction gets at the question of how spring football will maintain a foothold. But it doesn’t answer the question of why spring football exists in the first place.

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Repole sees three answers to that question, with the first being the most obvious. The best thing spring football has going for it is right there in the name: football.

“What’s happening right now with football in America, I don’t think we’ve seen anything like this,” Repole says. He points to the vast appetite for football in America as exemplified in ratings: more than 30 million for playoff games; more than 10 million for major college games; several million for the NFL Draft, which has no actual gameplay at all. It’s a long way from February to August, Repole reasons, and the UFL stands ready to fill that void for fans, gamblers and fantasy football players — all of which exist in greater numbers now than in previous iterations of spring football.

Still, he has to be realistic about the low attendance figures for UFL games, and so he contends that the league’s benchmarks shouldn’t be the NFL and college football, but other sports.

“You got pro basketball, and you got the NHL, could they fill an arena of 70,000 for every game? Probably not,” he says. “They can’t even get 15-, 20,000, right? (Pro) football, and college football can do it, but 15-, 20,000 fans at a game for a pro league is what the norm is.”

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Repole is also realistic about the UFL’s rosters, which are made up of former college and former NFL players. “We want to develop these players with the right coaches, the right teachers, the right mentors,” he says. “They’re not in the UFL because they chose the UFL over the NFL, they’re in the UFL because they fell short of making the UFL … We want to help these young players achieve their goals.”

While there is no explicit strategic alliance between the UFL and the NFL, Repole notes that the UFL gives players a chance to keep their skills sharp, and in turn giving NFL teams a chance to scout potential roster-fillers. “Whether you’re on (an NFL) practice squad, or if you’re the fourth-string quarterback, you know, how are you going to get better? Game reps are everything,” he says. “Play in the UFL, play 10 games, get 80 snaps a game, go, go, go, I mean, how else can you get better?”

Dozens of players have made the leap from the UFL into the NFL, most notably a pair of Cowboys. KaVonte Turpin, a former spring MVP, is a two-time Pro Bowler and All-Pro kick returner. And Brandon Aubrey jumped from the Birmingham Stallions to Dallas, where he now kicks field goals across area codes.

“The difference between a kicker that’s working at Morgan Stanley and one that’s kicking for the NFL is like one yard,” Repole says. “What happens is, they go into our league, they show they can hit in game conditions, and then they go kick 60 yards in the NFL.”

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The final component of the UFL strategy — fan experience — will be critical to the league’s local markets, and thus to its future plans. Repole believes football has a rare opportunity, if executed properly, to be a source of community pride and unification.

“In a world that’s so divided, football can unite everybody. It can unite a community,” he says. “Nobody’s going to ask what’s your political affiliation when you walk into the stadium.”

It’s a bold concept, building a league where so many other attempts have faltered. But Repole believes, thanks to good luck and good timing, the UFL’s moment is here.

“I think we’re in a perfect time, a perfect place,” Repole says. “I think if we can just be ourselves and genuine and real and not try to be like any other league, I think we’ll find our space. I really do.”

This news was originally published on this post .

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