Spring football blooms

The St. Louis Battlehawks have been a big draw at home this season. /© Dilip Vishwanat/XFL

If you’re a fan of alternative football, you’re likely experiencing a tingling sensation in your tender regions this morning.

Two alt leagues, 16 alt teams, eight alt games – all playing on the same weekend, all games nationally televised.

Scott Adamson writes stuff. Follow him on Spoutable @ScottAdamson, Post @scottscribe, Mastodon @SLA1960 and Twitter @adamsonsl

Who would’ve ever believed it possible?

It starts today with a Week 9 XFL clash between the Vegas Vipers and Houston Roughnecks at 11:30 a.m. CDT on ABC (all games are also on ESPN+). The first game of the USFL’s second season kicks off when the Philadelphia Stars meet the Memphis Showboats at 3:30 p.m. on FOX.

Then it’s back to the XFL at 6 p.m. for the Orlando Guardians vs. the San Antonio Brahmas on ESPN2 and ESPN Deportes, and the USFL closes things out starting at 6:30 p.m. as FOX beams the matchup between the defending champion Birmingham Stallions and New Jersey Generals.

On Sunday, spring gridiron aficionados must choose between the Michigan Panthers vs. Houston Gamblers (USFL, NBC and Peacock) and Arlington Renegades vs. D.C. (XFL, ESPN), which both start at 11 a.m.

The Seattle Dragons and St. Louis Battlehawks put the XFL in the spotlight at 2 p.m. on ESPN, and then at 5 p.m. it’s the USFL’s Pittsburgh Maulers clashing with the New Orleans Breakers with FS1 providing coverage.

That’s a lot of good athletes on display, all hoping they can prove they’re good enough to take the next step in their careers.

“We lost some players in the offseason to the NFL, and we lost some players to the XFL because of the calendar, because they wanted to be done earlier,” Birmingham Stallions coach Skip Holtz said. “Everybody’s got their reasons for why they want to play in each league. (The USFL) has got a full season under its belt and it’s very healthy and has great backing. I like what’s going on in this league.

“But there’s plenty of players to fill two leagues. I just look at the way free agency happened this year and the number of talented players that were out there, and it proves there are enough players for both.”

Quick confession: I haven’t seen a full XFL game this year.

I haven’t purposely avoided it – I want it to succeed and I’ve meant to make time to watch. For me, though, it’s timing is a bit off.

XFL 3.0 debuted the weekend following Super Bowl LVII, and I had no appetite for minor league football just days after the sport’s ultimate game was staged. Plus, I was knee deep in NBA, G League and men’s and women’s college basketball, and had basically shut down the football portion of my brain.

Now that it’s mid-April, I’m much more open to gridiron entertainment, especially since my beloved Canadian Football League is a month away from starting its preseason schedule. It might not yet be (traditional) football season, but it’s football season-ish.

Of course, it’s NBA playoff time, and the NHL postseason begins on Monday. Major League Baseball season is also underway, but sadly I’ve reached the “I can take it or leave it” stage of big-league fandom. I’d much rather be at the park watching the Southern League.

Still, I’ll be checking out my share of USFL games; I enjoy writing about the league and its flagship hub is just seven miles from my condo. And I want to be in the stands when the Stallions and Showboats play at Protective Stadium because I have a moral obligation to attend sports clashes between teams representing Birmingham and Memphis.

Anyway …

There were enough spring football fans watching all the games on TV in 2022 to convince the USFL to return.

Last year it averaged 715,000 viewers during the regular season and had solid viewership during the playoffs.

“The USFL worked for us on a bunch of fronts,” NBC Sports executive Jon Miller told the Sports Business Journal last June. “Is it a profitable property? All things put together, I would say yes, it was a profitable property for us.”

XFL officials say their circuit will definitely be back in 2024, regardless of any growing pains experienced in the first season of its third try. I’d be lying if I told you what kind of ratings are required to keep offseason, non-NFL pro football viable in the long term. I really don’t know.

The good news for the XFL is that its Week Eight games saw a boost in TV viewership, with last Saturday’s game between St. Louis and Vegas on ESPN peaking at 1.8 million viewers.

And it’s becoming more and more obvious that fans in front of televisions and not in stadiums will determine the fates of both the USFL and XFL. Except in rare instances (hello, St. Louis!) this brand of football no longer seems to be a major draw at the gate.

Excluding the original USFL – which was a legitimate competitor to the NFL – there have since been six professional Triple A spring leagues; the World League of American Football (1991-92), original XFL (2001), Alliance of American Football (2019), XFL 2.0 (2020), USFL 2.0 (2022 to present) and XFL 3.0 (2023).

Before rebranding as NFL Europe (and finally NFL Europa), the North American-based WLAF teams did pretty well at the box office.

I was at the 1991 WLAF opener between the Birmingham Fire and Montreal Machine at Legion Field, and it drew 52,942 fans.

Later in the season the Machine hosted 53,238 paying customers for a Monday night game against the Barcelona Dragons.

The average per game attendance in 1991 for North American teams was 33,947 (Montreal); 32,260 (New York/New Jersey); 25,500 (Birmingham); 19,537 (Orlando); 17,994 (Sacramento); 14,853 (San Antonio); and 10,999 (Raleigh-Durham).

By year two attendance was down among “traditional” gridiron markets, and 1992 was the final season American and Canadian franchises were part of the league.

The 2001 XFL was led by the San Francisco Demons’ 35,005 per game attendance average; New York/New Jersey was second with 28,309. All but two teams (Birmingham and Chicago) averaged at least 20,000 per contest.

Next up was the AAF, which – with the exception of the San Antonio Commanders – never attracted more than modest in-house crowds. San Antonio brought in 27,721 per game, but no other team cracked the 20,000 mark.

The first XFL reboot was a good draw in St. Louis (28,541 per game) and Seattle (25,616) before being shuttered midseason during the pandemic. Houston was third in average attendance at 18,230.

The USFL sequel was played in a hub format and league officials were tight-lipped about attendance (although they did announce the inaugural game at 47,000-seat Protective Stadium between the Stallions and Generals welcomed 17,500 paying customers). Only a handful of people bothered to show up for games that didn’t involve Birmingham, making for bad TV optics.

And now XFL 3.0 is winding down with Battlehawks fans turning out in huge numbers (38,310 in Week Four, 35,868 Week Five and 35,167 in Week Eight) but the rest of the league playing before underwhelming crowds.

San Antonio is far below its AAF numbers, pulling in just 13,387 fans per game, while Seattle is down to 11,626 – about 14,000 less than its average XFL crowds in 2020.

But the leagues will ride or die because of TV, and I don’t know what the folks at FOX, NBC or Disney think the magic number is for viewers.

The bottom line is making money, so I assume if ratings are good enough to keep major advertisers happy then all is well.

And fans in the stands? I have no clue what the new normal is. Maybe we’ve reached the point where 12,000-15,000 people in the house for spring football is good – even though not terribly long ago those were considered disappointing crowds. And truthfully, with ticket prices as low as they are, the Stallions should be pulling in at least 30,000 per game.

I’m hoping maybe with new USFL hubs in Memphis, Detroit and Canton, fans in those cities will wage “attendance wars” in an effort to prove which town is the biggest league hotbed. (According to various reports, Memphis has already sold 25,000 tickets for today’s home opener against the Stars).

Regardless of who shows up at the stadiums and who plops in front of their televisions, there is professional football – pretty good professional football – being played today and tomorrow, and you can watch any or all of them.

If you’re a fan of alternative football, this is a great time to be alive.

Return of the champs

The Birmingham Americans were the Magic City’s first professional football champions, winning the World Football League title in 1974. But they never had a chance to repeat because the team folded (and the reorganized WFL followed suit midway through the 1975 season).

Forty-eight years later, the Birmingham Stallions claimed the United States Football League crown.

Scott Adamson writes stuff. Follow him on Spoutable @ScottAdamson, Post @scottscribe, Mastodon @SLA1960 and Twitter @adamsonsl

Staring Saturday, they can take the first step toward doing it again.

Both the USFL and the Stallions have returned for a second season, and Birmingham will kick off Year Two by hosting the New Jersey Generals at 6:30 p.m. CDT at Protective Stadium.

“We’ve talked a lot about how hard it is to defend,” Stallions coach Skip Holtz said. “There’s only been eight Super Bowl champions repeat and four of them were like in the first 15 years, so it’s hard to repeat … it’s hard. Everybody shoots for you, and you’ve got to be at your best each and every week.

“But you’ve got a new team and what I’ve said to these guys is if what you did yesterday seems big to you, it just means we haven’t accomplished anything today.”

A brand-new league meant a whole new experience for players and coaches last year. There was no real point of reference in how to best structure camp and practices.

“Last year we went to camp with 45 players and we put everybody in a bubble,” Holtz explained. “It was like, ‘Don’t touch each other … we’ve got to get everybody to game day.’ This year we had 58, so there were 13 more players in camp than we had in 2022. And there are cuts this year.

“I feel a whole lot better going into year two because I’d never gone out there in fall camp without about 120 players. I was looking around last year going, ‘Where’s the defense?’ This is half of them. That’s your whole team now. But for me, I’m a lot more comfortable.”

As Holtz said, this is a new team, and there are some missing pieces from the 2022 squad.

Receiver Victor Bolden Jr., who led the squad in punt return yards, kick return yards and all-purpose yards a year ago, is now playing with the XFL Arlington Renegades.

Another former Stallions receiver – Osirus Mitchell – will be suited up for the Memphis Showboats in 2023. They’ll host the Philadelphia Stars Saturday at 3:30 p.m. CDT in the first game of the new season.

And there are also three offensive linemen gone from the inaugural USFL champions.

But there are plenty of familiar faces – and playmakers – back in the fold.

J’Mar Smith and Alex McGough are expected to share quarterbacking duties, and wideout Marlon Williams, who led the team with 474 receiving yards in 2022, will be their primary target.

The pass catching corps also features Davion Davis, Deon Cain and Jace Sternberger, and on Monday, the Stallions signed former LSU tight end Thaddeus Moss, who holds single-season school records for receptions (45) and receiving yards (570).

“There’s more of a sense of urgency this season,” Smith said. “We know we have a big target on our chests and on our backs, and we’re gonna get everybody’s best shot. The bottom line is to put points on the board.”

The Stallions have a terrific 1-2 punch in the backfield with the return of Bo Scarbrough and CJ Marable. Marable paced the club with 401 yards and five rushing TDs last season before getting injured in May, while Scarbrough averaged more than four yards per carry after joining the team midseason.

Defensively, the squad looks solid across the board. The line returns almost completely intact; Brian Allen is an experienced veteran leading the secondary; and Scooby Wright brings high intensity and big play capabilities to the linebacking unit. It was his interception return for a touchdown that sealed Birmingham’s wild 33-30 win over the Stars in the 2022 championship game in Canton.

“I think it’ll take the first couple of games to form an identity,” Wright said. “Being defending champion, there’s some added pressure, but it’s just a case of canceling out the noise and focusing on what’s important. I know on the defensive side we’re gonna be a team that flies around the football.”

Birmingham follows its opener against New Jersey with home games against Memphis (April 22) and New Orleans (April 29). The Breakers share Protective Stadium with the Stallions in 2023 as part of the league’s four hub model.

Birmingham’s first regular season road game is May 7 when it travels to Canton to play Pittsburgh. It’s back home on May 13 to face Houston, then off to Detroit on May 20 to meet the Michigan Panthers.

The Stallions and Breakers play for the second time May 27 in Birmingham, and Philadelphia comes in for a Week Eight showdown on June 3.

Birmingham’s final two regular season games will be held in Memphis, where Holtz’s team faces Houston on June 11 and Memphis on June 17.

“We’ve got to keep a chip on our shoulder,” Holtz said. “We’ve got to stay hungry and we’ve got to keep working because that’s how we won it and that’s the only way we’re going to be able to have any chance to go out there and have some success this year. I like the attitude and like the way they work, but this football team … we haven’t talked about defending or repeating since the opening meeting. “We’re a new football team, this is the 2023 football team … the 2022 team was an awesome experience, an incredible team, incredible togetherness, the way they were able to come together and what they put together, but this is a new year and I’m excited to watch them play.”

Crawl, walk, run

The USFL began with eight teams in one city in 2022.

This year, four cities will house two teams each.

Scott Adamson writes stuff. Follow him on Spoutable @ScottAdamson, Post @scottscribe, Mastodon @SLA1960 and Twitter @adamsonsl

And in 2024?

It’d be great for all the clubs to have homes of their own by then, but league president Daryl Johnston says the “crawl, walk, run” approach will determine how the spring league will be structured going forward.

“Well, I think you look at the expansion we did from year one to year two, and one of the big things that we had during the course of year one was to crawl then walk,” Johnston said during a Tuesday press conference. “We wanted to do things in a methodical manner. When we found out that we were going to expand into four hubs going from year one to year two, that was probably more than a lot of people were anticipating.”

Except for the playoffs in Canton, Ohio, all games were played in Birmingham last season. While the hometown Stallions drew anywhere from 10,000 to 17,500 for games involving them, contests featuring other teams were witnessed by only a handful of fans.

Johnston hopes additional hubs (Memphis, Detroit and Canton) will mean more fans will have a bigger stake in the teams.

“One of the things that the USFL has done is when we come into the markets, we want to make an impact,” Johnson adds. “We want to build those relationships. And it’s not just about football, we talk about sustainability and for sustainability to happen, you have to create relationships.”

From a cost containment standpoint, I understand the slow rollout, although having the New Jersey Generals and Pittsburgh Maulers playing in Canton means the home of the Pro Football Hall of Fame will have no local team to cheer for.

Seems weird to me – I mean, why not just put a team in Canton?

Johnston has an explanation for that.

“We wanted to continue the relationship that we started last season with the playoffs in Canton,” he said. “It was something that I was really excited about. When somebody says you’re going to have the chance to play your playoffs and your championship game at the (Tom Benson) Hall of Fame Stadium, that’s something that we couldn’t say no to.

“We had such a great experience while we were there and we wanted to actually expand that relationship and continue with it, so we’re using the Canton hub to be kind of a satellite for Pittsburgh with the proximity to the city, and also put the New Jersey Generals there.”

TV ratings were relatively good in 2022 – which is a primary concern since the league is owned by FOX and partners with NBC – but the in-house fan experience is also important.

“When we heard the feedback about our fan base, wanting to get the teams into their home markets, there were opportunities that we felt were too good to pass up, going from year one to year two,” Johnston said. “So, we all kind of buckled down and got ready to move those teams into the market. As we move forward, it will always be done on a case-by-case basis based on what’s best for the USFL, what gives us the most opportunity to be sustainable, and to have that success. So, we continue to come back and talk about going on to that next season and surpassing what other leagues have done during the course of spring football attempts.”

Memphis Showboats coach Todd Haley said the fans he’s met are excited about cheering on their team in the friendly confines of Simmons Bank Liberty Stadium.

“I thought last year everything was great in Birmingham, but you know though, at times, you weren’t excited about not having your home crowd there,” he said. “We had a huge clinic out here and tons of kids showed up – parents, everything. But the biggest thing as the head coach of the Showboats has just been seeing my players and coaches embrace being part of this community.

“We’re obviously all excited about seeing fans come into the stadium and cheer us on and make some noise.”

Even Birmingham coach Skip Holtz welcomes the chance to take his team away from Protective Stadium to play a few regular season games.

“We have four road games and yeah, I am kind of excited to go on the road and watch this league continue to expand not just with more players, not just with the product on the field, but also expand with our fan bases,” Holtz said. “I think that’s all part of the excitement and fun and I love going on the road, you know, getting booed running out of the tunnel and stuff. It’s like, ‘Oh yeah, here we go.” I mean, that’s all part of the fun and part of the competition of football.”

Ultimately, of course, the goal is for each team to find a home of its on. When that will happen, however, is still anyone’s guess.

“We hope to get all of our teams into their home markets at some point, but it will always be done on the basis of what’s best for the league,” Johnston said. “And we’ll stick with that crawl, walk, run mentality to make sure we’re doing it the right way.”