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.
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.