The United Football League kicked off the 2024 season this past weekend under the merger between the USFL and XFL. This is the third incarnation of the UFL, but this new league is hoping to finally be the answer to spring football that many fans have been wanting for a long time since the original USFL and the NFL Europe League.
To recap the merger, the two leagues combined to end up with 16 teams. Both leagues eliminated half of the original teams in their respective leagues with the XFL getting rid of the original Houston Roughnecks, Orlando Guardians, Seattle Sea Dragons, and the Vegas Vipers. On the USFL side, they ended the Philadelphia Stars, New Jersey Generals, Pittsburgh Maulers, and the New Orleans Breakers. The Gamblers were rebranded as the Houston Roughnecks thus putting them in the USFL Conference.
The UFL is using the USFL’s kickoff, the XFL’s points after-touchdown options, and some slight tweaks to the rules that overlapped, including alternate possession options in the fourth quarter. In addition, the UFL will offer a 4th-and-12 play from the 28-yard line along with onside kicks.
The new UFL is using the coin phrase “spring football is here to stay.” To kick off the new era of the UFL, they featured two USFL versus XFL matchups on Saturday starting with the champions of both leagues battling it out as the Birmingham Stallions beat the Arlington Renegades 27-14, and the Michigan Panthers took down the St. Louis Battlehawks 18-16.
On Sunday, the league had traditional matchups that fans have been accustomed to for the last couple of seasons with the San Antonio Brahmas beating the D.C. Defenders 27-12, and the Memphis Showboats beating the Houston Roughnecks 18-12.
Right off the bat, if you are a fan of defenses, all four games provided that which kept most of the games low-scoring. If you are a fan of offense, the games were not fun to watch but goes to show that this league will be tough all season long and the offenses must get creative to score points.
The big plays that happened in Week 1 were San Antonio punter Brad Wing throwing a 40-yard touchdown pass to offensive lineman Alex Mollette, and Michigan kicker Jesse Bates kicking a game-winning 64-yard field goal against the St. Louis BattleHawks.
The action on the field was entertaining. The games felt like XFL 2020 vibes in a good way. Right now, Birmingham is ahead of the class and with Skip Holtz coaching them for the third straight season, they should be the favorite to win the UFL Championship.
The two changes the league should consider adjusting are the points after-touchdown options. I would like to see kickers kick the extra point (1 point), and add a four-point play from either the 15 or 20-yard line to give the teams more scoring options.
I get that despite how good the games were, many people will not watch it because they either don’t like Dwayne Johnson and Dany Garcia’s politics, their teams were taken away from them or a combination of both and it is understandable. These fans have felt lied to by both leagues and it will be interesting to see how the ratings did in the markets that no longer have XFL or USFL teams.
One takeaway from the Memphis and Houston game was the Roughnecks played like the Gamblers. As I’ve written about before, the two leagues did not plan this merger accordingly. The Houston franchise should still be known as the Gamblers. Even the ESPN announcers had to repeat several times that the Roughnecks are the former Gamblers team.
The original Roughnecks were a different breed of football that were coached by June Jones (2020) and Wade Phillips (2023) that was one of the contending teams in the XFL. Had the pandemic not hit in 2020, it was likely that the Roughnecks were going to win the championship.
Next season, if there is another season, the league should rename the Roughnecks back to the Gamblers and either keep them at Rice Stadium or move them to Shell Energy Stadium, while bringing back the original Roughnecks and having them play at TDECU Stadium. Yes, there would be two Houston teams and Houston is big enough to support two teams.
The UFL had co-owner Dwayne Johnson hyped up the Birmingham and Arlington game in addition to the FOX crew chatting with him and Dany Garcia on the merger and what they hope to accomplish to grow the league. Football reporter Mike Mitchell announced the attendance figures for all four games with Arlington leading the way with 14,153 fans, with San Antonio coming in second at 13,164 fans, Michigan had 9,444 fans, and Houston had 9,157 fans. Let’s see if these attendance figures can grow during the season.
Lastly, Player 54 Podcast host Michael Lathrop mentioned during the games that the USFL Enterprises LLC has filed new trademarks with the Canton/Ohio Bulldogs and the Nashville Tuners that were filed on March 29, 2024.
While I have mentioned that adding the Canton Bulldogs would be a great idea considering Canton is part of football history and is home to the Pro Football Hall of Fame. The league needs to focus on bringing the eight teams back before expanding into new markets.
A couple of weeks ago, D.C. Defenders defensive back Gregg Williams was on the Come Get Some podcast, Williams mentioned that if the league does well, they are going to sell the teams while adding four teams in 2025, and four more teams in 2026.
As for selling the teams, the UFL needs to be doing this right now with the current eight teams they have. They should be using the season to bring in potential local owners or groups interested in purchasing teams. The more people that are interested in owning teams, the better this league has a chance to sustain long-term growth for the future. In addition, they have gotten some great sponsors for the league like Progressive, Gatorade, Under Armour, Westgate Resorts, and more. I hope they can continue to add more sponsors because that is good for the league.
In conclusion, week one of the UFL season was fun to watch and I am looking forward to watching the rest of the season. If you are still not interested in watching the UFL because of what I mentioned earlier that is okay because they have to work hard to regain your trust. If the league can continue to put on a great product on the field, they will have a chance to be around for the foreseeable future.
