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If you live in the Houston area, there will be three professional football teams vying for your attention soon.
The USFL is kicking off its second season this weekend. This comes as the XFL Version 3.0 still has two more weeks to play in their inaugural regular season.
The USFL’s Houston Gamblers franchise will now compete for H-town’s affection along with the woeful NFL Houston Texans and the XFL’s South Division-leading Houston Roughnecks. At least the XFL Houston Roughnecks are playing good football. The Roughnecks are 5-3 with two regular season games to go.
For the second straight year, the USFL’s Houston Gamblers will not play one single home game in Texas. The Gamblers have been placed into the Memphis “pod” this year as the USFL wisely branches away from playing every single game in Birmingham, Alabama this season.
Sweet Home Alabama – Sort-of
In 2022, the eight-team USFL started operations on a shoestring. The costs of starting a new football league are daunting. The USFL smartly minimized costs of operation, travel, hotels, facilities, television equipment and everything by playing its entire slate of regular season football games in a beautiful new football facility on the UAB campus in Birmingham.
While the hometown Birmingham Stallions drew 15-20,000 for their home games, the stadium was nearly empty for the other three games being played each weekend in Alabama’s largest city. With only a smattering of fans in the stands for three of every four weekly games played in Birmingham, most USFL football games looked as if you were watching a scrimmage game on television.
To help remedy this visual tragedy, the 2023 version of the USFL has added three more cities which will host a weekly doubleheader of games.
In addition to Birmingham, USFL games will be played this year at Ford Field in Detroit (home of the Michigan Panthers), the Simmons Bank Liberty Bowl in Memphis (home of the Memphis Showboats), and the Tom Benson Hall-of-Fame Stadium in Canton, Ohio (which, oddly, does not have its own USFL franchise).
Birmingham will remain the home facility for the Stallions and the New Orleans Breakers. Detroit will become “home” for both the Michigan Panthers and the Philadelphia Stars. Memphis becomes home field for the Showboats (formerly known as the Tampa Bay Bandits) and the Houston Gamblers. Canton, Ohio will be home turf for the Pittsburgh Maulers and New Jersey Generals.
Why are USFL games being played in Canton, Ohio when there isn’t a team there?
Last season, the Tom Benson Hall-of-Fame Stadium in Canton, Ohio hosted the USFL’s two semifinal games as well as the league championship game played on the following weekend. Birmingham’s football facility had been booked for more than a year with prior lease commitment to host a soccer tournament.
The playoff attendance in Canton for the final two weekends of USFL games impressed league officials.
So, the USFL rewarded Canton with a regular season slate of “home” games for nearby Pittsburgh (100 miles to the southeast) and New Jersey. I doubt that many USFL fans will actually make the trek to Canton from the Steel City or New Jersey. It will be up to Canton (population 80,000) to drum-up enough local support for these USFL football games.
Ironically, it will be much cheaper to attend a USFL game in Canton than to visit the nearby NFL Hall-of-Fame. It will cost just $10 for a USFL general admission ticket. However, a ticket to the adjacent NFL Hall-of-Fame facility will set you back more than $40.
The Tampa Bay Bandits have morphed into the Memphis Showboats!
Last season, the Tampa Bay Bandits (like every other USFL team not named Birmingham) did not play a home football game in the state of Florida. That’s why many are puzzled about why the USFL decided to move this faux Florida team to Memphis, Tennessee in Year 2.
Here is what former Dallas Cowboys fullback and now USFL President of Football Operations Daryl “Moose” Johnston had to say:
“It was a tough decision to shutter the Tampa Bay Bandits franchise,” Johnston said. “But with the opportunity to get to Memphis and to work with a group that’s in Memphis to buy into our USFL vision and to become a part of that family was just too good of an opportunity to pass by. As we sit here now and talk about the city of Memphis, one of the things that is very critical for the USFL family is to engage in the community. I think Memphis right now is a community that could use a little bit of love from all over the country, and we hope to be able to get our guys and our staff into that community and really start to engage and start that healing process from what’s happened there recently.”
Translation – The budget-conscious USFL looked at a map and saw that Memphis was a really good geographic fit (at least for Year #2) and gave the league an affordable stadium lease. Memphis is only 250 miles northwest of the USFL’s league operations in Birmingham.
All eight USFL teams spend the week sharing the practice facilities in Birmingham. Each weekend, two games apiece will be played in two of the four USFL hub cities (Birmingham, Detroit, Canton, or Memphis). Games played in Detroit and Canton will require charter air flights to and from those cities. For weekend games in Memphis, though, the league could opt for bus travel. It is just four hours away from Birmingham via I-22.
If football fans in Memphis show up to support the USFL’s games played in their market, the league will plant a permanent flag in town next year (assuming there is a third year of USFL operations).
Tampa Bay Bandit fans may still get another USFL team next season in Year #3 (again, assuming there is a league next year). The USFL has hinted that true home games for all of its teams may begin as early as next season.
Why doesn’t the USFL play more true home games like the XFL?
Money, of course! You can’t blame the USFL for taking its time to see if spring professional football is economically viable and attracts enough viewers on television (and advertisers to support the costs) as well as those in the stadium.
The cost of leasing and operating a football facility in each of the USFL’s eight markets is quite expensive.
Just ask the XFL. Unlike the USFL, this year’s inaugural XFL opted to play football games in each team’s home city. Other than St. Louis, the XFL’s home field attendance has been underwhelming.
Through the first eight weeks in 2023, the XFL’s average home attendance has been a very weak 13,000 fans per game. That number includes some terrific support being shown for the XFL’s St. Louis BattleHawks franchise. St. Louis has drawn more than 35,000 fans to each of its three home games thus far in 2023. If you take St. Louis out of the equation, the other seven XFL teams are seating just 11,000 fans per home opener.
Now you understand why the USFL is being slow to take their football games on the road.
Metrics for success, anyone?
Last year, the USFL stated that they considered an average television viewership of one million fans per game would make their spring football league a viable advertising vehicle. Unfortunately, the USFL’s weekly television audience finished at about half of their stated goal.
This season’s USFL games will be telecast on Fox, NBC, FS1, and USA Network.
Fortunately for all of us, NBC’s Peacock internet network won’t be a major part of the television plans for this year. Peacock exclusively handled a few USFL game in 2022 and was widely ignored by viewers. The internet outlet will only be used to simulcast NBC’s games in Year #2.
Also notable, the USFL will only play games on Saturday and Sunday this season. Last year, the league tried a few Friday night games. Those television ratings were even lower than the weekend games. This was a smart business move. Football fans will know that the USFL will air two games on Saturday and two more on Sunday for the entire regular season this year.
As for home attendance, the USFL would be quite happy to find an average of 20,000 fans in the stadium (being seen and heard on network television) every week to add more excitement to the games.
OK, Swami. Which USFL team will surprise us in 2023?
Birmingham finished the 2022 USFL regular season with a 9-1 record and then won the league championship. Of course, Birmingham played all ten of their regular season games with the support of their local fans. The Philadelphia Stars finished as runner-up in 2022.
I reviewed the recent USFL player draft (yes, the league had a draft in March). The Pittsburgh Maulers had a dreadful 2-8 season in Year #1. The team struggled to score enough points to be competitive in most games.
The 2023 Pittsburgh Maulers drafted some very impressive offensive talent recently.
In the first round, Pittsburgh selected a talented gunslinger quarterback named Lindsey Scott from the FCS runner-up, Incarnate Word in San Antonio. The 5’11” Scott passed for an NCAA record-setting 60 touchdowns in 2022. That’s an average of five TD passes per game!
In the seventh round of the draft, Pittsburgh added Lindsey Scott’s favorite college target. Wide receiver Taylor Grimes had 16 touchdown grabs in 2022. In the eighth round, the Maulers drafted yet another wide receiver. C.J. Turner from Southeastern Louisiana finished as the Lions’ all-time leader in yardage, receptions, and touchdowns.
Yes, Pittsburgh’s offense should be much improved this season.
For the record, the Las Vegas experts favor last year’s USFL champion, the Birmingham Stallions. My surprise pick (the Pittsburgh Maulers) are considered the league’s biggest longshot. A $10 wager in certain Nevada city on the Maulers would earn $90 if Pittsburgh should happen to win the USFL championship this year. Wagering Rule #1 – never listen to my advice!
I am hopeful that the USFL will improve its television product this year. If the USFL’s TV viewership and attendance at the four pod sites are sub-par once again this season, don’t be surprised if the league’s financial backers (Fox Sports) pull the plug and end their losses.
Spring football as we currently know it (both the USFL and the XFL) might be gone for good before the spring of 2024.