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Are you ready for some (spring) football?
The UFL desperately wants YOU to become a fan this spring. The league’s survival is going to depend on you, too.
The United Football League (UFL) will kick-off tonight (Friday, March 28) with the same eight teams from last year and another 10-game regular season schedule.
This annual event is much like Charlie Brown and his attempt to kick that football as Lucy holds the ball for him.
The purveyors of spring pro football keep showing up every year with high hopes that America will fall in love with their game.
Here’s a quick test – Who won the UFL last season in 2024?
Answer: The Birmingham Stallions downed San Antonio 25-0 in the title game last June.
How quickly we forget!
The city of Birmingham, Alabama has now claimed three straight spring pro football titles.
The first two came in the USFL, while last season’s championship belt was earned in the recently-merged UFL in 2024.
The Birmingham Stallions were led by former Louisiana Tech head football coach Skip Holtz in each of those three title seasons.
The “Skipper” returns this year and will try to bring a fourth straight spring football title to Birmingham.
Let’s jump into the Sports Way back Machine and remember how the UFL began
The UFL (now entering Year #2) represents the merger of the former United States Football League (USFL) and the XFL last year.
The USFL (owned 100% by Fox Sports) started in 2022.
The XFL reincarnated in 2023.
Owned by WWE wrestling legend Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson and a few others, the XFL (circa 2001) was brought back to life two years ago.
The two football leagues went toe-to-toe against each other in the spring of 2023.
Both leagues lost a ton of money that year.
In late 2023, the USFL and XFL ownership groups sat down and hammered out a merger agreement. The two ownership groups remain steadfast (for now) that spring football can become profitable soon.
A significantly slimmed-down United Football League (UFL) began play in 2024 with just eight surviving teams. They are:
Arlington Renegades
Birmingham Stallions
DC Defenders
Houston Roughnecks
Memphis Showboats
Michigan Panthers
San Antonio Brahmas
St. Louis Battlehawks
After the merger of the USFL and XFL into the “new and improved” eight team UFL in 2024, only the St. Louis Battlehawks were a winner at the gate.
The Battlehawks averaged over 34,000 fans per home game last spring. By comparison, the second leading team in home attendance was DC with 14,000 paying customers per game.
The 8-team UFL seemed poised to take off in 2024. It didn’t.
One year ago, I reported that the very optimistic new UFL was already planning to expand from eight teams to 12 this year in 2025.
That didn’t happen. The same eight UFL teams will begin play again this weekend.
The combined UFL has proven itself willing to learn and refine its approach, though.
In a savvy financial move, the UFL made Dallas-Fort Worth its home base of operations.
All eight UFL teams practice at the same centralized facilities. Every weekend, the UFL players jet from DFW to their “home” cities to play weekly football games.
The league has negotiated reasonable lease terms at stadiums in each of its eight primary markets. Those facilities provide a comfortable football environment for local fans.
The UFL’s television coverage has been impressive, too.
FOX and ESPN/ABC carried the majority of UFL games on their flagship networks. In 2024, viewers could easily find all four of the league’s games every weekend.
Unfortunately, weak in-stadium attendance looked really bad on television.
Even though the spring league saw a slightly-improved level of TV viewership, the UFL’s rookie season in 2024 was likely a money loser for its owners.
Absent a miraculous improvement for in-stadium attendance this spring, the UFL’s business model is centered on attracting significantly more television viewers in 2025.
Last year, more than 800,000 viewers watched an average UFL game. Increased TV viewership in 2025 could grow ad revenue enough to cover the league’s operating expenses for the first time.
Speaking of expenses…
The UFL pays its players about $6,000 per week for the ten week regular season. With 50 players per team, that amounts to a $3 million player payroll per squad.
For the eight UFL teams, that amounts to $24 million. (By comparison, that won’t buy just one top wide receiver today in the NFL!)
Coaches and staff cost money, too. Let’s generously say that the coaching staff will earn $1.5 million per team or $12 million for the eight teams.
We have now reached $36 million in league expenses – just for the players and coaches.
Those eight stadium leases aren’t cheap. Let’s estimate $100,000 per stadium for the four weekly games and ten weeks of competition.
That’s another $4 million for the year. We’re up to $40 million now.
Don’t forget the costs for team charter flights to and from weekly playing sites. Bus transportation, hotels, and food,, and hotels add up, too.
Of course, the league must pay for referees, security, and other stadium personnel at the games.
The annual costs for football equipment, insurance, marketing, and other costs are also significant.
Don’t forget about the cost of those weekly television broadcasts!
The UFL was smart to farm-out the cost of producing its weekly telecasts to its two primary networks (Fox Sports and ESPN).
To recoup their rather sizable costs, the two networks receive a percentage of the available advertising minutes from each game to sell their own commercial spots.
This trade-off minimizes out-of-pocket expenses for the UFL, but it reduces the potential number of commercial ad sales by the league itself.
Speaking of TV, how does the UFL earn television revenue?
Television networks generally charge advertisers a certain cost per thousand viewers for the program. The industry refers to this as CPM.
Football generally delivers a primarily male audience to advertisers in the prime “buying” demographic between ages 25-49. That’s why you will notice so many ads for vehicles, beverages, and insurance/financial institutions during football games.
According to one source, the average NFL game last year fetched about $600,000 for a 30-second spot. With an average NFL audience of nearly 20 million viewers, that equates to $.03 per viewer or $30 CPM (cost per thousand)
Applying that same formula to UFL games, last year’s 800,000 viewers per game times a $30 CPM would price a 30-second spot at $24,000.
With an estimated 30 minutes of commercial availabilities per game, last year’s UFL telecasts had the potential to generate as much as $1.44 million in revenue per telecast.
With 40 televised regular season games, the UFL’s maximum ad revenue may have approached $60 million in 2024.
If television viewership rises 25% this year to one million per game, the UFL’s potential ad revenue could climb another $15 million to $75 million.
That said, it is highly unlikely that UFL football games sell 100% of its commercial availabilities.
If you happen to notice a lot of promos filling the breaks this weekend, you’ll know the answer.
Will America finally fall in love with spring pro football in 2025?
The first UFL game of the season kicks off tonight (3/28) at 7PM CDT on FOX as the St. Louis Battlehawks fly into Houston to play the Roughnecks.
FOX plans to televise a UFL game every Friday night this spring.
After losing WWE’s Smackdown Friday program, FOX is hoping to build a regular audience in that time slot.
Sports competition from the NCAA March Madness men’s and women’s basketball games along with WWE’s Smackdown (now on the USA Network) is going to hurt the UFL’s Week #1 television ratings.
On Saturday at 3PM CDT, the San Antonio Brahmas rumble into Arlington to play the Renegades on FOX.
On Sunday, ESPN takes over with a doubleheader. The Michigan Panthers visit the Memphis Showboats at 11AM CDT.
The DC Defenders will host the Birmingham Stallions at 2PM.
As if the UFL needed any additional bad press, rumors persist that the league’s players (who are unionized) may go on strike prior to the opening weekend of games.
The players want the UFL owners to agree to pay for year-round insurance coverage rather than only paying for coverage during the relatively short football season.
The UFL needs YOU!
If you like spring pro football, make a point to watch the games on television through mid-June.
As covered earlier, the UFL is counting on a significant growth in home television viewers to generate greater ad revenue in 2025.
Otherwise, the owners (who have learned some hard financial lessons in recent years) may finally pull the plug after this spring’s football season.
The ball (or, in this case, the remote control) is in your hands!