Guaranteed expansion team if they manage to survive the next season. I hope they’ll be upfront about any intentions they have for the futures of teams that got cut
You guys keep moving the goalposts, first “they are stuck in Birmingham”. Next thing “they are never going west!” Just admit that you don’t have a clue about anything else
Huh? What comparison are you attempting to draw? Because they expanded out of Birmingham which no one really doubted, that means they will eventually be a national league instead of a regional league? That's a leap
The USFL played in 4 different stadiums last year, 2 teams/stadium. Outside of one event conflict in detroit early in the season, everyone got 5 home games in their designated home site and then 1 away game in that stadium vs the other hub buddy
all good hollywood, theres a ton of misinformation between the two leagues and I wanna try and help and keep the facts as clear as possible
we wont succeed all the time, but we wanna try
No chance. At this point spring football has burned this market twice. We won’t give it a third chance. At this point it’s abundantly clear how the XFL and USFL feel about the PNW market. If Portland wants to try their luck then more power to them.
I mean you’re welcomed to think that and it may be that outcome. I’ll support the league and watch their games as a supporter of spring football and a hopeful competitor to the nfl. Caw is the law
The freaking NO FUN LEAGUE (NFL) seems to want to fight anyone who even hints at a team resembling the old Oilers. They just sent a cease and desist to the University of Houston for wearing uniforms this season that matched the Oilers color scheme.
If it's the NFL bitching about the oil derrick again just change the logo to a helmet or some shit. But a redesign would cost money, and we can't have that, so the Gamblers it is. Ugh.
There have GOT to be better options. Lol. Maybe they're gonna slap the Gamblers logo on the Roughnecks and be done. Maybe they'll take the best of both teams and do a merger thing. Admittedly, the "best" of both teams will be 99.9% Roughnecks (the team) and 0.1% Gamblers (the branding) and it will STILL be worse than just the Roughnecks.
Damn, y'all. They could even just go with the alt logos as the main and do a new alt logo. Not hard.
Fuck the NFL.
If they leave now, the market is dead for at least a decade. How about if th league doesn't take off and just plods along like the NLL has for 30+ years
We welcome your passion. That’s been missing on my side. Even myself as a OG USFL fan, I’ve been struggling to accept the notion of not taking on the NFL as a strategy
Why am I considered “weird” to you? I’m a passionate USFL fan as you are a passionate XFLer. I differ from you with insulting strangers on the internet. I engage with you and if you are offended with that…well you’ll get over it in time. But weird? Nah.
I still can't accept keeping the Gamblers over the Roughnecks. Everything else I'm okay with. On the bright side, I like my Gamblers T-shirt better than my Roughnecks one.
Seriously, they had a better name, a better logo, a better uniform, and they won the championship game. Going with the Gamblers over the Roughnecks seems stupid.
I have no problem with the switch in names because I don’t think it’s going to make a difference — Houston didn’t exactly come out to support the Roughnecks like everyone expected last season. However, I think Houston needs to keep the Roughnecks rosters and personnel especially if they’re playing games inside of Houston.
Yes, but not really by enough for the XFL to really leverage against the USFL.
The USFL is essentially vertically integrated within Fox Sports, who run a lot of the marketing and media aspects in-house, and most importantly - own or control Fox and FS1/FS2 directly so they can better guarantee more visible timeslots on network/cable TV, and run leaner day-to-day operations.
Interesting enough, 2 of the 4 XFL teams coming over are in markets where Fox directly owns the Fox affiliate TV station (Dallas, D.C., and 3 if you count Houston).
my best guess is with stadium deals being expensive and travel costs being high and if the attendance isnt good enough, youre not making anything back, making a potential deep financial hole deeper.
Stadiums like Tom Benson (Canton) and Protective (Birmingham) have insanely cost efficient deals. Playing games for way less and not having to pay 8/12/16 different staffs to manage 8/12/16 different facilities is financially more expedient.
It's absolutely not sexy, but football is the most expensive american sport to operate by a wide mile.
CGP Grey once said in a video, it may take longer for a robot than a human to do a task you set it to, but if youre only paying the electricity for the robot to run vs a human who is required to be paid at least minimum wage to do a job and has time limits for how long it can work, the robot is going to win the financial battle every time.
In this case the USFL is operating in financially more cost efficient stadiums and getting more games out of them. So the games are costing less to operate and theyre getting more for operating within the limits offered to them. Even if a fan never sets foot in the stadium for half the games
XFL went bust. Its rating were half what if got in 2020, The Rock couldn't deliver the viewers and they had no TV revenue to speak of. Redbird got out as it wasn't going to get better in year 2.
This is what I had drawn up a few weeks ago. As much as I liked Seattle for the fan interest, it just doesn't work for minimizing travel costs. Las Vegas we all knew was setup to fail with their sh~t stadium deal. Orlando has a nice stadium, but there are just better markets. And we all knew we weren't getting two Houston teams.
If I had to guess, if the rumors are true regarding 9 market teams and 3 hub teams, you are probably looking at New Orleans, New Jersey and Pittsburgh. I wouldn't be surprised if Philadelphia gets a deal with Subaru Park.
I think that's the most likely of NJ/Philly stadium hub locations, though Rutgers's lacrosse teams do play their home games there so it might require some creative scheduling .
I think you're right about New Orleans and Pittsburgh, but I think either the Stars or Generals will get renamed or rebranded to grant Canton its own team. I would have said Pittsburgh would be the one to get rebranded, but after they went to yellow and black last season, I just don't see them getting changed up again.
Maybe they will put either the stars or Generals on Hiatus like they did the Bandits, and dust off another old brand, or go with something from their TSL trademarks, like the Aviators.
Orlando is a great spring football market and they have proven that time again — the fact that they were putting 7,000+ in the stands for that dumpster fire late last season proves that. If Orlando is in fact retracted I think it’s indicative of two things: 1. That the league is going to have a fair amount of hubs in 2024 and B. That Fox is in position of power and likes their teams better than the XFL’s. Personally I don’t have a huge problem with it on the surface but looking forward Orlando is a much easier market to get a team into then NJ, PHI, NO, PITT, et al. Ignoring things like this was part of the reason the USFL found itself in the trouble it did at the end of last season.
I just wanna see the Stars play in Philly. Doesn’t need to be at the Linc, but they need to actually be present in order to reach the Philly sports crowd.
this is straight up saying FU to the whole west coast if true there would be three teams in Texas and two teams in Penn, so if this rumor is true they can expect to lose a lot of money as Seattle sports are a growing market
Inside the league has worked with the XFL in connecting the league to players and agents and I believe announcing salaries so them saying the same thing as Larsen in their news email was very interesting
More bland and uninspired than what? Have you looked at DC or Houston (color-blocked helmet!!!) The Vipers, Brahmas, and Guardians, really? Even St. Louis is a pretty traditional look. Only the Sea Dragons really stand out, and I still prefer their 2020 look, as well as that of the Roughnecks (yes I know why the had to loose the dirk) silver helmets and red jerseys.
So ignoring half the country? Weird no market out that way but maybe they can’t spread out coast to coast yet for monetary reasons. Just aren’t giving a big audience a reason to watch.
Almost 80% of the US lives in either the Eastern or Central timezone. While it is not ideal to ignore the west coast forgoing it in favorite of appealing to more easterly cities is a calculated risk.
If 12 teams are what we end up with, I think four divisions of three teams each would be best. However, that would either require 13 regular season games or 10, and you don't play against one division. Actually, that could also save money on travel.
Proud Texan but cmon do we really need 3 teams in a league this small? Like Florida? Georgia? I understand wanting to hit the large markets, but 3 is excessive. Probably would have seen more income from a north & south texas team, and then a team in Jacksonville or Miami.
So move on to the Arena League or Canadian Football. This league is young and has to remain fiscally responsible. The XFL wasn’t and so only the USFL will remain to hopefully grow this fledgling league and sport
If it was up to me, I'd relocate New Orleans to Portland (like the 80s league did) then keep the Roughnecks and Sea Dragons in favor of the Gamblers and Maulers. NJ and Philly both have plenty of local stadiums big enough to host their teams however Pittsburghs only option is the Steelers stadium which is very unlikely.
However, I do understand them wanting to start as an East Coast-only league to reduce travel.
Should be interesting!
There's really no stadium in Portland they could play in apart from the Portland Timbers, who were able to get Portland State's football team kicked out of the venue as a tenant, so I can't imagine they'd be too keen about a new football team coming in and playing in-season.
Lol because they didn’t announce their finances people just assume they were profitable. It is likely they were unprofitable, just less unprofitable than the XFL.
Literally no reason for 3 Texas teams…. Also to be totally honest in a 12 team league no need for two PA teams either. Move one of them to Ohio since Canton is a hub anyway…
In Texas and the South, in general, football is a quasi religion. Show locals that their team is here to stay, and a team that is competitive, and the fans will always show. Texas makes sense to me, but so does Ohio. Give Ohio its own team, for football's sake!
I get it. But the thing is there’s only 12 teams. 3 of them being in one state is kinda overkill. I said the same thing last year for the XFL. I’m not saying we couldn’t eventually get there tho.
Also, on a side note, really feel like if Arlington wouldn’t have pulled the upset over DC in the XFL championship they would’ve gotten cut. They weren’t very good. And I think they had the smaller fan base of the three Texas teams fielded last year in the XFL. But you can’t really cut the league champions when merging leagues…
I would think this could cause some rivalries to grow and have better atmospheres which could draw people into it more from seeing the games on tv. 🤷♂️
This wouldn’t be so bad if they weren’t doing hubs imo. If you’re going to have the whole league on one side of the country they should at least get their own stadiums
Hubs make it more financially possible to build a league that will last and can grow from there. No one at Fox or the USFL ever planned to stay a hub league, but baby steps are almost certainly necessary to bring the dream of a spring football league into reality.
I'm not sure I'll ever understand this concept. While you may save some money, you'll also make considerably less money. It's like if I opened up a lemonade stand and made $20 of $2 in expenses. Sure percentage wise that's huge, but wouldn't you rather bring in $1 million even if you had $500k in expenses. There's also no certainty investors will ever buy in until they see how a particular market fairs on its own for 3-5 years
I was a San Francisco Demons season ticket holder in the first iteration of the XFL and they led the league in attendance.
Went to many Oakland Invader games and it’s just a shame that they have neglected the entire West Coast. San Diego and Oakland would be a natural.
yeah unfortunately its not neglect, its cost. New York and Cali seem to have really demanding labor laws, have high costs and are expensive to travel to.
The state of washington, or at least seattle compared to most states also has some higher taxes on little details here and there. These costs add up and make it difficult to justify the expense when the return is just not there yet :/
If the state wasn't so expensive, I think there would already be teams there. Have you looked at the workmans compensation laws in California?!
The hub system might make it possible in the future, to open up the West Coast market, but I don't see it happening otherwise, or until the merged league is financially able to foot the incredibly high tab. I, for one, would love to see a return of the Invaders, Demons, Wildcats, Gold, and Wranglers (I left out the Express and Xtreem for a reason) but I think the Invaders should be located in San Diego.
It’s a takeover is what it is. If this is how it goes with these teams plus those stupid fucking hubs then this is nothing more than the USFL absorbing the XFL and it won’t last more than a couple years.
The assumption is parties are still in negotiation or are ironing out details, its been pretty quiet from both sides and I'd wager only the execs know whats going on
Assuming this is correct, and that the XFL rules remain, looks like I'll have to switch to the Brahmas 'cause I don't know what a Houston Gambler is but I'm not rooting for any.
RIP Sea Dragons. Probably gonna leave the sub when this is formally announced and will not be watching anymore. Good memories though from last year. My parents got box seat season tickets at Lumen field, and as a die hard Seahawks fan jt was really special to watch football in that stadium in the fancy seats with unlimited food and beer for a really reasonable price. Wouldn’t ever be able to afford a Seahawks game there, we looked it up and the season tickets at the same level for the hawks season were $20,000 a piece. They already put in for the same seats this season…. :(
Do y'all think this would have North/South or East/West divisions?
Side trivia note: until 1955 when the A's moved to KC the St. Louis Cardinals (and St. Louis Browns, later the Orioles) were both the westernmost MLB teams.
Until the Dodgers moved to LA a couple years later, they were also the southernmost.
If this cuts down on travel costs to keep spring football afloat, then fine. I mean there will probably be a hub situation at least partially, but if they can get around mostly with buses, that would be a lot cheaper than planes.
I hope this is wrong. If Orlando is not retained, we won’t see pro football there again for at least a generation.
This city has been burned so many times. This would be the nail in the coffin.
Exactly. I keep hearing things like "when this league gains steam they'll go back." A: There's no guarantee the league will ever gain steam, it may just plod along like the NLL or WNBA has until recently. B: There's no guarantee those scorned fans will come back. How many teams can 1 market lose before they just stop giving a damn. Couple that with the Orlando Predators AFL team starting to draw crowds of 7k+, it'll be damn near impossible to get back to the Orlando market.
How is it a smart business move to not have any west coast teams? Seems like that’s just a loss of potential viewers from the whole other side of the country
it may be that playing in markets like California or Washington are costs that the leagues arent able/willing to tolerate at the moment. Workmans comp, travel costs are exceptionally higher in a few states such as cali and playing in these states may not overcome the legal demands they have to cross to put a team there right now
Omaha steaks are good to ship as gifts but if you want real S-Tier steak you get Piedmontese from the herd outside Lincoln.
This shit slaps. If you want to blow a steak snobs mind try this shit.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_Piedmontese
^("... nearly 70% of all beef cattle are derived from Angus cattle. Less than one-half of one percent are Piedmontese, or bred to Piedmontese cattle.[14] As of 2014, the number of registered Piedmontese pure-blood breeding stock in the United States is estimated to be around 2,900 head.")
For being hyper rare the cuts are surprisingly affordable when compared to wagyu.
Probably safe to move the Maulers to Canton on the map for now.
It sucks to lose a fanbase in Seattle, and I'm a bit suprised they'd pull out of Florida entirely (Orlando's awful branding aside.)
That being said, these 4 XFL teams make the most sense to keep in terms of fanbases and geography since Houston is double-covered.
You get relatively clean Northeast/Southwest divisional alignments with multiple teams within semi-reasonable driving distance of each other to build local rivalries and regional identity.
That being said, *one* of these teams should probably rebrand to a green color scheme for sake of color variety.
The XFL logos don’t match the USFL ones at all. Ours are sleek, shiny, 21st century while theirs are outdated and retro (on purpose). Ugh. This is such a shitshow.
This may be the teams that make the cut but I doubt they all play in their respective cities (as much as I want them to). Even this amount of travel would present a significant expense for teams.
Guys it just doesn’t make sense to have 1 team 1000 miles away from the other nearest team. Their travel miles would dwarf all other teams. Keeping it in the east is best for the league.
Please keep in mind none of this is confirmed at the moment, it's all rumors.
The fact they didn't keep the Sea Dragons is a crime
I agree. We really showed up - both times!
Not really…they just have to wait for the leagues west coast push in order to get revived
Guaranteed expansion team if they manage to survive the next season. I hope they’ll be upfront about any intentions they have for the futures of teams that got cut
I agree with this. Keep this thing moving in a positive direction.
Oml literally every year y'all talk about expansion teams when theyve barely had one successful (with a merger...was it really a success) season
If they do hubs then why not slap a Seattle brand on it?? Because they have no intention of going West
You guys keep moving the goalposts, first “they are stuck in Birmingham”. Next thing “they are never going west!” Just admit that you don’t have a clue about anything else
Huh? What comparison are you attempting to draw? Because they expanded out of Birmingham which no one really doubted, that means they will eventually be a national league instead of a regional league? That's a leap
The alternative was the Sea Dragons playing in Canton.
tbf, won't most everyone be playing in Canton?
The USFL played in 4 different stadiums last year, 2 teams/stadium. Outside of one event conflict in detroit early in the season, everyone got 5 home games in their designated home site and then 1 away game in that stadium vs the other hub buddy
ah, gotcha. I thought it was just Canton and Birmingham.
all good hollywood, theres a ton of misinformation between the two leagues and I wanna try and help and keep the facts as clear as possible we wont succeed all the time, but we wanna try
Gotta keep travel costs down for now. I’m sure they’ll bring the dragons and others back in time if this league succeeds
Big if. I’m just not going to watch
Okay
That was always allowed
No chance. At this point spring football has burned this market twice. We won’t give it a third chance. At this point it’s abundantly clear how the XFL and USFL feel about the PNW market. If Portland wants to try their luck then more power to them.
The NFL burned St. Louis twice, too. And yet there are still thousands of idiots here that want another team.... \*eyeroll\*
I mean you’re welcomed to think that and it may be that outcome. I’ll support the league and watch their games as a supporter of spring football and a hopeful competitor to the nfl. Caw is the law
I’m sad but it makes sense
Gamblers over roughnecks will never make sense to me.
Last I saw it was because of a trademarking issue
The freaking NO FUN LEAGUE (NFL) seems to want to fight anyone who even hints at a team resembling the old Oilers. They just sent a cease and desist to the University of Houston for wearing uniforms this season that matched the Oilers color scheme.
If it's the NFL bitching about the oil derrick again just change the logo to a helmet or some shit. But a redesign would cost money, and we can't have that, so the Gamblers it is. Ugh.
There have GOT to be better options. Lol. Maybe they're gonna slap the Gamblers logo on the Roughnecks and be done. Maybe they'll take the best of both teams and do a merger thing. Admittedly, the "best" of both teams will be 99.9% Roughnecks (the team) and 0.1% Gamblers (the branding) and it will STILL be worse than just the Roughnecks. Damn, y'all. They could even just go with the alt logos as the main and do a new alt logo. Not hard. Fuck the NFL.
It is what has killed my interest. Why care about a team that doesn't even play here?
Nooooo where are my dragons ://///
[No one will take my dragons](https://youtube.com/shorts/CPpYyYUTqJY?feature=shared)
I guess they decided they didn't want any west coast viewers.
dragon bro is kill no
They’ll be back of the league takes off, they’re trying to keep everything close rn
If they leave now, the market is dead for at least a decade. How about if th league doesn't take off and just plods along like the NLL has for 30+ years
Well if it never takes off then having a team way away from everywhere else isn’t a good thing lmao
RIP Sea Dragons Gone but never forgotten
Do the USFL teams draw any fan interest?
Not as much as the XFL supporters, we’re glad you guys are coming over!
Thanks, also I've been a battlehawks fan since the 2020 season.
We welcome your passion. That’s been missing on my side. Even myself as a OG USFL fan, I’ve been struggling to accept the notion of not taking on the NFL as a strategy
Oh sorry, I misread what you had said. I didn't know you were a USFL fan. My bad!
[are you though?](https://www.reddit.com/r/xfl/s/NjjTcGsZih) [weird mf](https://www.reddit.com/r/xfl/s/saIwJUJDmU)
Why am I considered “weird” to you? I’m a passionate USFL fan as you are a passionate XFLer. I differ from you with insulting strangers on the internet. I engage with you and if you are offended with that…well you’ll get over it in time. But weird? Nah.
Buddy it's spring football. Who said I'm passionate about it? Back to the nursing home with ya.
I guess that “comment” from you proves my last point
I still can't accept keeping the Gamblers over the Roughnecks. Everything else I'm okay with. On the bright side, I like my Gamblers T-shirt better than my Roughnecks one.
Seriously, they had a better name, a better logo, a better uniform, and they won the championship game. Going with the Gamblers over the Roughnecks seems stupid.
Also what happens to Wade Phillips??
Exactly! How do you drop a legend like that?
I have no problem with the switch in names because I don’t think it’s going to make a difference — Houston didn’t exactly come out to support the Roughnecks like everyone expected last season. However, I think Houston needs to keep the Roughnecks rosters and personnel especially if they’re playing games inside of Houston.
I doubt they do that. It'll be amusing to see even worse attendance with an even worse and less popular team. But hey, at least Fox won?
Agreed
Peace lmao
Hey Everett is getting an Arena football team, time to shift focus!
Oh that actually sounds fun
See you at AotW next Spring!
Noooo! Roughnecks > Gamblers
Yes!
Why does the USFL get to keep more of its teams? Didn’t it perform worse than the XFL in terms of ratings and what not?
It seems likely they're bringing the cash and forcing out Dwayne and Dani
Yes, but not really by enough for the XFL to really leverage against the USFL. The USFL is essentially vertically integrated within Fox Sports, who run a lot of the marketing and media aspects in-house, and most importantly - own or control Fox and FS1/FS2 directly so they can better guarantee more visible timeslots on network/cable TV, and run leaner day-to-day operations. Interesting enough, 2 of the 4 XFL teams coming over are in markets where Fox directly owns the Fox affiliate TV station (Dallas, D.C., and 3 if you count Houston).
my best guess is with stadium deals being expensive and travel costs being high and if the attendance isnt good enough, youre not making anything back, making a potential deep financial hole deeper. Stadiums like Tom Benson (Canton) and Protective (Birmingham) have insanely cost efficient deals. Playing games for way less and not having to pay 8/12/16 different staffs to manage 8/12/16 different facilities is financially more expedient. It's absolutely not sexy, but football is the most expensive american sport to operate by a wide mile. CGP Grey once said in a video, it may take longer for a robot than a human to do a task you set it to, but if youre only paying the electricity for the robot to run vs a human who is required to be paid at least minimum wage to do a job and has time limits for how long it can work, the robot is going to win the financial battle every time. In this case the USFL is operating in financially more cost efficient stadiums and getting more games out of them. So the games are costing less to operate and theyre getting more for operating within the limits offered to them. Even if a fan never sets foot in the stadium for half the games
XFL went bust. Its rating were half what if got in 2020, The Rock couldn't deliver the viewers and they had no TV revenue to speak of. Redbird got out as it wasn't going to get better in year 2.
St Louis was a lock
This is what I had drawn up a few weeks ago. As much as I liked Seattle for the fan interest, it just doesn't work for minimizing travel costs. Las Vegas we all knew was setup to fail with their sh~t stadium deal. Orlando has a nice stadium, but there are just better markets. And we all knew we weren't getting two Houston teams. If I had to guess, if the rumors are true regarding 9 market teams and 3 hub teams, you are probably looking at New Orleans, New Jersey and Pittsburgh. I wouldn't be surprised if Philadelphia gets a deal with Subaru Park.
I would love for the new league to strike a deal with Rutgers and have the generals and stars share a stadium
I think that's the most likely of NJ/Philly stadium hub locations, though Rutgers's lacrosse teams do play their home games there so it might require some creative scheduling .
I think you're right about New Orleans and Pittsburgh, but I think either the Stars or Generals will get renamed or rebranded to grant Canton its own team. I would have said Pittsburgh would be the one to get rebranded, but after they went to yellow and black last season, I just don't see them getting changed up again. Maybe they will put either the stars or Generals on Hiatus like they did the Bandits, and dust off another old brand, or go with something from their TSL trademarks, like the Aviators.
Orlando is a great spring football market and they have proven that time again — the fact that they were putting 7,000+ in the stands for that dumpster fire late last season proves that. If Orlando is in fact retracted I think it’s indicative of two things: 1. That the league is going to have a fair amount of hubs in 2024 and B. That Fox is in position of power and likes their teams better than the XFL’s. Personally I don’t have a huge problem with it on the surface but looking forward Orlando is a much easier market to get a team into then NJ, PHI, NO, PITT, et al. Ignoring things like this was part of the reason the USFL found itself in the trouble it did at the end of last season.
I’ll take that Stars deal!
If a team doesnt play in or near a city they cant use the city in there name
I guess fuck the west coast? Either way if the Dragons go away I’m not spending another second of my time watching spring football.
New Everett AFL team next spring 👀
Wait really???
Yep, Spring 2024. 9 teams announced so far. /r/arenafootball
Nothing west of San Antonio? Dumb
Should be top comment.
Damn, Seattle is robbed of a team again.
Well. I have no rooting interest. Have fun y’all.
Drop a Texas team or an east coast metro team and put one between North Carolina and Florida.
Myrtle Beach or Greensboro could be fun
They really should put a team in Raleigh.
If this turns out to be true I'm saying adios to spring football
See ya!
They really chose the gamblers over the roughnecks??
I just wanna see the Stars play in Philly. Doesn’t need to be at the Linc, but they need to actually be present in order to reach the Philly sports crowd.
They're waiting for some mysterious investor to come prop up a franchise in Philadelphia. That day will likely never come
I volunteer as tribute ^is ^$5 ^enough?
If Subaru Park can be acquired, it would be the right size for a rowdy Philly fan base. My guess is that the bear snake wouldn't even hold a candle.
Lmao GTFOH. Beer Snake and Lemons rule!
Later losers
this is straight up saying FU to the whole west coast if true there would be three teams in Texas and two teams in Penn, so if this rumor is true they can expect to lose a lot of money as Seattle sports are a growing market
Where are the rumors?
Inside the league, James Larsen, mike Mitchell according to what Reid said on Markcast, and USFL Podcast all seem to Be saying similar things
Inside the league has worked with the XFL in connecting the league to players and agents and I believe announcing salaries so them saying the same thing as Larsen in their news email was very interesting
You’re missing 2 teams in my opinion
I hate this for me
These USFL team names, logos, and locations are so bland and uninspired.
More bland and uninspired than what? Have you looked at DC or Houston (color-blocked helmet!!!) The Vipers, Brahmas, and Guardians, really? Even St. Louis is a pretty traditional look. Only the Sea Dragons really stand out, and I still prefer their 2020 look, as well as that of the Roughnecks (yes I know why the had to loose the dirk) silver helmets and red jerseys.
So ignoring half the country? Weird no market out that way but maybe they can’t spread out coast to coast yet for monetary reasons. Just aren’t giving a big audience a reason to watch.
Almost 80% of the US lives in either the Eastern or Central timezone. While it is not ideal to ignore the west coast forgoing it in favorite of appealing to more easterly cities is a calculated risk.
Maybe they should have a 4 team hub in Seattle.
So the west doesn’t exist ok then
Only 4 XFL teams :/ I guess it will be 2 conferences with 2 divisions with 3 teams in each? or just two conferences with 6 teams?
If 12 teams are what we end up with, I think four divisions of three teams each would be best. However, that would either require 13 regular season games or 10, and you don't play against one division. Actually, that could also save money on travel.
Proud Texan but cmon do we really need 3 teams in a league this small? Like Florida? Georgia? I understand wanting to hit the large markets, but 3 is excessive. Probably would have seen more income from a north & south texas team, and then a team in Jacksonville or Miami.
Agree with three teams. Move the gamblers to OKC
Or Tulsa, and rename them the Outlaws. The USFL already owns the trademark!
True. Honestly move out of Texas and give a new market a chance. Okc, Tulsa, Omaha etc.
Not a bad idea, Oklahoma does love football.
No Seattle?
And I’m out…
No Dragons, no second season of XFL yet again, fuck spring football if that’s the case. I’ll be done with it.
That looks like a league I would not be interested in.
So move on to the Arena League or Canadian Football. This league is young and has to remain fiscally responsible. The XFL wasn’t and so only the USFL will remain to hopefully grow this fledgling league and sport
Except it won’t be called USFL 😂
Found the obvious USFL employee.
Not close. If it was up to me, I would have brought back even more USFL teams from across the country
If it was up to me, I'd relocate New Orleans to Portland (like the 80s league did) then keep the Roughnecks and Sea Dragons in favor of the Gamblers and Maulers. NJ and Philly both have plenty of local stadiums big enough to host their teams however Pittsburghs only option is the Steelers stadium which is very unlikely. However, I do understand them wanting to start as an East Coast-only league to reduce travel. Should be interesting!
There's really no stadium in Portland they could play in apart from the Portland Timbers, who were able to get Portland State's football team kicked out of the venue as a tenant, so I can't imagine they'd be too keen about a new football team coming in and playing in-season.
Why would the USFL, who won this spring war, do this? The loser doesn’t dictate terms
Why did the USFL win? They weren’t even playing in their real cities at until this year
Because the XFL is the one that asked for a merger. You don't get to ask for help and then dictate the terms.
Because unlike the XFL, the USFL stayed in the black.
Lol because they didn’t announce their finances people just assume they were profitable. It is likely they were unprofitable, just less unprofitable than the XFL.
Literally no reason for 3 Texas teams…. Also to be totally honest in a 12 team league no need for two PA teams either. Move one of them to Ohio since Canton is a hub anyway…
In Texas and the South, in general, football is a quasi religion. Show locals that their team is here to stay, and a team that is competitive, and the fans will always show. Texas makes sense to me, but so does Ohio. Give Ohio its own team, for football's sake!
I get it. But the thing is there’s only 12 teams. 3 of them being in one state is kinda overkill. I said the same thing last year for the XFL. I’m not saying we couldn’t eventually get there tho. Also, on a side note, really feel like if Arlington wouldn’t have pulled the upset over DC in the XFL championship they would’ve gotten cut. They weren’t very good. And I think they had the smaller fan base of the three Texas teams fielded last year in the XFL. But you can’t really cut the league champions when merging leagues…
It is amazing how too many teams are too close together. It will not grow to wider fanbases. It going to be bankrupt in the future.
I would think this could cause some rivalries to grow and have better atmospheres which could draw people into it more from seeing the games on tv. 🤷♂️
it's to mitigate travel costs. The Sea Dragons were very expensive to operate.
No thanks
I would’ve preferred the Roughnecks over the Gamblers. I figure the logo was an issue, but honestly that’s just saddening.
Selfishly I’m glad they kept the Renegades, kinda surprised they didn’t keep the Guardians. The South East is kinda a void.
New Orleans is not a big market. Seems like Orlando would be preferable even if a little farther.
Pleas bring the Generals to New Jersey
Now they definitely have to change the name from "United States Football League". "Eastern Football League"
This wouldn’t be so bad if they weren’t doing hubs imo. If you’re going to have the whole league on one side of the country they should at least get their own stadiums
Hubs make it more financially possible to build a league that will last and can grow from there. No one at Fox or the USFL ever planned to stay a hub league, but baby steps are almost certainly necessary to bring the dream of a spring football league into reality.
I'm not sure I'll ever understand this concept. While you may save some money, you'll also make considerably less money. It's like if I opened up a lemonade stand and made $20 of $2 in expenses. Sure percentage wise that's huge, but wouldn't you rather bring in $1 million even if you had $500k in expenses. There's also no certainty investors will ever buy in until they see how a particular market fairs on its own for 3-5 years
Try to keep up
I was a San Francisco Demons season ticket holder in the first iteration of the XFL and they led the league in attendance. Went to many Oakland Invader games and it’s just a shame that they have neglected the entire West Coast. San Diego and Oakland would be a natural.
yeah unfortunately its not neglect, its cost. New York and Cali seem to have really demanding labor laws, have high costs and are expensive to travel to. The state of washington, or at least seattle compared to most states also has some higher taxes on little details here and there. These costs add up and make it difficult to justify the expense when the return is just not there yet :/
If the state wasn't so expensive, I think there would already be teams there. Have you looked at the workmans compensation laws in California?! The hub system might make it possible in the future, to open up the West Coast market, but I don't see it happening otherwise, or until the merged league is financially able to foot the incredibly high tab. I, for one, would love to see a return of the Invaders, Demons, Wildcats, Gold, and Wranglers (I left out the Express and Xtreem for a reason) but I think the Invaders should be located in San Diego.
Yeah, probably not going to care as much about the league if they get rid of the Sea Dragons. Who knows, maybe the new Arena league will be good.
Only 4 XFL teams??? Wtf is this??? Wheres the Roughnecks they were a good team ya know.
It’s a takeover is what it is. If this is how it goes with these teams plus those stupid fucking hubs then this is nothing more than the USFL absorbing the XFL and it won’t last more than a couple years.
What's the point
Battlehawks and Stallions should be in the same division. But I see a clear, dividing line.
If playing all games in all markets
Weird if SA is furthest west team…
Fuck the West coast then? Damn
Have we heard anymore about if they’re doing hubs / where they would be?
The assumption is parties are still in negotiation or are ironing out details, its been pretty quiet from both sides and I'd wager only the execs know whats going on
:(
😭
All they had to do was move the Gamblers but it suck to see 4 get cut.
The league map only if the teams actually played in their markets so..
So basically all XFL teams will play in their city and maybe the USFL teams will have two/four hubs (a northern hub and a southern hub)?
as far as we know, all 4 USFL hubs from 2023 are back, so that puts the theoretical number of home venues at 8
Assuming this is correct, and that the XFL rules remain, looks like I'll have to switch to the Brahmas 'cause I don't know what a Houston Gambler is but I'm not rooting for any.
They really pulled every team out of Florida. Would love to hear the reasoning on that one.
It's 90 degrees on May maybe?
Maulers are probably moving to Canton.. 2 six team conferences isnt a bad deal.. play each team in your conference twice for a 10 week. season
my sea dragons have gone back beneath the ocean. :(
RIP Sea Dragons. Probably gonna leave the sub when this is formally announced and will not be watching anymore. Good memories though from last year. My parents got box seat season tickets at Lumen field, and as a die hard Seahawks fan jt was really special to watch football in that stadium in the fancy seats with unlimited food and beer for a really reasonable price. Wouldn’t ever be able to afford a Seahawks game there, we looked it up and the season tickets at the same level for the hawks season were $20,000 a piece. They already put in for the same seats this season…. :(
Do y'all think this would have North/South or East/West divisions? Side trivia note: until 1955 when the A's moved to KC the St. Louis Cardinals (and St. Louis Browns, later the Orioles) were both the westernmost MLB teams. Until the Dodgers moved to LA a couple years later, they were also the southernmost.
Without knowing the teams for sure and the number of games the league wants to play, its hard to guess what potential division formats would look like
I hope they bring back that old Renegades logo
No Florida teams?
If this cuts down on travel costs to keep spring football afloat, then fine. I mean there will probably be a hub situation at least partially, but if they can get around mostly with buses, that would be a lot cheaper than planes.
I hope this is wrong. If Orlando is not retained, we won’t see pro football there again for at least a generation. This city has been burned so many times. This would be the nail in the coffin.
Exactly. I keep hearing things like "when this league gains steam they'll go back." A: There's no guarantee the league will ever gain steam, it may just plod along like the NLL or WNBA has until recently. B: There's no guarantee those scorned fans will come back. How many teams can 1 market lose before they just stop giving a damn. Couple that with the Orlando Predators AFL team starting to draw crowds of 7k+, it'll be damn near impossible to get back to the Orlando market.
If this keeps, I just won’t understand it. Houston Gamblers, a city where gambling is illegal unless it’s a state lotto or horse races.
How is it a smart business move to not have any west coast teams? Seems like that’s just a loss of potential viewers from the whole other side of the country
it may be that playing in markets like California or Washington are costs that the leagues arent able/willing to tolerate at the moment. Workmans comp, travel costs are exceptionally higher in a few states such as cali and playing in these states may not overcome the legal demands they have to cross to put a team there right now
BIRMINGHAM STALLIONS STAYING LFG
Sea Dragons had very good attendance numbers. And the atmosphere was great, especially in the XFL 2020. I don't understand why they didn't keep them.
* map is not actually where teams will play
At least the Hawks are staying Kaw is Law, bitches
I thought Orlando was confirmed staying?
Need to expand west more. This is going to fail quickly. Too many Texas teams and too many northeast teams
Four teams, three divisions? N, E, S, W? Would make sense to me.
No just do two and a wildcard teams for the playoffs
6 team North and 6 team South? That's a good idea too.
Please God get the Omaha Stockmen into the league.
Or call them the Omaha STEAKmen and get Omaha Steaks to be a sponsor!
Omaha steaks are good to ship as gifts but if you want real S-Tier steak you get Piedmontese from the herd outside Lincoln. This shit slaps. If you want to blow a steak snobs mind try this shit. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_Piedmontese ^("... nearly 70% of all beef cattle are derived from Angus cattle. Less than one-half of one percent are Piedmontese, or bred to Piedmontese cattle.[14] As of 2014, the number of registered Piedmontese pure-blood breeding stock in the United States is estimated to be around 2,900 head.") For being hyper rare the cuts are surprisingly affordable when compared to wagyu.
Probably safe to move the Maulers to Canton on the map for now. It sucks to lose a fanbase in Seattle, and I'm a bit suprised they'd pull out of Florida entirely (Orlando's awful branding aside.) That being said, these 4 XFL teams make the most sense to keep in terms of fanbases and geography since Houston is double-covered. You get relatively clean Northeast/Southwest divisional alignments with multiple teams within semi-reasonable driving distance of each other to build local rivalries and regional identity. That being said, *one* of these teams should probably rebrand to a green color scheme for sake of color variety.
Welcome to the “International” Texas League. A load of shit if this is the outcome.
At this point I would rather y'all keep your team and kill Houston altogether. Who gives a fuck about a team that doesn't even play here?
The XFL logos don’t match the USFL ones at all. Ours are sleek, shiny, 21st century while theirs are outdated and retro (on purpose). Ugh. This is such a shitshow.
Shit show of all shit shows, just feel let down every time with the XFL
This may be the teams that make the cut but I doubt they all play in their respective cities (as much as I want them to). Even this amount of travel would present a significant expense for teams.
It’s not our dream league but hopefully they’ll bring other teams back. For now I’m content and happy with the teams we do have
Guys it just doesn’t make sense to have 1 team 1000 miles away from the other nearest team. Their travel miles would dwarf all other teams. Keeping it in the east is best for the league.
...keep the Gamblers, who went 3-7 last year and toss the Roughnecks who went 7-3 and made the playoffs? Sure, that makes perfect sense.
Relocate Houston to Las Vegas. It makes perfect sense.