USFL

2:07pm: The new league (name TBD) may be settling on a 12-team setup, GOPHNX.com’s Howard Balzer tweets, adding that this merger will be aimed at taking effect for the 2024 season. Should this rumored plan come to fruition, f our franchises would need to be eliminated. This would mean a third straight year of offseason football in America and a spring league setting up shop in five of the past six years.

10:30am: The two spring football leagues will follow through on their rumored merger. The USFL announced Thursday an agreement to merge with the XFL is in place.

This will open the door to questions regarding league schedules, rules and the number of teams that will be part of this revamped operation. But after early shutdowns marred multiple offseason leagues in the recent past, it is interesting the most recent two will stick around as a joint entity.

Talks between the two leagues began in July, following USFL 2.0’s second completed season. While the XFL folded twice and the Alliance of American Football joined the once-Vince McMahon-helmed league in failing to complete a season, the USFL has quietly played out two full campaigns. While not offering talent on the level of the original USFL, this rebooted outfit will make an interesting imprint on the football world by merging with the twice-relaunched XFL.

Dwayne Johnson led the effort for the XFL to return, with he and ex-wife/business partner Dany Garcia reviving the league. The XFL, however, lost roughly $60MM this year. The XFL’s championship game still outdrew the USFL’s, earning a 1.4 rating as the USFL commanded a 1.2 number. Despite the losses, the XFL had planned to come back for another season.

The NFL and AFL officially merged in 1970, but the sides reached an agreement years before. The leagues held their first common draft in 1967 but remained separate in terms of competition from 1967-69. Super Bowls II-IV represented the only on-field AFL-NFL competition from 1967-69. The 1970 season brought reconfigured divisions, with both the Browns and Colts shifting to the newly formed AFC, and schedules that featured regular-season games between the conferences. The USFL-XFL alliance reaching multiple seasons would be a win, given the developments in spring leagues since the original USFL folded after its 1985 season. But a number of questions remain.

XFL 3.0 ran from February to April; the new-look USFL’s season spanned from April to June. Each league featured eight teams. A Houston franchise — the XFL’s Roughnecks and USFL’s Gamblers, respectively — was present in both leagues.Relocations took place frequently in the original USFL, and it is still unknown if this presently unnamed coalition will feature all of its games in home markets. To save on travel costs, both the USFL and XFL used hubs rather than having its teams trek across the country.

Both leagues gave numerous former NFL players additional audition opportunities, with younger talent also using the new platforms as a springboard into chances with the country’s top sports league. Most notably, KaVontae Turpin played in both the USFL and NFL last season, earning All-Pro honors as a return man with the Cowboys. Dallas’ kicker this year, Brandon Aubrey, played in both USFL seasons over the past two years. XFL QBs Ben DiNucci and Reid Sinnett respectively reside on the Broncos and Bengals’ practice squads, and its yards-per-punt leader — Brad Wing — landed a P-squad gig (with the Steelers) six years after he last punted in an NFL game.

The XFL’s third try offered an interesting backdrop earlier this year, as the rebooted USFL managed to follow through on plans to play a second season. While spring-summer leagues perpetually navigate uphill battles, both finished their respective seasons. But the leagues did not fare especially well financially.

As a result, the two minor leagues of sorts are planning to merge, according to Tim Baysinger, Dan Primack and Sara Fischer of Axios.com. Details are somewhat elusive here, but InsidetheLeague.com’s Neil Stratton indicates talks have been ongoing since July. The leagues have not completed a merger yet but hope to finalize this process before the 2024 season, per Axios, and an official announcement could come this week.

Offseason football or even an in-season effort, which the United Football League tried nearly 15 years ago, has produced quick shutdowns. Although the UFL lasted multiple seasons, XFL 1.0 folded after a memorable 2001 faceplant. The COVID-19 pandemic prompted the second XFL iteration to cancel its season midway through, and a messy legal battle ensued. With that coming a year after the Alliance of American Football folded before its inaugural campaign wrapped, prospects of a major spring football league in America appeared grim. But the USFL has quietly kept going. The league completed its second season this year.

Dwayne Johnson led the effort for the XFL to return, with he and ex-wife/business partner Dany Garcia reviving the once-Vince McMahon-helmed operation. The XFL, however, lost roughly $60MM this year. The XFL’s championship game still outdrew the USFL’s, earning a 1.4 rating as the USFL commanded a 1.2 number. The XFL had been expected to remain in operation, with the Giants’ assistant special teams coach — Anthony Blevins — leaving the NFC East team for an XFL HC opportunity this summer. That opportunity may now come for a renamed and expanded league.

It is unknown if both eight-team leagues will see all its franchises become part of an expanded operation or how many games would be played in home markets. Neither league went through with the latter aspect fully this season, attempting to save on travel costs. Both XFL and USFL teams featured a Houston franchise — the Roughnecks and Gamblers, respectively — so that would seemingly need to be ironed out. Should a 16-team league form, it would remind — in size only — of the original USFL, which at one point ballooned to 18 teams. That league, of course, famously combusted in the mid-1980s.

XFL 3.0 and USFL 2.0 have sent players to the NFL — most notably Cowboys All-Pro return man KaVontae Turpin, a USFLer in 2022 — and the NFL had worked out a developmental-based partnership with the XFL. It will be interesting to see how that arrangement will look should the two spring leagues complete this merger.

Should the leagues merge, one of them would also need to change its schedule. The XFL began in February last year, while the USFL kicked off in April. While this coming to fruition certainly could increase interest in spring football, the details of this merger will be critical.