Ready or not, UFL Spring Football returns this Weekend

Ah, yes.  Springtime means the return of your favorite eight United Football League (UFL) spring football teams for a third consecutive season.

Except for the San Antonio Brahmas, Michigan Panthers, and Memphis Showboats, that is!

Those three UFL teams were vaporized last summer to become a part of league history.

The UFL moving trucks have been busy during the off-season

United Football League team locations in San Antonio, Detroit, and Memphis were replaced with new franchises in the states of Florida, Ohio, and Kentucky.

The Orlando Storm, Columbus Aviators, and Louisville Kings will join the Birmingham Stallions, DC Defenders, Houston Gamblers, and St. Louis Battlehawks in 2026.

In addition, the former Arlington Renegades moved across town to morph into the Dallas Renegades.  But even the name “Dallas” is a bit misleading.  The Renegades will play this season in Toyota Stadium – a 24,000 seat soccer stadium in fast-growing Frisco.  That city is 25 miles north of downtown Dallas.

The UFL has smartly downsized its stadiums and cut more costs this season.

All eight UFL teams still practice at the same facility in Arlington, Texas on weekdays and then fly to play games on weekends in each team’s respective home market.

All but two of the eight spring football franchises will play in smaller soccer venues beginning this season.  The new stadiums generally have a seating capacity of no more than 25,000.

The Houston Gamblers vamoosed from the 40,000 seat football stadium at the University of Houston in favor of a more “right sized” environment at the downtown home of the Houston Dynamo soccer franchise.

Wisely, the UFL owners have learned that the optics of showing thousands of empty seats on nationally televised football games is a very bad look for TV.  The high costs of leasing a traditional football stadium was another big factor in making that switch, too.

The St. Louis Battlehawks (which led the UFL in home attendance with more than 30,000 fans per home game) will continue to play in the 60,000 seat Dome at America’s Center.

Locally known as the “BattleDome”, the indoor football stadium was the former home of the NFL’s St. Louis Rams prior to the team moving to Los Angeles.

Birmingham will continue to play in UAB’s state of the art 47,000 seat football stadium.  The league smartly cordoned off the upper deck last season, so the actual seating capacity for Stallions home games is about 25,000.

When is the first UFL football game this year?

The 2026 UFL season picked a bad time to get started (again).   This weekend’s season openers will have stiff competition from the men’s and women’s NCAA March Madness college basketball tournament.

Game #1 of the new UFL season is this Friday night (March 27) at 7PM CDT on FOX.

The Birmingham Stallions visit Kentucky to play in the first-ever home game for the Louisville Kings.

Saturday, March 28 will feature an afternoon doubleheader.  The opening game will start at 11AM CDT on ESPN as 2025 champion DC Defenders invade the St. Louis Battlehawks.  The second game (3PM CDT on FOX) has the Houston Gamblers riding up I-45 to play their intrastate rival, the Dallas Renegades.

Sunday’s final opening weekend game will pit two new entries taking the field for the first time.

The Columbus Aviators take flight to central Florida to play the Orlando Storm at 7PM CDT on ESPN.

The UFL added a giant source of cash as billionaire Mike Repole joined the ownership team

Who is Mike Repole, you ask?

If you have heard of beverage brands such as VitaminWater and BodyArmor, it was entrepreneur Mike Repole who built and sold those companies to Coca-Cola for a cool $12 billion.

That means that the UFL just added another financial partner with deep pockets.  Mike Repole is about to learn that the UFL and every other prior spring football iteration has been a gigantic money pit.

Last season’s UFL was owned by former WWE wrestling legend Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson and his ex-wife Dany Garcia along with Fox Sports, Disney (ESPN), and private equity investor Redbird Capital Partners.

The privately-held United Football League is not required to publish annual financial reports.  They are quite tight-lipped about the league’s finances.

It’s not a secret that the UFL has posted annual losses into the tens of millions of dollars.

A lot of cash is required to pay stadium leases, players, and other significant costs

One source reported that Ford Field in Detroit (former home to the now-deceased Michigan Panthers franchise) cost the league $500,000 per home game.

That’s a cool $2.5 million per season for just one stadium’s rental fees.

Last year’s Michigan Panthers averaged less than 12,000 fans per home game.  Their average ticket price in 2025 was about $25.  That generated about $300,000 in ticket revenue per home game for a season-ending total of about $1.5 million. Ouch.

But wait, there’s more.

Each team had 45 active players on the roster in 2025.  The average salary per player was about $60,000.  That’s another $2.7 million per team – just for the player salaries.

Coaches are another significant expense.  Even relatively unknown coaches will cost a UFL team about $1 million annually.

Don’t forget the cost of insurance, transportation costs to and from the games, practice facilities, home office costs, and a lot more.

Yes, the UFL is losing money with every game they play

Television advertising is the largest revenue source for the UFL.

However, the television ratings in 2025 dipped 20% below 2024’s mediocre numbers.  The UFL’s average weekly television audience last season was less than 800,000 viewers per game.  Even the league’s title game failed to attract more than one million television viewers.

Until the UFL can capture and sustain at least one million television viewers per game, the league’s television revenues will be insufficient to cover the costs of operations.

The UFL receives a set amount from its television partners (ESPN and FOX Sports).  In return, the networks pay for the production costs of each telecast.  They also retain the vast majority of the revenue generated from ads sold within each football game.

The more home viewers tune-in to watch UFL games, the more money the networks will be able charge to advertisers.  The UFL must produce results for the networks this season.  It’s that simple.

The UFL’s costs of operations seem relatively fixed.  The league can improve its financial picture by growing additional home stadium revenues (higher attendance and/or higher ticket prices).  Revenues from annual television fees will become more significant once home viewership grows by 50% over the puny 2025 TV ratings.

That’s why new investor Mike Repole’s billion dollar checkbook is so important to the UFL this year.

The other owners are, most likely, tapped-out.

What’s new in the UFL for this season?

Aside from my rather gloomy financial comments, the on-field product for the United Football League will feature some rather interesting innovations this spring.

A 4-point field goal is coming!

If your kicker can somehow clear the crossbar from 60 yards or more, a field goal will be worth four points in the UFL.  This new 4-point field goal option sounds good, until you realize that a missed attempt will hand the football over to the opposing team near midfield.

Pass receivers need only one foot in-bounds for a legal catch!

This is the same rule being used in college football.  The UFL felt like the NFL’s “both feet must be in bounds” rule was also a little bit dangerous for wide receivers.

Another reason for the “one foot in-bounds” change by the UFL is get teams to score more points.

The UFL has struggled with relatively low scoring games during its first two seasons.  Teams which first reach the 20 point mark generally win most UFL spring football games.

No “tush push” in the UFL!

This should have been outlawed by the NFL, too.  My personal thanks to the UFL for getting rid of this rather odd-looking and often dangerous play where the quarterback is shoved by his own players for a first down or into the end zone.

No punts allowed from inside the 50-yard line

This is yet another attempt to improve overall scoring in the UFL.  Today’s punters have become quite proficient at landing the football inside of the opponent’s ten yard line.  Statistically speaking, most offenses do not move the football 90 yards downfield for a touchdown or even a field goal after being pinned near their own goal line to start a drive.

Summary:

UFL televised games will be shown on FOX, FS1, ABC, ESPN, and ESPN2 again this season.

There is a ten game regular season beginning this Friday, March 27 and ending on Sunday, May 31.  There are two semifinal playoff games on Sunday, June 7.  The league championship game will be played on Saturday, June 13 with kick-off at 2PM CDT on ABC.

New UFL financial backer Mike Repole is pushing hard to make the spring football league more fan-friendly this season.

He said, “The UFL exists to innovate.  If we’re not making the game more exciting and fan-focused, we’re not doing our job.”

As usual, I will track the attendance at UFL home games in addition to the television ratings this season.  Both measures must improve by 15% or more, or you could be watching the final season of UFL spring football unfold over the next 2 ½ months.

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