Spring used to be known as the time between the Super Bowl and NFL’s preseason, but now the months between February and July are filled with professional football.
Beginning this weekend, the XFL will play their Week 9 schedule at the same time as the USFL begins their second season since rebooting in 2022. Is there room for two spring pro football leagues to coexist?
The ratings for XFL games have been decent at times, but viewership is well behind the marks set in 2020. The USFL was not a massive ratings success last season, averaging roughly 715,000 viewers per contest.
While both the USFL and XFL will serve to fill Saturday and Sunday afternoons with professional gridiron action for at least the next two weekends, will they exist to complement one another or tank each other’s ratings?
Here is this weekend’s schedule of games for both leagues.
|
XFL Week 9 Schedule |
USFL Week 1 Schedule |
| Saturday, April 15th
Vegas Vipers @ Houston Roughnecks – 12:30 PM ESPN Orlando Guardians @ San Antonio Brahmas – 7 PM ESPN2 |
Saturday, April 15th
Philadelphia Stars @ Memphis Showboats – 4:30 PM FOX New Jersey Generals @ Birmingham Stallions – 7:30 PM FOX |
| Sunday, April 16th
Arlington Renegades @ DC Defenders – 12 PM ESPN Seattle Sea Dragons @ St. Louis Battlehawks – 3 PM ESPN |
Sunday, April 16th
Michigan Panthers @ Houston Gamblers – 12 PM NBC Pittsburgh Maulers @ New Orleans Breakers – 6:30 PM FS1 |
On Saturday at 7:30 and Sunday at Noon, both the USFL and XFL will play games opposite each other on major cable and broadcast networks.
An advantage that the XFL holds over the USFL is that each of its teams plays home games in their respective host cities. This has allowed the XFL to develop a significant fanbase in each market to build off of for future seasons.
All regular season games played during the 2022 USFL season were held in Birmingham, Alabama. Shockingly, the Birmingham Stallions won the USFL Championship last year.
This season the USFL will play games in four different cities – Birmingham, Alabama, Canton, Ohio, Detroit, Michigan, and Memphis, Tennessee.
What they didn’t explain so well is that those four cities won’t get games every weekend. For instance, in Week 1, the early USFL games are being played at Simmons Bank Liberty Stadium in Memphis, with the late games taking place at Protective Stadium in Birmingham.
Here’s how the home fields are being split in the United States Football League this season.
2023 USFL Home Stadiums
- Memphis Showboats and Houston Gamblers – Simmons Bank Liberty Stadium, Memphis, TN
- Birmingham Stallions and New Orleans Breakers – Protective Stadium, Birmingham, AL
- Michigan Panthers and Philadelphia Stars* – Ford Field, Detroit, MI
- Pittsburgh Maulers and New Jersey Generals – Tom Bensen Field, Canton, OH
*The Stars play one home game at Canton, Ohio.
While the XFL’s crowd’s have been far from robust, attendance is much more impressive than what showed up for the USFL in 2022.
There’s also no hometown competition between the Houston Roughnecks and the Houston Gamblers, as area fans only have one team they can root for locally.
Check back in with us next week for a blow-by-blow report on Round 1 of the XFL vs. USFL saga.
Sources – Official XFL Website, Official USFL Website, NBC Sports