", "Former USFL Exec Steve Ehrhart Clarifies League Name & Logo Statement", "Larry Csonka has role in lawsuit filed trying to block FOX Sports' launch of USFL", "USFL lawsuit, explained: Why Larry Csonka, old USFL teams and owners are suing the new league", "Fox Sports Responds To Original USFL Owners' Attempt To Block Relaunch Of League", "New USFL adds 3 point conversions and best of three rule twists", "USFL announces new running clock for first and third quarters hopes to keep future games under three hours", "USFL rules: 3-point conversions, two forward passes, and much more,", "USFL to eliminate chains, measure first downs with chip in ball and yellow line on TV", "USFL makes midseason rules change regarding PAT option, at Jeff Fisher's request", "USFL makes a midseason rule change for Jeff Fisher, who could not change his point-after attempt option last week", "USFL rules, explained: The biggest differences vs. NFL, including overtime, 3-point attempts & more,", "USFL will decide overtime in a 2-point shootout,", "After decades dormant, USFL to relaunch in '22", "Potential economic boom in store for Alabama with 'unprecedented' Fox Sports USFL proposal", "USFL Officially Selling Tickets For Inaugural Game, Starting At $10", "NFL Draft: CFC100 OL Liam Dobson receives two mini-camp invites CanadaFootballChat.com", "USFL eager to attract bettors, announces that 15 states have approved legal betting on USFL games", "USFL giving players and staff tuition-free, debt-free college degree program", "USFL CBA Ratification Vote Set for January 9th", "Details on USFL Player Contracts & Pay Reportedly Leak", "Details Emerge on USFL Win Bonus Structure", "USW: USFL Players Choose Union Representation", "USFL, FOX Sports Reach New CBA Rivaling XFL Compensation", "USFL Players Ratify First Contract with United Steelworkers", "USFL to Return in Spring 2022 with at Least 8 Teams; Will Be Broadcast on Fox Sports", "U.S. FOOTBALL LEAGUE PLANNING COMEBACK AFTER 37 YEARS 2022 Return!!! Blame Gov. The final two head coaches were announced the following week on January 27, 2022. Back in January 2021, Brian Woods. This page was last edited on 26 February 2023, at 21:06. Great job Mike. The FXFL had a myriad of financial and legal issues, and long after the smoke cleared, settlements were made, with plaintiffs being rewarded $300,000. Your email address will not be published. PITTSBURGH (KDKA) - The Pittsburgh Maulers are back! THESE PLAYERS BRING A PASSION TO THE GAME THAT IS TRULY ELITE AS THEY PURSUE THEIR DREAM TO PLAY PROFESSIONAL FOOTBALL. XFL News Hub is not associated or affiliated with Alpha Opco, LLC ("XFL") in any way. That being said, we started scouting players and evaluating talent with former NFL scouts in NFL training camps last fall making the rounds, trying to identify some players. Its worth noting that the city of San Antonio went on record in the story that they havent been in touch with anyone from the USFL. The USFL may be looking to follow the same model Woods had for the FXFL. Amid the noise, lounging out with his feet up on his desk, with his AirPods plugged in, an idea struck him. The names attached as head coaches for the USFLs teams will be the faces of their franchises and will help draw attention in the leagues early stages. Brian Woods is the Chief Executive Officer at The Spring League based in Wilmington, Delaware. Post Week Two Power Week two TV ratings are in for the XFL 2023 season. Long term, everyone on the team at FOX and the USFL, we want to create a real dominant spring professional football product., Joseph Santoliquito is an award-winning sportswriter based in the Philadelphia area who has been writing for PhillyVoice since its inception in 2015 and is the president of the Boxing Writers Association of America. The United States Football League (USFL) is a professional American football minor league[2][3] that began play on April 16, 2022. There are a lot of different possibilities where we can land.. Then you had the league raiding top college talent as well as some NFL talent. The vision is simple, too, Woods emphasized. Fox Sports CEO Eric Shanks announces the first game of the new USFL will air on both Fox and NBC on April 16 in prime time. (Photo by Greg Garrison/AL.com). In theory, the USFL would set up multiple hub sites that would house and train three to four teams at once. They will continue to serve as the official broadcast partner. The original USFL played from 1983 to 1985 and folded when the league decided to compete directly with the NFL during the fall of 1986, at the urging of New Jersey Generals majority owner Donald Trump, in an effort to force a league merger. Brian Woods, the founder and CEO of The Spring League from 2017 to 2021 and a co-founder of the new USFL, will serve as the league's President of Football Operations. The same way the Spring League did in 2021. For the 2022 season's first three weeks, the game clock will be stopped after each incomplete pass, no matter which point of the game it occurred. No laminated sheet of choreographed lines, circles, and Xs behind which Brian Woods, architect of the new United States Football League, may shield his mouth while shouting commands. "I'm extremely passionate about football and the opportunity to bring back the USFL in 2022 was an endeavor worth pursuing," said Brian Woods, co-founder of the new USFL. Teams will have three scrimmage-play options to attempt a point(s) after touchdown: Two-point conversion from the three-yard line (same as the NCAA). [20] However, the league decided midway through the 2022 season to expand rosters to a 40-man active game day roster, along with a 10-man practice squad [69]. Keep the bullshit BLM politics out of the USFL and it has a chance, people are hungry for sports without pol, I agree with 4th&long Fox needs cheap content that it can control unless someone comes forward with $200 million dollars we are probably looking at hub cities and a very tight geographic footprint bus travel and short plane rides USFL will pay their players unlike TSL Two or three stadium leases using two camera crews per weekend vs 4 and also not having to move the Camera/broadcast crews around has to save a lot of money , I wonder if having ten teams isnt a mechanism for getting a certain number of football content hours to Fox? [38][39] In response, the league attorneys claimed "The new USFL registered its intellectual property rights in 2011". "We're looking for is the to be strategic. Fox Sports, in addition to serving as the nascent league's official broadcast partner, also owns a minority equity stake in the venture. [27], On February 16, 2022, the league announced that the 2022 Playoffs would be held in Canton, Ohio, at Tom Benson Hall of Fame Stadium instead of Birmingham due to conflicting scheduling with the 2022 World Games. The move piqued a few ifs, prompted a few here-we-go-again rolled eyes. [37], On February 28, 2022, "The Real USFL, LLC," a group fronted by Larry Csonka (acting in his capacity as general manager of the original Jacksonville Bulls) and claiming to represent the interests of the owners of the former USFL franchises, filed suit to stop the current USFL from using the name or trademarks associated with the original league. Joining him were some familiar faces, and great names to have in a startup. Brian Woods, USFL VP football operations There's also this: Almost all players, according to Woods, will be paid $4,500 each week they are active on a team's 38-person roster, along with an. Heres a tip for the USFL: PUBLIC COMMUNITY OWNERSHIP! On January 25, 2022, the city of Birmingham announced that the league headquarters would be in Birmingham, and all games of the 2022 USFL season would be played at Protective Stadium and Legion Field. But heres to the re-birth. [citation needed]. [62] The new deal also include a $400 per week housing stipend. The shift to the USFL may change things moving forward from a promotional standpoint but how deep into their pockets is FOX willing to go? Our contract structure is set up in such a way that if a player gets done playing in an USFL season, that player has almost six weeks before NFL training camps open. Embed from Getty Images The league has not yet determined how it will assign players with an affinity to local markets, nor whether it is that vital for the inaugural season, except for the always-home-team Birmingham Stallions. [41] The Real USFL, LLC withdrew its suit with prejudice on August 22, 2022. Once upon a time, Woods, a sports lawyer, tried to run a genuine pro football league called the Fall Experimental Football League. If the challenge is not in the favor of the coach who called it, his team will lose a timeout; if successful, he will keep the challenge and receive an additional challenge. Recently, other spring football leagues have failed. The Spring League is continuing. All the games will be played at either Protective Stadium or Legion Field. [11], On October 12, 2021, Tad Snider, the executive director of the Birmingham-Jefferson Civic Center Authority, announced that the league was in serious discussions with the board of directors of the BJCC about the possibility of the USFL playing all of its games in Birmingham, Alabama. The USFL has trademarked the San Antonio Gunslingers and other team names from the leagues past. For the first year of the CBA, the roster size will stay at 50 (40 active/10 inactive), while from the second year going forward the makeup changes to 42 active and 8 inactive. Brian Woods, a co-founder of this new iteration of the USFL, was a financial adviser for the failed Alliance of American Football and associated the last two years with The Spring League. The South will include the Birmingham Stallions, New Orleans Breakers, Tampa Bay Bandits and Houston Gamblers. Its one reason why people come to XFLnewshub.My gut says hybrid hub city approach, but I can see using bus distance teams to play in multiple cities in range, eg San Antonio, OKC, Dallas/Houston OR TB, Orlando, Jax. Many of the players in this league are going to be talented. For several weeks now, sources have indicated that the USFL is looking to secure owners for each of their teams in 2022. Brian Woods, who founded The Spring League and served as CEO of the developmental organization from 2017 to 2021, will be the USFL's president of football operations. I am a pro football writer who has extensively covered and reported on multiple leagues over the years; you can follow me on Twitter @byMikeMitchell. Had they continued to operate in the spring, they might still be here today", said Woods. "Today is a monumental day for the new USFL as we hit the 100-days-to-kickoff mark," Brian Woods, the USFL's president of football operations, said in a statement. Its not a streaming network. It's part of a plan to make sure the league exists beyond this season unlike other failed leagues. He also mentioned that he refused previous attempts to "buy" the league, "including the people who founded the first version of the XFL". Daily conversations took place, pieces began taking shape, and in June 2021, FOX announced the new United States Football League would begin play in April 2022. As in the NFL, no fouls for pass interference or ineligible player downfield will be called if the ball fails to cross the line of scrimmage. The Spring League first debuted on FOX Sports in 2020 when the league completed its first bubble season due to Covid-19. The big question is, if and when the maulers come to Pittsburgh, where will they play? We and our partners use cookies to Store and/or access information on a device. Is there any contact information for the League? If plane flights are too expensive then this is really an AA minor league. 2022 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. Youre not chasing your dream in the USFL, youre living it. Why would someone leave school for the USFL? Let us know down in the comments below or join the conversation on Discord. There would be no expansion that year, and the league would continue to use a hub model, with "two to four" locations housing all eight teams. Weve been preparing for the World Games for seven years. Two weeks later on January 20, 2022, two more head coaches were announced. Hes been in the industry for a while now and has had his fair share of struggles and detractors. Woods said he expects the level of play will be equal to major Division I college football. Looking to the future though, it seems like Woods has some big plans for The Spring League. Despite very little promotion and fanfare this spring, TSL broadcasts averaged 408,000 viewers per telecast Saturday afternoons on the FOX Network. Birmingham City Councilor Crystal Smitherman, though, said it did not give her pause, nor temper her enthusiasm about the leagues prospects. If you want to be seen as a talent, the USFL is the place to show off your skills. The USFL plans to kick off its season on Saturday, April 16, when the Stallions play the Generals. The move was necessitated, league officials said, by a too-close-for-comfort calendar conflict with the World Games opening ceremonies, long been slated for July 7 at Protective Stadium. What do you think the announcement on The Spring League and FOX will be? As of 2023, the league operates eight teams in four cities, all east of the Mississippi River; all eight teams bear the brands of teams from a previous incarnation of the United States Football League that operated from 1983 to 1985. The main list of investors is not something that the league is disclosing at this time. The league is currently owned by National Spring Football League Enterprises Co, LLC, a joint venture between founder Brian Woods and Fox Corporation's sports unit, Fox Sports in the United States. The cable telecasts of the Spring League on FS1/FS2 averaged 81,000 viewers. So it makes sense that the USFL would try to reach into the nostalgia playbook and look to bring on some familiar faces with ties to the leagues past. The proposed agreement increases minimum salaries and provides a stronger benefits package than they previously received, and slightly higher than most XFL salaries. Thats my short-term visiongetting through season one and putting an exceptional on-field product out for display. It is being co-founded by Brian Woods, the CEO of The Spring League, which also airs on Fox. Charges at another hotel, though, will count towards the contractual room guarantee of around 40,000 room nights. Thats the end game here. The new USFL did not inherit the old USFL's unpaid liabilities, nor its television contract; it instead holds a new contract with Fox Sports, which already owns both the rights to and an equity stake in The Spring League, and with NBC Sports. The league will be mostly comprised of younger unknown players. A coin toss (called by the visiting team) will determine which team will go on offense or defense first, and which end zone will be used (both offenses will attack the same end zone, just as soccer shootouts are attempted at the same goal). On November 15, 2022, the USFL and the City of Memphis, Tennessee announced that the Tampa Bay Bandits organization would effectively be relocated to Memphis as the Memphis Showboats, taking on the name and identity of the team from the original incarnation of the league. Originally launched in 1983, the USFL consisted of 12 teams. We want to develop pro players and we want to be somewhat aggressive in our talent procurement process in even affording opportunities to younger players. FOX Sports has a minority equity stake in the company (TSL) that owns the new USFL. Cuts travel exp and possibly lodging while having local fans in stands and on TV.The one thing is for sure FOX needs sports programing, cheap programming or at least inexpensive; One that they have some control over.Curious about the fact they want more than 8 teams, that may really imply individual ownership as a way to raise capital, because 8 team is cheaper to run than 10 cost wise. Things started out discussing the fact that the Maulers are coming back, but you won't be able to watch them locally for the first year. Glanville has coached in the Spring League their last two seasons. Had they remained in the spring, they probably would still be here today.. Would the San Antonio media even cover the team if it doesnt play there? Training camp was to begin on March 21.[20][21]. 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