Spring Football ends Saturday…for good?

Did you know that the USFL is still playing spring football in early summer? This Saturday night at 7PM CDT on NBC, the second season of the USFL will come to a quiet conclusion.  The defending league champion Birmingham Stallions (9-2) will play the North Division champion Pittsburgh Maulers (5-6) for the 2023 USFL title. For the second straight year, the USFL finale will be played at Tom Benson Hall-of-Fame Stadium in Canton, Ohio.   The league likes playing their championship game at this neutral site stadium located a stone’s throw from the highly-visited NFL Hall-of-Fame.  The folks in Canton did a good job supporting last year’s championship game. If you were unaware that the USFL’s finale was being played this Saturday night, join the club.  I have struggled to maintain my interest in watching the USFL during their second season.   The novelty of spring professional football has clearly worn off. The vast majority of American sports fans have failed to be captivated by the second season of USFL spring football games.   Television ratings for the USFL have generally averaged between 500,000 and 1 million viewers each week.  The ratings needle for Year #2 of the USFL has not shown an upswing. After two years of the latest experiments in spring professional football, the proverbial handwriting is on the wall for everyone to see. After working out the kinks last year in 2022, the USFL had expected Season 2 to bring greater fan engagement (whether television viewers or paying customers in the stadiums).  By most every measure, the USFL has failed.  The league is owned (100%) by Fox Sports, so we probably won’t learn the extent of this year’s financial losses anytime soon. On the other hand, the XFL (the other spring football league) lost a reported $60 million in 2023.  Though the owners of the XFL want to spin a positive story, losing big money was not something which the XFL owners were happy to report. XFL co-owner Dany Garcia recently said, “We’re extremely well-capitalized for the long-term.  This is our new WWE.  The next massive live property.”