The two leagues have not provided too many answers about their merged future.
Much to the relief of Rupert Murdoch’s FOX Sports, which owns the United States Football League, and RedBird Capital Partners, the owners of the XFL, President Joe Biden’s Department of Justice sees nothing wrong with the merger of two financially failing businesses becoming one entity. The USFL-XFL merger has passed government regulatory inspection and now it is onto the 2024 season. But there are plenty of questions that need to be answered with the first one being just how many teams will take the field on the weekend of March 30th? As of this moment, the USFL has eight teams, the XFL has eight teams. Most of the USFL teams never played in a designated market so it is not as if customers in places like the New York metropolitan area or Pittsburgh or Philadelphia or New Orleans ever attended a game and will miss the product. The USFL had hub markets like Birmingham, Alabama. The XFL was based in Arlington, Texas in between Dallas and Fort Worth. The XFL had two markets that supported the football product, St. Louis and San Antonio. There are rumors that only eight teams will be included in the combined entity which means that coaches and players will lose jobs along with athletic staff including trainers and front office personnel.
The spring football league will begin play against sports competition that will include the NCAA’s men and women basketball tournament, the beginning of the 2024 Major League Baseball season, along with regular season games in the National Basketball Association and the National Hockey League, the National Football League’s free agency and countdown to the draft period, golf and tennis tournaments and the Major League Soccer season. The March 30th weekend is not an ideal time for a new venture to start looking for attention.
Evan Weiner’s books are available at iTunes – https://books.apple.com/us/author/evan-weiner/id595575191
Evan can be reached at evan_weiner@hotmail.com
