Spring football is back! Fox Sports, a division of the Fox Corporation, reinstated the United States Football League,  involving 8 teams from all across the eastern United States, from cities like Birmingham, Alabama, all the way up to Detroit, Michigan.

The USFL was a professional football league that was established in 1982, and dissolved in 1986. While it showed major success, financial problems held the league back. It was established with 18 teams and only 8 of which are coming back for the 2022 season.  

This season, 80% of the games are supposed to be played at Protective Stadium, in Birmingham, and the other 20% will be played in what is called, “The Football Capital of the South”, Legion Field, also in Birmingham. A ten game season will be played with two divisions of four teams. The north division will feature the Michigan Panthers, the New Jersey Generals, the Philadelphia Stars, and the Pittsburgh Maulers. While the south division will feature the Birmingham Stallions, the Houston Gamblers, the New Orleans Breakers, and the Tampa Bay Bandits. 

It’s been proven that spring football is something that people really would like to see. When reviewing the watching statistics of the XFL, which was very successful throughout its only season (2020), it almost never dropped below one million viewers per program and even surpassed live NBA games at the same time on occasions. The XFL was incredibly successful throughout the one season it played. The XFL could not withstand the impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic and could not survive. Based on the recent success of the XFL, we can predict that the USFL will have similar success. 

The rules will mimic those of the NFL but with some variations. As of November 18, 2021, the full rulebook is yet to be announced. The league will feature a playoff bracket involving the top 2 teams of each division, which will play in division championship games where the winner will advance to the league championship a week later. FOX sports will host 22 of the 43 total games. 12 will be on FOX and 10 will be on FOX Sports 1 (FS1). The other 11 will be featured on multiple channels owned by NBC. NBC will host 8 games, USA network will host 9, and Peacock will host 4. Games will be on Saturdays and Sundays with select games on Fridays and Mondays. 

With details still to come out to the public, there is still a lot that the public does not know about this upcoming season. What is known is that there is going to be a lot of sports this upcoming spring. With the NBA playing through the spring, the MLB in the late spring, and the USFL having its inaugural season, there is sure to be a very exciting spring in the world of sports.