Its average television ratings hovered just above 700,000, sources shared.
Both leagues were gifted as way stations between the NIL and portal reality of college football to the National Football League, where the bar for life is higher than can be proffered by a local car dealership or deep-pocketed alumni collective. The journey to profitability for spring football was never easy as a traditional model, dependent on fannies in the seats and exorbitant television rights fees, rising in the billions, which networks prayed to recoup in advertising fortunes.
The USFL’s eight teams in 2023 were huddled in one city, Birmingham, and performed at Protective Stadium, which sliced the proliferation of costs, most notably travel and venue rental. And also led to teams not called the Stallions mostly playing for empty, silver bleachers—albeit with television eyeballs largely ensconced at home.
It’s too early to officially predict what spring professional football 2024 will it look like, other than resemble the network-owned USFL spiced with dashes of The Rock-cookin’ XFL in varied cities starved for football beyond the NIL.