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Football fans got quite a treat this week. As the NFL moved into the final stages of its preparations for the 2022 draft, two new spring leagues began a long anticipated joust for attention.
The USFL will debut Saturday night, reviving a long-lost brand and team names first established four decades ago. The XFL, meanwhile, made a series of strategically timed announcements, culminating with naming all eight of its head coaches, to preserve interest in its plans to retake the field in 2023.
The USFL has raced to the front of the starting line, moving from its public introduction to kickoff in 11 months, all while implementing an infrastructure that shares many similarities to the XFL’s 2020 product. In an interview this week, USFL executive vice president of football operations Daryl Johnston said he expects the league to “be ahead of the curve” by the time the XFL gets back on the field.
Johnston had some other thoughts about the looming competition between the leagues, which we’ll delve into as part of this deep dive into the USFL’s origins, ambitions and innovations.
Is this the same USFL from the 1980s?
No. That USFL was owned by a group of individual businessmen, including future President of the United States Donald Trump, and played for three seasons from 1983 to 1985 before dissolving. The current USFL is owned by Fox Sports and is an extension of its previous partnership with The Spring League, whose founder and chief executive officer Brian Woods is now the USFL’s president of football operations.
But they are using the USFL team names, right?
Yes, but at least for 2022, those names will be more about branding than representing local markets.
The league will use a single-site format and play all 10 weeks of its regular season at Protective Stadium in Birmingham, Alabama. Its postseason semifinal games and championship will be held at Tom Benson Hall of Fame Stadium in Canton, Ohio.
Here are the 2022 team names, all of which reference original USFL…
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Source : espn
