The United Football League
Video courtesy of Adam Dionisopoulos and the UFL.
The Original XFL Start Up and Fall
Vince McMahon, owner of the WWE, announced the original XFL in 2000. During this time, the NFL began to take a softer approach to the sport as some fans felt they were getting rid of parts that made the game fun, such as taunting. The idea of the XFL would be to bring football back to its original idea by being the X.F.L. - the “extra fun league,” an entertaining football league that hopefully would compete with the NFL.
Three years before, in 1997, NBC lost its TV rights to televise NFL games. Dick Ebersol, former creator of Saturday Night Live, was the chairman of NBC Sports then, and had a strong connection with Vince McMahon. NBC Sports and the XFL negotiated an agreement to televise the games on NBC. With a big partner like NBC on its side, momentum was rising for competition between XFL and the NFL. The league would consist of eight teams and would be a second chance for football players who went undrafted out of college or were cut from the NFL. When players signed contracts with these teams, there would be an incentive to win. The more your team won, the higher the bonus you would personally receive at the end of the season. The Idea was that this would create a more competitive environment that would generate more ratings for the league.
The XFL’s opening game was on February 3, 2001, the week after the NFL had its Super Bowl. Ticket sales and ratings were strong in the early days of the league, selling out stadiums, and TV ratings were twice as high as expected. This great success would not last long.
The XFL would fail due to many different reasons. Ticket sales and ratings decreased quickly due to the football not being very good, players not following the rules, and a lack of personality. Journalists also criticized the league, deeming it potentially fake, similar to McMahon’s WWE. Power outages also impacted viewship. Satellites sometimes shut down for multiple minutes, leaving viewers confused and bored. Ratings and attendance would begin to significantly drop as the season went on.
The XFL’s “Million Dollar Game” was the championship game for the league. Attendance at the championship game was only approximately 10 percent in the stadium. On television, the game received a 1.5 rating, the lowest any major network primetime weekend first-run sports television broadcast had ever received. NBC cut ties with the XFL at the end of the season, and shortly thereafter, the XFL would cease operations entirely in May 2001 (ESPN, This is the XFL; Wikimedia Foundation).
The Rebirth of the XFL 2.0
The XFL would be brought back in 2020, and again had a hot start. The XFL, however, would take a different approach to running a league. The league seemed to learn from its previous mistakes and figure out a way to make a league that would be able to connect with fans and give them a product that they could watch (Perry, 2023). Midway through the 2020 inaugural season, however, COVID-19 would hit the United States, leading the world to shut down, sports leagues included. The XFL shut down in March 2020, eventually filed for bankruptcy on April 11, 2020, and announced that the league would not be returning. In August, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson bought the XFL for roughly 15 million dollars. Throughout 2021 and 2022, the league planned its comeback, shooting for a return date of February 2023, shortly after the NFL Super Bowl (Perry, 2023).
In 2023, the XFL decided to merge leagues with the USFL, another recently reincarnated spring football sports league, with the merged leagues being called the United Football League (UFL). The league included teams from both leagues - some from the XFL and the rest from the USFL - to create an 8-team league.
Erik Moses is currently the Executive Director and CEO for the Fiesta Bowl, but was previously the founding President of the DC Defenders when the XFL was brought back in 2020. He told us about his work with the DC Defenders and the XFL, lessons learned over time at the XFL, and how exciting it was to be involved in a new sports league.
UFL Trademarks and Legal Issues
Adam Dionisopoulos is the Senior Counsel of Business and Legal Affairs at the UFL. He has been working with the UFL for a year and was previously an attorney in New York. Mr. Dionisopoulos grew up in Montreal, Quebec, and received his degree in law from the University of Miami. When the XFL and USFL combined to create the UFL, the UFL retained the ownership of the trademarks of both the XFL and USFL. We asked Mr. Dionisopoulos about the trademark strategy for the league, and about the general scope of legal issues he handles for the UFL.
Technological Innovation in the XFL and UFL
The original XFL tested out new ways to play and watch the game and make it more entertaining for the fans on TV. Technological innovations were implemented into the league, such as the “sky-cam” and “steady cameras.” After seeing the success of these cameras, the NFL later implemented these same features that the XFL offered after seeing how this would benefit the fan experience from home.
The modern-day UFL also implements ways to immerse you in the game. The UFL has implemented body cameras for players and microphones for referees and coaches. This meant you could, at times, hear the plays being called live; it was as if you were on the sidelines sitting next to the coach. The league also develop unique ways to play the game. One way they would do this is by using a new way to have a “kick-off”. The idea of this kickoff was to make it more entertaining, and make it so the receiving team would be less likely to take a “touchback”, and would rather run the ball out to make a play. Later, the NFL would decide to implement that same kickoff.
Mr. Dionisopoulos discussed technology developed by the UFL that are later adopted by the NFL.
The Challenges of New Sports Leagues
One challenge of a small league today, like the UFL, is that you cannot compete with a league as strong as the NFL. But at the same time, it is important to find a way to connect to people in communities and grow as a business. We have seen failure in many cases, especially old iterations of the past XFLs. The way the league can succeed is not through competition, but rather companionship with the NFL. The players' goal is to be in the NFL, and with the UFL, players can be scouted by NFL personnel and hopefully sign as free agents.
We asked Mr. Dionisopoulos about the legal challenges of new sports leagues.
References
Perry, M. (2023, January 15). Complete history of the 2020 XFL season. XFL News Hub. https://xflnewshub.com/xfl-history/complete-history-of-the-2020-xfl-season/#:~:text=In%20summary%2C%20The%202020%20XFL,suspended%20after%205%20weeks%20of
BroomFit. (2024, February 5). History of the XFL. Medium. https://medium.com/the-press-box/history-of-the-xfl-95add71b1bc8
ESPN (2016, February 17) 30 for 30: This is the XFL
Seifert, K. (n.d.). Why St. Louis has embraced the NFL's battlehawks. ESPN. https://www.espn.com/united-football-league/story/_/id/44605642/ufl-st-louis-battlehawks-success
Wikimedia Foundation. (2025, April 10). XFL (2001). Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XFL_(2001)#