Maybe Spring Football Just Isn’t Meant to Work
It might be time to give up on spring football leagues…
With the conference championships for the United Football League (UFL) about to kick off next weekend, I couldn’t help but think to myself, “Huh? The UFL’s season started?”. This thought led me down a path of reflection on the previous spring football leagues that have popped up - and flamed out - over the past few years.
The UFL is not the first endeavor into spring football, nor will it be the last, with the earliest batches of attempts to break into the market being in the 1980’s with the USFL. Which failed spectacularly, by the way. The idea of spring leagues went dormant after that. However, they didn’t totally die. In 2019, the Alliance of American Football (AAF) came to life, reviving the idea behind spring leagues.
On paper, a spring football league feeding into the NFL seems like a no brainer - a legitimate pipeline for players who weren’t quite ready to make the leap straight from college. But that’s the thing - college football is that pipeline. If you weren’t able to make it in CFB, then you aren’t going to make it in the NFL. It is the hard truth that is professional football.
I get it, though. This is a dream and many don’t want to give up on it. You hear stories from undrafted gems breaking out in the league all the time. Underdogs are a crucial part of the NFL story. Adam Thielen went undrafted, yet became a stud once a team gave him a shot. He’s one of many.
An entire league of underdogs, though… it’s a tough product to sell. The Canadian Football League is an inferior product to the NFL in every way (sorry Canada). However, it’s existence is justified because it’s Canada’s way of providing their country’s players a league in their home. Gives Canadian’s a league to root for that isn’t from another country. That said, I personally find it hard to believe that any player, regardless of nationality, would choose the CFL over the NFL.
So let’s circle back to the target; spring leagues. Over the past 6 years, the have come and gone. As mentioned earlier, the AAF was the first in this crop of leagues. Decimated by financial mismanagement in their first season, collapsing before it could even finish. After that, the XFL reared it’s head. A product by the infamous Vince McMahon, first seeing the light of day in the early 2000s, came back with a fresh coat of paint and more sterilized image.
The USFL decided it also wanted to make a comeback. Then, after merging with the XFL, became the UFL. Which is currently ongoing.
Look, I didn’t want to go into great detail into the history of spring leagues, but this provides a little context. It has been a turbulent effort full of growing pains which has impacted the product. AAF was thrown together with duct tape and bubble gum, and the play on field was about as good as your local High School’s varsity team. You have to keep in mind that this was the first impression of spring league football for a lot of people. It negatively impacts any future endeavors others might take into this realm of football.
Each year that passes, numbers dwindle and the spotlight fades. I literally forgot the UFL was playing.
I don’t place blame solely on the UFL, though. I direct blame to ESPN, ABC, and Disney. The owner’s of the streaming right to the league. Where are the ads? Where is the fanfare? Why isn’t this league plastered EVERYWHERE? I couldn’t name a single person that plays in this league.
I understand that this isn’t the NFL, it’s not going to generate massive amounts of revenue to offset huge ad campaigns, but where’s the effort? I live in DC and we have a UFL team. Why am I not being bombarded with DC Defenders propaganda like I am with the Washington Commanders?? No metro posters. No giant bus ads. Nothing. Nonexistent. Just like my interest in spring leagues.
