The NFL is not the only football league in the nation. At the end of March the UFL will begin, a spring tournament born after the merger between the XFL’s latest incarnation (2021-2023) and the United States Football League (or USFL). The new United Football League began its operation between 2023 and 2024. It already held its first tournament (won by the Birmingham Stallions) and is now ready to open another season of hostilities. At the moment, it consists of 8 teams. A lot of the players come from college programs, especially part of the FBS circuit. A huge group of players, though, come from the FCS circuit, consisting of less celebrated football programs. Of course, all these players dream of playing in the NFL and putting their skills on display in this league can truly help their cause.
The intercollegiate league is a hotbed of future stars, for the UFL as well as the NFL. Many talented youngsters showcase themselves, Saturday after Saturday, in the NCAA, improving and developing their skills before taking the final leap to the NFL. Not only players, but also many spectators come by to watch the UFL because they have become hooked on the sport through youth tournaments and want to watch some football during the long NFL offseason. Then again, the numbers speak for themselves. The NCAA is a competition with a large following in the US, attracting a large number of fans as well as bettors. As a result, more and more operators are offering college football odds, readily analyzed and compared by Oddschecker, one of the betting industry’s leading comparators for a lot of sports, American football included, of course. By checking the platform, it is pretty easy to stay up-to-date on news and statistics: it is a great destination to find some suggestions on betting.
Fighting for a place on the roster
Football rosters are pretty huge. The NFL allows teams to keep 54 players on their active roster during the regular season and up to 90 in the preseason. During the four months of the tournament, each franchise can keep a practice team running. This is used to spar during the week, giving an organized counterpart to starters and second strings while they try plays and schemes. These practice teams consist mainly (but not only, of course) of undrafted free agents. These players don’t make the cut in April, during the annual NFL Draft where the teams pick their starters of the future, but are not definitely out of the league and can emerge in case of injuries or contract issues, so being part of a practice squad is not that bad.
However, there is some competition even to enter the league from this door. A lot of young student-athletes dream about the life and status of an NFL player – as well as about the money he earns, obviously – so they are always giving their all during NCAA tournaments and the offseason, in order to show scouts what they are capable of. A spring league like the UFL or the old XFL can give them a valuable chance of proving they are worthy of a place on a professional roster.
The UFL’s strategies to improve its audience The UFL is a young league, even if it can count on the previous XFL experience. So it has to find a way to increase its audience, otherwise it risks to lose momentum, following and money. Should this occur, it would become very hard to make a profit and the investors could terminate their contracts, shutting down all the league’s operations. The UFL rebranding was a good first step in this strategy. Deleting the X for extreme helped people to accept this league, which was considered too violent and extremely distant from the NFL product. Now the United Football League is a spring league, a good bridge between college football and professional one. Promoting its activities this way may help the UFL cause a lot.
