If you want more fans watching the UFL, the NFL needs to step in
During the NFL offseason, I don’t watch football. I didn’t watch the XFL when it was a thing, and I don’t watch the UFL now. It seems I’m not alone, and I’m not just talking about television ratings, but also in-person attendance.
Saturday the Memphis Showboats hosted a game where only 2,044 people showed up to watch.
The UFL isn’t doing as well in 2025 as it did in 2024. In Memphis, where only 2,044 showed up for a game today, it’s enough of a disaster to justify asking whether the Showboats will be back in 2026. https://t.co/IjG5yAuuMn
— ProFootballTalk (@ProFootballTalk) May 24, 2025
People can talk about the quality of the product, which I’m sure is good, but if not one is showing up to watch, or tuning in to catch the game, does it even matter?
The answer is a simple no, it doesn’t matter. Without butts in seats, or eyeballs on screens the bills will pile up with no revenue to make it a worthwhile venture anymore. But that doesn’t mean it is a lost cause.
If there is a resolution for the UFL to not just stay alive, but thrive, they will need to get the NFL involved. I’m sure that’s the absolute last thing the UFL would like to do, but if they can coax the NFL into teaming up with them it would make a world of sense.
It has long been thought that college football is considered the minor leagues of the NFL. The NFL Draft remains one of the largest spectacles every year, and that won’t be changing anytime soon, so how could the NFL be utilizing the UFL in a positive way? It would be the NFL turning the UFL into a feeder system into individual teams.
Let me explain…
When teams go through the offseason and add players via free agency and the NFL Draft, the roster balloons up to 90 players, yet only 53 players make the regular season roster. What happens to all those players who are cut? Some land on practice squads, and others sit and wait for a phone call to come in for a tryout, or to join a team.
But what if there was a way for teams to select specific players they want to keep contractual control over, yet relegate them to another team to improve their crafts. Regardless of what team you might root for, there is a strong chance you can rattle off players who were either put on Injured Reserve (IR) their first season, or were cut and faded into mediocrity after not landing with another team. What if those players could be relegated to a UFL team in the spring to improve?
Think of it this way…
In Major League Baseball and the NHL, players get sent down to improve on their games, with hopes of getting “the call” back to the big leagues.
In this specific scenario, players the NFL team doesn’t want to let become a free agent would be sent to a team to improve, then would report back to training camp with another shot at making the 53-man roster.
It’s pretty simple, but it would also help with ratings and viewers. Take me as an obvious example. I don’t watch the UFL, but if I knew the Steelers and the Memphis Showboats were connected and I could watch the Steelers “minor leaguers” play…I’d be watching and covering the games closely. Keeping tabs on players you know could be on the active roster that fall would absolutely help the game of football take over yet another season on the calendar.
Will it ever happen? That’s tough to tell considering the UFL likely would never want to work with the NFL. Likewise, the NFL has tried this approach with NFL Europe, and it wasn’t found to be sustainable? For me, I can’t help but think there is a solution for these issues right in front of us, if only the powers that be were able to recognize it as well.
What do you think? Are you all-in on the idea, or do you think even this idea wouldn’t work? Let us know in the comment section below!
Some possible easy fixes:
I like the idea of tagging UFL teams to NFL teams. The only issue I see is the numbers. Creating the rest of the 32 teams to get a minor league affiliate seems like watering down the product, esp when the UFL is struggling for attendance now as it is.
It seems like the UFL is struggling from an exposure and advertising issue. This will be the issue until they can come up with some creative ways to get more eyeballs on the game. It doesn’t mean changing the game itself, but not a single INTERESTED person is confused about where to go to get NFL content and games. The UFL needs to follow suit. Not sure how that looks.
Hold the NFL Draft as currently modeled. Hold the UFL Draft a week later so that NFL teams can sign UDFA’s, and anyone that still remains is eligible for the UFL Draft.
I don’t think the League is suffering from a talent standpoint, I think it suffers from viewer buy-in. That’s gonna take time, and I don’t know if the UFL is going to be able to sustain a war of attrition as long as it’s going to take for the League to ‘catch on.’
There is NFL talent in the UFL, but I just envisioned a situation where the UFL had players on teams (not entire teams) with NFL allocation. The NHL does this, where some ECHL teams have more than one NHL team keeping talent there to develop. At one point the Wheeling Nailers were associated with both the Pittsburgh Penguins and the Detroit Red Wings. The Red Wings have moved to another affiliate, but you get the picture…
All this won’t matter unless the NFL wants to work with the UFL. And ….. they don’t. The UFL season conflicts with the NFL schedule. The NFL sees the UFL as taking eyeballs away from the draft. That’s negative money to the NFL.
I totally understand what you’re saying, and it isn’t lost on me. If the NFL ever wanted to step in, they’d have to adjust things to fit their system, not to just keep the UFL afloat.
I’d love to see the NFL less focused on money (and gambling) and more focused on, ya know, football.
And that’s the kicker in this scenario. The NFL wouldn’t do it because it doesn’t improve their bottom line. It would help teams build stronger rosters, but they truly don’t care about that.
Wasn’t Dwayne Johnson in talks w/the CFL two years ago regarding a partnership?
May have only been Reddit nonsense.
Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson was a part owner in the XFL, which merged with the UFL. I’m not sure about his involvement in the organization at this time though.