The gameplay was much better in the USFL, but the XFL was able to get more fan support at their games (possibly because the USFL played the majority of their games in Birmingham, which meant the only games where fans showed up were Birmingham Stallions games.
I didn’t see any xfl games or see ads for them so I was unaware of their existence but I did watch like four usfl games and enjoyed them. If this merger makes the games better maybe I’ll go to one.
As an unapologetic fan of lower league football (which I differentiate from “minor league” football by the lack of official ties that make winning secondary to developing a parent franchise’s assets), I say good. Pro football is stupid expensive, but I do think there’s room for one prudently managed Spring league.
The USFL had higher production values, but worse branding (there’s not nearly as much nostalgia in those old brands as they think), and they overdid it on the hub model, sucking all (season 1) or most (season 2) the joy out of the experience, even watching on TV. XFL 3.0 had some pretty dire offense for the entire first half of the season, but Caw is Law, Beer Snake, and even the Renegades winning it all despite being mostly ass (even by XFL standards) made it way more interesting, and I generally liked their rule changes.
The XFL also had a much smarter hub model, where there was just the one, but it was centrally located and they piled onto the plane and actually showed up for 10k-40k fans. It’s hard to explain, but when you’re watching athletes that are not at literally the highest level, the only thing that matters is that somebody cares. XFL was not perfect at that, but the USFL barely tried.
I hope the DC Defenders are around post merger. Long live the beer snake!
Hopefully they carry over the ability to stream and replay all games from the ESPN+ app, as much as I hate all these streaming services it was really easy to catch an XFL game earlier this year.
