Overview
A spring professional league formed by the 2024 merger of the USFL and XFL revivals.
The United Football League plays a spring season from late March to June, filling the gap between the Super Bowl and the start of NFL training camps. Eight clubs are split into two conferences carrying the USFL and XFL names, a legacy of the merger that created the league.
The UFL functions in practice as a development and proving ground: it experiments with rules the NFL later considers, and a steady flow of players moves up to NFL rosters each summer.
Season Format
Recent Champions
Most recent first. Seasons still in progress are marked.
History
Two rival spring leagues launched within a year of each other — the revived XFL in 2020 and the revived USFL in 2022 — and neither drew enough audience to sustain itself. They merged in January 2024 under the United Football League name, with Fox and ESPN sharing the broadcast.
The name recalls an earlier United Football League that operated from 2009 to 2012, but there is no corporate connection.
Governance
The league is jointly owned by RedBird Capital and Fox Corporation alongside the former XFL ownership group, and is run centrally rather than by independent club owners.