ARLINGTON, Texas — The United Football League is making some changes, announcing Tuesday that three of the eight teams are changing cities, as part of a larger strategy to get into smaller stadiums.
Orlando, Florida, is in along with Columbus, Ohio, and Louisville, Kentucky. San Antonio, Detroit and Memphis, Tennessee, are out.
All three of the new venues are soccer stadiums with capacities of about 20,000 or smaller.
The remaining Texas teams are changing names and stadiums.
The Arlington team is now the Dallas Renegades and will move from the former home of baseball’s Texas Rangers to the Major League Soccer home of FC Dallas in nearby Frisco. In Houston, the Roughnecks will become the Gamblers and play in that city’s MLS stadium instead of the University of Houston’s home field.
“It’s going to feel real, real different, and it’s going to show better on TV,” said Mike Repole, who is in charge of the UFL’s business operations. “The sound is going to be better, and the experience and the engagement is going to be better.”
League headquarters will remain near Arlington’s Globe Life Park, the stadium the Renegades are leaving, and the hub model of all eight teams practicing in the Dallas area during the week won’t change. However, Repole says some players will spend more time in their host cities to try to boost fan engagement.
The other three existing markets are St. Louis, which has been the league’s attendance darling; Washington, D.C.; and Birmingham, Alabama.
Sports business entrepreneur Repole, 56, is the newest investor in the young UFL.
Repole, who co-founded Vitaminwater, Smartwater and BodyArmor and sold those brands to Coca-Cola, said he is encouraged by the UFL’s ratings, saying they compare favorably to regular-season games in the NHL, NBA and MLB.
He said he is all-in on the UFL as a developmental arm of the NFL, though there is no formal developmental link between the two. But Repole said he doesn’t think there needs to be.
“If they have the drive and the passion and they want to make the NFL, and that’s their dream, then we want to help them,” Repole said. “But if they’re looking for, ‘Hey, where’s my next check, or am I going to play next year?’ then this is probably not the league for you. And if you’re in this league four or five years, you probably shouldn’t be here. You should probably go into coaching or do something else.”
Repole believes the league can sell out stadiums in smaller venues, and he hopes to double the size of the league to 16 teams by the mid-2030s.
The league is set next year to join the USFL from the mid-1980s as the longest-running spring league at three seasons.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
