To listen to an audio story from the Jan. 29 announcement that the UFL is locating its headquarters in Arlington, Texas, please click here.
ARLINGTON, Texas—The United Football League, better known as the UFL, is making Arlington its home, announcing Jan. 29 that the league will makes its headquarters at 1401 Nolan Ryan Expressway in the city’s Entertainment District.
The headquarters will take up two floors. The UFL plans to use the space for administrative, operational, and team activities.
The UFL is relatively new, launching play in spring 2024. But it has its roots in two leagues with a longer pedigree that eventually merged into the UFL.
The United States Football League, or the USFL, was a professional American football minor league founded on April 16, 2022. The league was made up of eight teams who did not actually play in the city they were named after. Instead, all the teams resided in Birmingham, Alabama, where they played their games. Many of the cities chosen were mid-sized markets east of the Mississippi River.
The XFL was a league started by Vince McMahon, which was a rebuild of the original league that was attempted in 2001. With the XFL’s first season scheduled to start on Feb. 8, 2020, the league showcased eight teams, five of which were in the top seven largest markets in the U.S. After the start of the first season, COVID hit the U.S. causing the season to be canceled. The XFL filed for bankruptcy, and in early August 2020, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, Dany Garcia and Gerry Cardinale purchased the XFL hours after it went up for sale.
In the first XFL season under the new ownership, the Arlington Renegades defeated the DC Defenders in the 2023 XFL championship game. With a second season of the XFL confirmed by Garcia, buzz began to generate as the USFL and XFL were in talks to combine both leagues to now form what we know is the UFL.
With the merger completed, teams from both previous leagues were given the chance to make the move or fold and not continue in the league. At the end eight teams in total were confirmed for the UFL, with four teams from both the USFL and the XFL playing in the upcoming season.
The first season of the UFL had the XFL 2023 champions the Arlington Renegades face off against the USFL 2023 champions the Birmingham Stallions. It would later complete its first season with the San Antonio Brahmas defeating the Stallions to win the 2024 UFL championship.
Following the end of the 2024 season plans for expansion in later years have been announced with the goal at the end of 2025 to have 12 teams in the league, and by the end of 2026, double the current number of teams to 16. Johnson said that relocation of any of the current teams and potential expansions in years to come are unlikely.
The UFL is scheduled to start its second season on March 28, 2025, with the new headquarters located in Arlington to be ready for training camp in mid-February.
