| 2026 UFL season | |
|---|---|
 | |
| League | United Football League |
| Sport | American football |
| Duration | Regular season: March 27 – May 31 Playoffs: June 7 – 13 |
| Games | 43 (40 regular-season games, 3 postseason games) |
| Teams | 8 |
| TV partner(s) | ABC, ESPN, Fox, FS1 |
| Streaming partner(s) | ESPN app, Fox One, DAZN |
| Draft | |
| Picked by | TBD |
| 2026 UFL Championship | |
The 2026 UFL season is the upcoming third season of the United Football League.
In July 2025, the UFL sold a large minority stake of itself to Impact Capital, a private equity fund owned by multibillionaire sports drink founder Mike Repole, who assumed direction of the league's business operations. [1] [2]
Even before Repole's management had been made public, news broke that the entire USFL Conference was being potentially shopped for relocation to potential expansion markets, [3] due to a number of factors: Birmingham and Houston due to declining and underperforming attendance, Michigan due to exorbitant stadium costs at Ford Field and an unwillingness to use the only other viable stadium Rynearson Stadium, [4] (while later reports suggested that the Panthers' future could be tied to the planned AlumniFi Field, a 15,000-seat stadium scheduled to open in southwest Detroit in 2027 as the new home of Detroit City FC [5] ) and Memphis due to the death of sponsor Fred Smith and even worse attendance. [6] Repole first addressed the Birmingham Stallions by challenging the Stallions fan base to purchase 5,000 season ticket deposits in order to keep the team in Alabama; [7] though the drive fell short of that number, Repole was impressed by the speed in which the city had invested in 2,200 season tickets and a corporate suite that had not yet even been put up for sale and confirmed the Stallions were safe from relocation for 2026, but that he hoped the city would purchase 15,000 to 20,000 tickets per game for the upcoming season to continue beyond that. [8] His overall target for attendance across the league is between 10,000 and 15,000 fans per game, compensating by using smaller, more intimate stadiums that would avoid the empty seats and lack of ambiance that Repole felt made the games feel like "a COVID game." [2]
Among potential relocation targets, Columbus, Ohio had been named as a potential new market for the UFL in 2026 as early as April 2025. [9] [10] The UFL confirmed the addition of a Columbus UFL team shortly after Repole's arrival. [1] Other possible candidates for relocation for the 2026 season were identified in the offseason including Louisville, Kentucky at Lynn Family Stadium. Boise, Idaho and Lexington, Kentucky were identified in early reporting but they either denied having heard from the league or stated they could not host games in 2026. [11]
Though the UFL had initially planned to expand to 10 teams for 2026, [12] Repole paused those plans and chose to keep the league at eight teams for 2026, with intent to begin the oft-delayed expansion by 2028 [1] and have a 16-team league by 2035. [2]
On October 7 the UFL announced three new franchises, the Columbus Aviators playing at Crew Stadium in Columbus, Ohio; The Louisville Kings playing at Lynn Family Stadium in Louisville, Kentucky; and the Orlando Storm playing at Inter&Co Stadium in Orlando, Florida. The league also announced that the Arlington Renegades would become the Dallas Renegades and play at Toyota Stadium in Frisco, TX; and that the Houston Roughnecks would become the Houston Gamblers and move to Shell Energy Stadium. It also announced that new head coaches, uniforms and the 2026 schedule would be announced at a later date. [13]
Returning unchanged | New teams | Rebranding teams
| Not returning from 2025 |
| Team | Location | Stadium | Capacity | Head coach |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Birmingham Stallions | Birmingham, Alabama | Protective Stadium | 47,100 | A. J. McCarron |
| Columbus Aviators [14] [15] [16] | Columbus, Ohio | Historic Crew Stadium | 19,968 | Ted Ginn Jr. |
| Dallas Renegades | Frisco, Texas | Toyota Stadium | 20,500 | TBD |
| DC Defenders | Washington, D.C. | Audi Field | 20,000 | Shannon Harris |
| Houston Gamblers | Houston, Texas | Shell Energy Stadium | 20,656 | TBD |
| Louisville Kings [16] | Louisville, Kentucky | Lynn Family Stadium | 11,700 | TBD |
| Orlando Storm [17] [16] | Orlando, Florida | Inter&Co Stadium | 25,500 | Anthony Becht |
| St. Louis Battlehawks | St. Louis, Missouri | The Dome at America's Center | 67,277 | TBD |
In November 2025, Repole revealed in an interview that each team will carry 60-man rosters to training camp (compared to 75 in the 2024 season and 64 in the 2025 season), with regular season rosters set at 45 (down from 50 in the 2025 season) without specifying how many will be on the game day roster and if the teams will carry a practice squads. [18] This would violate the terms of the CBA as negotiated in 2025. [19]
This is the second and final year of the UFL's collective bargaining agreement with the United Football Players Association. Under the agreement, player minimum salaries will be set at $6,400 per game, with each player also receiving seven months of health insurance and access to year-round coverage under COBRA. [20] [21] UFL players will also be entitled for "players accolade bonuses" for Player of the week ($1,000), Player of the year ($5,000), and MVP ($7,500), with winners of the 2026 UFL Championship Game winning a $5,000 per-player bonus. [19]
The 2026 UFL draft has been tentatively scheduled for January 13-14, 2026, in Arlington, Texas [22] , after previous plans to hold the draft in September fell through due to continued uncertainty about team composition. [23] The delay in the draft from its previous scheduling in July was in part because a large number of the players who were drafted in 2024 (including first overall selection Jason Bean) had opted to remain in the NFL, [24] prompting the league to place its draft after NFL preseason cuts and practice squad assignments to better assess who will be available. [25]
In an unanticipated move, Repole plans to liquidate all eight rosters and will redistribute players currently under UFL contracts in a process similar to the 2020 and 2023 XFL drafts, with no way for current coaches to protect their existing talent. Birmingham quarterback J'Mar Smith quit the league in protest of this decision and leaked the news of Repole's plans to the press. [26]
Beginning in the 2025–26 offseason, UFL players who have accrued two years under contract to the same team will be allowed to test free agency. [27] [28]
After initially implying that he would be joining the Tennessee State Tigers staff and leaving his position as interim head coach, Shannon Harris agreed to stay on as the DC Defenders' head coach on a permanent basis. He will work both jobs for their upcoming seasons. [29] He will be the only head coach returning with the same team he had coached in 2025.
Of the three coaches of teams who were relocated, Michigan's Mike Nolan was formally terminated November 15; [30] San Antonio's Wade Phillips had reached the end of his contract [31] (he had not taken any action on an offer to return to the UFL before Repole's arrival); [32] and Memphis's Jim Turner accepted a position as offensive line coach with Rutgers on December 22. [33]
| Team | Departing coach | Incoming coach | Reason for leaving | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Columbus Aviators | N/a | Ted Ginn Jr. | N/a | Ginn has never held a coaching position at any level. He had spent 14 seasons as a journeyman wide receiver in the National Football League. [34] |
| Orlando Storm | N/a | Anthony Becht | Reassigned | Becht had accrued a record of 22–10 (.688) in his three years coaching the Battlehawks, having the league's best record in 2025 but failing to win any postseason games. He was reassigned to Orlando on December 23, 2025, a position that brings him closer to his home in central Florida. [35] |
| St. Louis Battlehawks | Anthony Becht | TBA | ||
| Houston Gamblers | Curtis Johnson | TBA | Fired | Johnson had spent three seasons as Houston's head coach, accruing a record of 11–19 (.367) and no playoff appearances. He was fired November 29 as part of Repole's internal overhaul. [36] |
| Dallas Renegades | Bob Stoops | TBA | Retired | Stoops was the first head coach to be hired in either of the UFL's predecessors and had been the only coach in the Renegades' history. He accrued a record of 16–21 (.432) over the course of 3½ seasons in the XFL and UFL, including an XFL Championship in 2023. He announced his retirement from football December 15, 2025. [37] |
| Birmingham Stallions | Skip Holtz | A. J. McCarron | Unclear | Holtz, the winningest coach in UFL history with three league championships and a 39–8 (.830) record in four years as coach of the Stallions, announced that he would not be returning as the Stallions' head coach on December 16, 2025, a move that Holtz stated was "not retiring" and a "pause" while he pursued other opportunities. [38] McCarron was most recently the starting quarterback for the St. Louis Battlehawks in the 2023 and 2024 seasons; he had spent 2025 out of football after an attempt to sign with the San Antonio Brahmas was nixed by the Brahmas general manager. At the time of his acceptance of the Stallions position, he had been the frontrunner candidate in the Lieutenant Governor of Alabama race for 2026; McCarron withdrew his candidacy the day after Holtz's exit and was formally announced as coach the day after that. [39] His experience as a coach had theretofore been limited to youth-level flag football. [40] |
This is the fourth year of the league's agreement with Arlington, Texas, to serve as the league's centralized hub. Repole indicated that the hub model would be continuing for 2026 but that time in individual markets would be increased (he mentioned potential two- to three-day stays during game weeks and ten-day stays when teams play back-to-back home games) so that teams can build followings in their home cities. [2]
The UFL will continue to follow its model of a ten-week regular season. How the scheduling will play out without conferences or divisions has yet to be determined, as the scheduling formula used by all of the eight-team spring leagues of the 21st century have all relied on two four-team divisions to ensure an even schedule of playing each division rival home and away and the other division teams once. In a late August 2025 interview, Repole indicated that the season would likely run from the weekend of "March 1 through the end of June." [41] This would have been four weeks earlier than previous years and closer to the XFL's post-Super Bowl window. Repole reversed this and stated that the season would again start on the last Friday in March as the previous two seasons had (March 27 in 2026), [42] but that a move to the post-Super Bowl window was being considered for 2027.
The top four teams in the UFL standings will be seeded in order of record in the league semifinals, with the winners advancing to the 2026 UFL Championship Game. [42]
Announced attendance figures for each home game. In the weekly columns, dashes (—) indicate away games, while bold font indicates the highest attendance of the week.
| Team / Week | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | Semifinals | Championship | Total | Average |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Birmingham Stallions | 0 | 0 | ||||||||||||
| Columbus Aviators | 0 | 0 | ||||||||||||
| Dallas Renegades | 0 | 0 | ||||||||||||
| DC Defenders | 0 | 0 | ||||||||||||
| Houston Gamblers | 0 | 0 | ||||||||||||
| Louisville Kings | 0 | 0 | ||||||||||||
| Orlando Storm | 0 | 0 | ||||||||||||
| St. Louis Battlehawks | 0 | 0 | ||||||||||||
| Total | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | |
| Average | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Source: [43]
In the United States, the television rights for the UFL are held by ESPN in the fourth season of a five-year deal, [44] and league co-owner Fox.
