USFL to play all first year games in Birmingham

Published 2:00 pm Wednesday, January 26, 2022

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The United States Football League announced its new season would return in April and that the entire season will be played in Birmingham.

Games will be held at Protective Stadium, the 45,000-seat home of the University of Alabama-Birmingham, with a number of additional games also staged at historic Legion Field.

The first game will feature the New Jersey Generals against the Birmingham Stallions and will kick off at 7:30 p.m. ET on Saturday, April 16. That game will air on both FOX and NBC, making it the first scheduled sporting event to air on competing broadcast networks since Super Bowl I in 1967, which was shown on both CBS and NBC, according to the press release from the USFL.

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“The first game played in any new league is itself historical and having the USFL’s inaugural game simulcast by NBC and FOX makes it even more so,” said FOX Sports CEO and Executive Producer Eric Shanks. “It’s rare when two competitors can come together and see how cooperation can lead to long-term benefit.”

Tickets for the inaugural game are on sale now at Ticketmaster.com. Tickets are $10 for adults, and free for kids under the age of 15. Details about tickets for other games will be announced shortly.

The USFL is a new American football league owned by FOX Sports.

The eight-team league will hold a player selection meeting Feb. 22-23, and training camps will open March 21. Each USFL team will carry a 38-man active roster, plus a seven-man practice squad, and players will receive base compensation and be eligible for victory bonuses.

Here’s everything you need to know about the new USFL:

How many teams will be in the league? How will the league be formatted?

There will be eight teams in the new USFL, split into two divisions: North and South. Each team will play a 10-game schedule, with teams in the same division playing each other twice and teams in the other division once.

The top two teams in each division will play against each other in the semifinals followed a week later by the championship game.

When will the season

begin?

The 2022 USFL regular season will begin April 16 and run through mid-June, followed by the playoffs.

Who are the USFL head coaches?

Six of the league’s eight head coaches have been announced: Skip Holtz (Birmingham Stallions), Kirby Wilson (Pittsburgh Maulers), Kevin Sumlin (Houston Gamblers), Mike Riley (New Jersey Generals), Todd Haley (Tampa Bay Bandits) and Bart Andrus (Philadelphia Stars).