Fox Sports Radio host Colin Cowherd is bullish on the prospect of professional spring football, and so is his employer. The Fox Sports-backed USFL unveiled the eight teams playing in the inaugural 2022 season on Cowherd’s show. The league is comprised of two divisions with four squads in each.
“In the Northern Division,” Cowherd said. “there’s the Michigan Panthers…Next up, this is a familiar name, the New Jersey Generals. I think we had a former president who was a part of that. The next one is the Philadelphia Stars. Rounding out the Northern Division, the Pittsburgh Maulers.”
The league is kicking off in April 2022 and will play a 10-week schedule. They are focused on developing players and building an identity apart from the NFL.
“Let’s go to the Southern Division,” Cowherd continued. “So, the Birmingham Stallions. The Houston Gamblers. The New Orleans Breakers and the Tampa Bay Bandits. some of these names may be familiar to you, and this kind of a fun, high quality, very young players, NFL rules mostly.”
Fox voices like Daryl Johnston and Mike Pereira are both manning executive roles within the league.
Cowherd began the segment talking about his early thoughts on fledgling sports leagues that have made it big.
“The UFC,” Cowherd described. “There was a lot of doubters when the UFC came out. I used to work at another sports company, and 15 years ago, I went to that sports company, and I said, ‘there’s this thing called UFC, my buddies in LA and Vegas love it and all you guys who sit and watch Boston Red Sox in Connecticut, you better embrace this thing because people love it.’ And now, 15 years later, you look at the UFC and you think, ‘Oh, it’s been around forever.’ They had a real fight on their hands.”
The USFL has a chance to stay afloat if they can bring in the same kind of attention the XFL got last February before it had to shut down due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
