As the NFL season comes to an end, all eyes now turn to the next professional football league set to kick off, the XFL. In this third iteration of the league, how many XFL teams are there going to be? What does the schedule look like with a very different pool of teams, and will the league consider adding more if this version proves to be successful?
How Many XFL Teams Are There?
There are eight total XFL teams for the inaugural 2023 season.
The XFL teams are:
- Arlington Renegades
- DC Defenders
- Houston Roughnecks
- Orlando Guardians
- San Antonio Brahmas
- Seattle Sea Dragons
- St. Louis Battlehawks
- Vegas Vipers
The eight teams that will be playing this season were all a part of the 2020 relaunch. New York, Tampa Bay, and Los Angeles also had XFL teams that year, but they will not be a part of this year’s league. They were replaced by San Antonio, Las Vegas, and Orlando.
Will the XFL Add More Teams in the Future?
Before looking ahead to what the league can do in terms of expansion in the future, they will need to successfully complete a full season. In 2020, the XFL only played five games until they needed to shut down due to COVID-19. Although that wasn’t necessarily the league’s fault, the numbers weren’t exactly blowing anyone out of the water before the shutdown.
However, one sign of hope has to be the success that another spring league found last year in the USFL. Again, the numbers paled in comparison to the NFL, but the league still managed to complete a full season, bring in record numbers in terms of ratings, and grow a pretty substantial online fan base.
If that is something the USFL can do, the XFL should be able to do the same. Plus, with the star power of Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson at the helm, XFL teams should be able to rely on some additional support from some big-name celebrities.
MORE: 2023 XFL Schedule: Dates, Start Times for Week 1-10 Schedule
So, if the league is a success and they decide to continue past 2023, could expansion be on the table? Absolutely. Eight teams cannot really be enough to survive long term.
With no actual discussions around expansion currently taking place, we can only hypothesize as to where the XFL might look to add more teams. One clue that can help guide is the emergence of sports gambling. For an alternative football league to succeed, they are going to need to embrace one of the biggest markets in the sport right now.
The NFL fought it for as long as they could, but even they have hopped onto the sports betting train. Some markets that have recently legalized sports gambling, like Chicago, Philadelphia, and Atlanta, could all be prime sports for XFL teams. With Ohio and New Hampshire also legalizing sports betting, there are plenty of opportunities to add teams in those states.
If the XFL really wants to tap into a new market and disrupt, why not look to add a team in Canada? Places like Montreal, Quebec, or Toronto, Ontario, are close enough to the border to make travel easier on the rest of the league and could create fans in an entirely different country. With the Canadian Football League the only real competitor in Canada, the XFL could easily take some of that market share.