The XFL and USFL have combined to create the UFL. The merger will turn two eight-team leagues into one eight-team league.
In a letter distributed to player representatives on Tuesday, UFL executive V.P. of football operations Daryl Johnston explained that the eight returning teams will be able to protect up to 42 players on their existing rosters. The UFL will also conduct a pair of dispersal drafts to determine the placement of players from the eight teams that will be folding.
The eight teams of the UFL will be the Birmingham Stallions, Houston Roughnecks, Memphis Showboats, and Michigan Panthers of the USFL, and the Arlington Renegades, D.C. Defenders, San Antonio Brahmas, and St. Louis Battlehawks of the XFL.
The best players will stick around, regardless of whether their team did or didn’t survive. With only eight teams, the overall quality necessarily will be better than when two spring leagues fielded sixteen teams.
However it shakes out, the clock is ticking. Players report to training camp on Friday, February 23.