FOX bought the dead USFL's names and relaunched spring football in 2022

The original United States Football League played 1983–85 and signed the era's biggest names: Herschel Walker, Doug Flutie, Steve Young, Jim Kelly and Reggie White all took USFL paydays. It collapsed in 1986 after an ill-fated antitrust attempt to move to fall and challenge the NFL head-on — Donald Trump owned the New Jersey Generals at the end. For 35 years the brand sat unused.

In June 2021, Fox completed the purchase of the defunct league's team names, logos and rights, Sports Business Journal reported, and announced a relaunch: at least eight teams carrying the original USFL's names, playing in spring. Fox Sports CEO Eric Shanks called the return of "this innovative and iconic league" a landmark for football fans. By November 2021 the structure had hardened: Fox Sports would be sole owner of the new USFL, kicking off in April 2022, with Hall of Famer Daryl Johnston running football operations and referee Mike Pereira heading officiating.

The economics were television economics. Spring had no professional football since the Alliance of American Football collapsed mid-season in 2019 and the 2020 XFL restart was ended by the pandemic; Fox needed live spring inventory, and owning the league outright meant it paid itself for content. The new USFL kicked off in April 2022 and played three seasons, with the Birmingham Stallions winning the first two championships.

In December 2023 the endgame appeared: the USFL and Dwayne Johnson's XFL announced a merger into the United Football League, beginning play March 30, 2024, broadcast by both Fox and ESPN. Eight of the sixteen teams were dissolved, but the USFL brand survived inside the merged league — its flagship Stallions franchise carried over as the UFL's opening-day draw.

Three USFL seasons with Birmingham as back-to-back champions, then a merger into the UFL in March 2024 with Fox and ESPN sharing the broadcast inventory.

Fox bought the brand, not a business: the USFL's trademarks cost little and came with decades of name recognition, while the operations were built from scratch where costs were controllable.

Vertical integration changed the risk math. As owner-broadcaster, Fox captured both sides of the spring football equation and could tolerate modest ratings that would sink a third-party league.

Spring was an unserved window: no other league had survived there, but Fox's FS1 and broadcast network gave the product guaranteed distribution that startups like the AAF never had.

The merger exit shows the plan was an asset, not a trophy: three seasons proved spring football worked, and combining with the XFL consolidated the market instead of prolonging a rating war.

A defunct league's trademark can be worth more than its operations: Fox bought the nostalgia outright and owned both the product and the airtime, capturing value on either outcome.

The UFL kicked off on March 30, 2024 with the Birmingham Stallions — the USFL's champions — facing the XFL's Arlington Renegades, with Fox and ESPN both broadcasting. Daryl Johnston and XFL chief Russ Brandon carried over to lead football and league operations respectively, and Dwayne Johnson became one of the UFL's principals. The eight dissolved teams' players went into a dispersal draft. Spring football finally has a surviving incumbent, and it runs on television logic: a cheap rights and gambling-friendly inventory play in the sports calendar's quiet months.