“They clearly wanna go where they’ll get the best deal.” - Roy S. Johnson on USFL’s Season 2 Expansion Plans
By Reid Johnson
On the October 28, 2022 edition of The Markcast®, Roy S. Johnson contributor to al.com and local Birmingham reporter returned to the show to share what he views were the successes of the inaugural USFL Birmingham hub, where negotiations currently stand with the city of Birmingham and why other cities would be interested in having the USFL expand into their communities for season 2.
“They are getting bids from other cities.”
Roy S. Johnson attributes the positive cash flow back into the city of Birmingham through spending by the league’s players, coaches and support staff as one of the major successes of the USFL’s partnership with the city of Birmingham in season 1 and why the league is now in a position to solicit bids from other competing cities for its business for season 2 and beyond.
“What I sought to do here was look at what happened with spending during the almost four months that the USFL was here from moments they checked in to the moment they left, which is right before the world games. I looked at spending, looked at how it impacted taxes during that time. I asked for spending data from Fox in terms of how much they spent, who they spent it with and I mashed all that together in a pot and came up with this story that essentially says yes, it absolutely was worth it, worth it for those four months.”
Roy S. Johnson has a financial reporting background and used countless hours of research and investigations to come up with how much money was spent on everything from hotel rooms to catering, and travel services, with the city of Birmingham in return for the free use of Protective Stadium and its facilities for the 2022 USFL season. Besides the monetary compensation to the city, Roy attributes an overall visibility boost by way of Birmingham appearing on National television week in and week out as an added bonus from the USFL’s time there.
“People outside of Birmingham part things about this city that a lot of people just didn't know, they're the intangible effect of 80 commercial breaks during broadcasts. The intangible effect of seeing football in a 45,000 seat stadium, a new stadium that might make the NFL say, “Hey, maybe we can host a preseason game, there, bring the Saints and the Falcons there for a preseason game. It showed the world parts of Birmingham that maybe the world had not previously seen.”
Although the USFL was able to keep down costs and show a proof of concept for its new spring football league in year 1, Roy firmly believes expansion and growth is inevitable to help increase its visibility for Fox Sports.
“I think it was always part of the plan to expand. We know this was like, this was a model that allowed Fox to mitigate some of its risks in the first couple of seasons, it was a smart model one relatively unique in sports. I don't think anyone's surprised that in year two, three, and four there would be fewer teams in one city, because you do wanna build up a fan base. I mean, ultimately you do want to have your stadiums with fans supporting that team and mitigating everything being a home court advantage or home field advantage for one team. So this is not surprising, it was always part of the plan. The hub model was just used so that they could get a sense of what their actually run rate was, what were they working with in a way to minimize costs.”
Whether the USFL decides to return all 8 of its teams to Birmingham for year 2 or to split the teams between multiple city hubs, the negotiations between the USFL and Birmingham have been ongoing for season 2 and Roy is excited to see where it all ends up.
“I think it was always gonna reset after a year one, what I reported was that Fox had a 150 million commitment to the league. I don't think they made that specific commitment to Birmingham. This is not a surprise that year two discussions were being had about moving to at least some of the teams to another city, you could certainly view that as a sign of success.”
Be sure to check out Roy’s complete breakdown of the “USFL Effect” the city of Birmingham got from season 1 here -
And be sure to check out our full conversation on our YouTube channel -
