The UFL season is slated to kick off Friday on Fox.
But without a labor contract, that plan is in question. Earlier this week, ESPN reported that the spring league’s players have “not ruled out a strike.”
In the event of a strike, Fox and ESPN would have a number of programming hours to fill on the fly. Fox has a game apiece on Friday and Saturday, while ESPN has a Sunday doubleheader. All networks that air live events have general contingency plans in case they do not go on as scheduled.
If the league and union don’t reach an accord, Fox will air reruns from its slate of entertainment programming, such as The Masked Singer or a Gordon Ramsay show, a source told Front Office Sports.
If there is a prolonged strike, Fox could be more nimble in replacing games with live sports, such as the postseason College Basketball Crown tournament or MLB.
ESPN has a library of evergreen content for when live events are delayed or canceled, such as 30 for 30 documentaries.
Spokespeople for Fox and ESPN declined to comment.
The UFL drew promising ratings in its inaugural season with an average of 816,000 viewers tuning in to the league’s 40 regular-season games with six games reaching over 1 million. The league will introduce a Friday night broadcast during the season, which it hopes to further increase viewership. The UFL season is scheduled to last 10 weeks.
A labor dispute has hung over the UFL’s offseason as players have been seeking a pay increase from the $55,000 base salary they got during the 2024 season and year-round healthcare given the health risks of playing football. A lack of progress in the negotiations prompted the league’s 24 quarterbacks to skip a preseason camp in Texas, which led to an increased offer from the UFL.
That offer was enough to get players to report to training camp, but they want more. A source with knowledge of the negotiations told FOS that the current sticking point between the league and the union is healthcare. Players either want year-round health insurance or enough of a salary increase so they can afford to pay for their own coverage.
The UFL appears to be “dug in” on its stance against it, a source told FOS, which is why players are still considering a strike ahead of Friday’s opener.
UFL president Russ Brandon told FOS a collective bargaining agreement isn’t done yet as of Thursday afternoon and that the league continues to talk with the union with long-term sustainability in mind.
“We continue to talk to the union,” Brandon said. “Our negotiating team has a lot of respect for them. We take great pride in how we treat our players. We have certainly made concessions on our end and we hope to have something done. We don’t have anything agreed to yet. We’re a start-up. There’s a reason these leagues have never seen two or three consecutive years and we’re hoping to change that.”
Contract disagreements aren’t the only offseason issue the UFL has been combating. The league recently lost two of its eight head coaches this week after Memphis Showboats coach Ken Whisenhunt took a personal leave of absence on Monday a day after DC Defenders coach Reggie Barlow was named head coach of Tennessee State.
Brandon said Barlow’s departure can be traced back to the Saints’ decision to hire Kellen Moore, which caused the coaching carousel to impact the league. But with two separate cases, he doesn’t find the last-minute attrition concerning.
“We’ve had seamless transitions in not ideal timing,” Brandon says.
The UFL is entering its second season after the USFL and XFL merged. RedBird Capital, the majority owner of FOS, is also an equity holder in the UFL, while Fox Sports owns 50% of the league. The league is the latest attempt to establish a spring football league after the short-lived Alliance of American Football tried in 2019.
For the past several years, spring football has served as a platform for players to showcase themselves for the NFL. Prominent examples have included Cowboys kicker Brandon Aubrey and receiver/return man KaVontae Turpin, as well as Lions kicker Jake Bates.
