Are you excited for spring football?

The National Football League season might be over and done with, but for fans of the Minnesota Vikings (and the 31 other teams that aren’t nearly as important as the Minnesota Vikings), there’s still plenty of football left to be played.

Spring football leagues have, historically, struggled to get off the ground. This year, however, we have not one, but two leagues that are going to try to get some traction and give football fans something to watch while the NFL is doing non-football things.

The first one, which kicks off this Saturday, is the latest return of the XFL. This time, the XFL is owned by a group headed up by Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, having purchased the league from Vince McMahon a couple of years ago. This is, essentially, XFL v3.0. The first version lasted for one season back in 2001, while the second one was around for five games in 2020 but had its season cut short by the COVID-19 pandemic.

All of the XFL’s games this year will be broadcast in some way, with broadcasts being handled by a combination of ABC, ESPN, ESPN2, and FX. ESPN’s streaming platform, ESPN+, will stream every game.

The XFL season will run through 19 May, which means that they will have some overlap with the other spring football league, the USFL. The USFL season is set to get underway on 15 April and run through 2 July.

This is the second season for the USFL, as the league debuted last year and had what has to be considered a pretty successful season. I mean. . .they actually finished the year, which puts them a step above the AAF and XFL v2.0.

Both the XFL and the USFL will feature some names that most of us as football fans are familiar with, but will also present an opportunity for players that might not have gotten a shot at an NFL roster an ability to continue playing the game they love and, potentially, catch the eye of scouts at the NFL level. And, if you’re like me, damn near any football is better than no football at all.

With these two spring leagues, there will be football on television every weekend until early July, which will take us almost through the entire offseason and to the start of Training Camps in late July.

We might do a little bit to cover these spring football leagues here, because. . .well, there’s only going to be so much Vikings news between now and then.

Are you excited for some more football, ladies and gentlemen? How much attention will you be paying to the XFL and/or the USFL?