{"id":816256,"date":"2026-03-17T01:21:13","date_gmt":"2026-03-17T01:21:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/816256\/"},"modified":"2026-03-17T01:21:13","modified_gmt":"2026-03-17T01:21:13","slug":"mike-repole-wants-the-ufl-to-have-32-teams","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/816256\/","title":{"rendered":"Mike Repole wants the UFL to have 32 teams"},"content":{"rendered":"

When billionaire entrepreneur Mike Repole acquired a piece of the UFL last year, he immediately articulated a bold goal: Sixteen teams by 2035<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Repole has an even bolder vision for the spring league. In a new interview with Ben Fischer of Sports Business Journal, Repole says he wants to eventually get the UFL to 32 teams<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Of course, Repole also hopes to make apparel company NoBull bigger than Nike, so he\u2019s no stranger to confidence that crosses the line of delusion.<\/p>\n

Some would say that\u2019s the spirit the struggling UFL needs. Last year, viewership for the UFL plunged by 20 percent. Attendance was down five percent. <\/p>\n

One of Repole\u2019s first orders of business was to move teams into smaller venues, in order to reduce the awkward images of wide swaths of vacant stands. Nothing makes a viewer ask \u201cwhy am I watching this?\u201d like a sea of endless seats with no asses in them.<\/p>\n

Repole, per Fischer, even floated the idea of moving the popular St. Louis Battlehawks from the former home of the Rams into an MLS stadium.<\/p>\n

The man who sold Vitaminwater to Coca-Cola for $4.1 billion also has rolled up his sleeves and pushed back against Birmingham Stallions fans who complained about the team\u2019s new uniforms.<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2018Shockingly\u2019 They are not happy,\u201d Repole said on Twitter, according to the article. \u201cComplaining already. This fan base is harder to please than my family. . . . My suggestion is that all the fans buy season tickets ASAP and protest the uniforms in the Stadium! Win games and suddenly everyone will love the uniforms.\u201d<\/p>\n

Repole defended antagonizing Stallions fans.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat do I have to lose, right?\u201d Repole told Fischer. \u201cNo one\u2019s ever engaged with the fan base. And I guarantee no owner in fucking history is doing what I\u2019m doing right now. I\u2019m poking the Stallion, I guess, not the bear, right? I hear \u2018I love you,\u2019 \u2018I like you,\u2019 \u2018I hate you,\u2019 but \u2014 you\u2019re writing about the UFL and talking about it. . . . We\u2019ve got to get some noise. We\u2019ve got to be the squeaky wheel.\u201d<\/p>\n

So far, the UFL hasn\u2019t done much squeaking. The third season of the merged XFL and USFL opens on March 27. And while spring football generally does better than whatever else the Fox or ESPN networks would be televising in those windows, the UFL has a long way to go.<\/p>\n

Spring football typically struggles. Because it\u2019s not football season. The far better approach would be to provide an alternative to the NFL in football season \u2014 on the nights the NFL doesn\u2019t play. (Then again, if the UFL started playing on Tuesday and\/or Wednesday nights, the NFL would quickly follow suit.) <\/p>\n

The UFL could play on Friday nights during football season, a place that remains off-limits to the NFL due to the broadcast antitrust exemption. But Saturdays during football are saturated with college football.<\/p>\n

Repole\u2019s only play, for now, is to make noise. And to hope the sound and fury will signify something. It made us interested enough to write about what he\u2019s trying to do. Whether it will get viewers to reverse a negative growth trend for spring football remains to be seen.<\/p>\n

Sixteen teams by 2035? Mere survival of the eight-team league for that long would be a feat equivalent to turning Vitaminwater into wine.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When billionaire entrepreneur Mike Repole acquired a piece of the UFL last year, he immediately articulated a bold…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":816257,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2026],"tags":[7],"class_list":{"0":"post-816256","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-football","8":"tag-football"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116241896938185692","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/816256","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=816256"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/816256\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/816257"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=816256"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=816256"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=816256"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}