Starting in 2026, the Arlington Renegades<\/a> will become the Dallas Renegades and move from Choctaw Stadium <\/a>(the former Globe Life Park) to FC Dallas\u2019 Toyota Stadium in Frisco. <\/p>\n Similarly, the Houston Roughnecks will become the Houston Gamblers when they move from the University of Houston\u2019s TDECU Stadium to Shell Energy Stadium, another soccer stadium.<\/p>\n Finally, after announcing the end of the Memphis Showboats, Michigan Panthers and San Antonio Brahmas, the UFL revealed the teams replacing them. <\/p>\n Welcome, the Columbus Aviators, Louisville Kings and Orlando Storm. All three will be playing at \u2014 you guessed it \u2014 soccer stadiums that hold around 15-20,000 people.<\/p>\n Team logos for the 2026 United Football League season.<\/p>\n Courtesy of the UFL<\/p>\n The strategy: the right stadiums in the right markets. And what makes a place the right stadium? They maximize the audience the league has now, instead of looking empty, like the cavernous stadiums the UFL used to play in.<\/p>\n \u201cThese stadiums are so compact that you\u2019re going to feel like, for football, you\u2019re right on top of the players, and the energy is going to be great,\u201d Repole said. <\/p>\n A crowd at Toyota Stadium crowd celebrates FC Dallas’ Maxi Urruti’s goal against LA Galaxy on May 12, 2018, in Frisco, Texas.<\/p>\n Buzz Carrick \/ 3rd Degree<\/p>\n The co-founder of Vitaminwater and founder of Body Armor, Repole recently joined the ownership group of the UFL. Now, he\u2019s reshaping its future as the leader of the league\u2019s business operations, including finding the eight teams of the UFL the right homes.<\/p>\n Last year, in its second year of existence since the USFL merged with the XFL, the UFL drew around 12,000 fans on average per game, according to The Sports Business Journal. That\u2019s a strong showing for an upstart league, especially one that plays the same sport as the NFL. <\/p>\n But as Repole explained, most of the eight teams in the UFL played in massive stadiums, and that made the venues look empty. <\/p>\n \u201cIt has the wrong energy, the wrong environment,\u201d he said. \u201cBig arena football, outdoors. That\u2019s what we\u2019re trying to do here.\u201d<\/p>\n To pull that off, tough decisions had to be made.<\/p>\n Arlington, San Antonio, Detroit \u2014 all the right markets, but wrong stadiums, Repole said.<\/p>\n For example, the Michigan Panthers played in Ford Field. Even the Detroit Lions only just sold out season tickets for the third time since Ford Field opened in 2002. The Panthers, meanwhile, averaged just short of 12,000 people per home game, in a stadium that holds 65,000.<\/p>\n It was a similar story for the San Antonio Brahmas. They played in the Alamodome, which seats over 70,000 people, but drew about 11,000.<\/p>\n In those cities, there wasn\u2019t a suitable stadium to move into, hence the decision to axe the teams.<\/p>\n However, in D-FW and Houston, there were, as the growth of Major League Soccer has led to the construction of smaller, but state-of-the-art stadiums. And the UFL believes the move to smaller stadiums actually gives them the opportunity to earn larger fan bases.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen you go to a game, you get a better culture and a better environment with more energy because of the capacity of the stadium,\u201d Repole said. \u201cI think it\u2019s going to add to the momentum of the league.\u201d<\/p>\n The UFL isn\u2019t done in Arlington, though. The league is headquartered there, and its new UFL HQ<\/a> serves as both a corporate office and a football hub for all eight teams. It\u2019ll still be the center of the UFL world as the league looks towards its next phase of growth. <\/p>\n United Football League investor Mike Repole, left, is also part-owner of racehorse Mo Donegal, which won the 2022 Belmont Stakes race. He made his fortune as the co-founder of Glaceau, maker of VitaminWater, and sports drink BodyArmor.<\/p>\n Frank Franklin II \/ AP<\/p>\n Repole joined TV company Fox, Dwayne \u201cThe Rock\u201d Johnson, Dany Garcia, and RedBird Capital Partners among the UFL\u2019s ownership group, and he hopes to see the league grow under his tutelage.<\/p>\n \u201cFootball is king,\u201d Repole said, and there are compelling reasons to think an appetite for even more football is there. The UFL averaged about 650,000 TV viewers<\/a> per game in 2025, a drop from its inaugural season, but still outpacing that of the NHL and Major League Soccer.<\/p>\n The league will kick off its third year on March 27 playing a 10-week season that runs through early June. The Columbus Aviators will play at Historic Crew Stadium, the Louisville Kings at Lynn Family Stadium and the Orlando Storm at Inter&Co Stadium.<\/p>\n Head coaches and uniforms for the new teams will be revealed at a later date, but information about season tickets for the new teams, and teams moving venues, is available on the UFL\u2019s website<\/a>.<\/p>\n If Repole gets his way, you may be hearing that sentence a few more times. He says he\u2019d like the league to hit 16 teams in the next 10 years. With a new crop of appropriately sized stadiums, that\u2019s possible.<\/p>\n \u201cTo leverage football during the spring, versus the other sports,\u201d he said, \u201cin the right markets with the right stadiums, I think we have an incredible opportunity.\u201d<\/p>\n The Renegades closed out their season with a commanding win over the San Antonio Brahmas on Sunday.<\/p>\n Renegades\u2019 receiver Tyler Vaughns had 107 receiving yards and a touchdown in the win.<\/p>\n Instead of tying things up late, the Renegades tried to play for the win with a fake spike.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A restaurant may have great food, but if 19 of 20 tables are available… \u201cYou feel like you…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1637,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[150,152,151,2124,240,2258,154,2256,2257],"class_list":["post-1636","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arlington","tag-arlington","tag-arlington-headlines","tag-arlington-news","tag-fc-dallas","tag-frisco","tag-other-sports","tag-sports","tag-sports-business","tag-toyota-stadium"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1636","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1636"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1636\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1637"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1636"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1636"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1636"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Team](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/4WC725YEBFHBHICC6JKNAVV4OM.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/TYJ54BL7TORHRAXYYRKFM2BM3M.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"United](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/NJ46AP5I7NHFTHSNJPSZFM3DME.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"Arlington](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/GGCMMKCOLJBPXJLNBQIVWXJBKQ.jpg\")
<\/a>See which Arlington Renegades players were named to the 2025 All-UFL Team <\/a><\/p>\n![\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/H77Z7YKGHFDGHBCDEIY2JQ5TWM.jpg\")
<\/a>Arlington Renegades use potent offense to down Memphis Showboats on the road<\/a><\/p>\n![\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/1760406441_534_H77Z7YKGHFDGHBCDEIY2JQ5TWM.jpg\")
<\/a>Late interception dooms Arlington Renegades in road matchup with DC Defenders<\/a><\/p>\n