Dec. 30, 2021
Yulman Stadium, home of the Tulane Green Wave is a stadium in New Orleans with a capacity of 30,000. The only other stadium large enough to fit a professional football team in the area is Caesars Superdome, which is probably too large for a spring football team.
Heinz Field, with a capacity of 68k is really the only stadium large enough to fit the Maulers in Pittsburgh. There are other, smaller stadiums in the area like Highmark Stadium in Pittsburgh with a capacity of 5,000, however that stadium has future plans to be expanded to 10,000, 15,000 or beyond, which is still too small.
SHI Stadium, home of Rutgers university, is a college football stadium in New Jersey that seats 52,000 people. With the way the venue is arranged, the USFL could close off the upper deck and only sell tickets for the bottom section of the stadium, which would make it look less empty at Generals home games.
Lincoln Financial Field is a large stadium in Philadelphia with a capacity of 67.5k people. The only other viable stadium option in the area is 125+ year old Franklin Field which has a smaller capacity, but is a very old stadium. To make Lincoln Financial look less empty, like I suggested with SHI Stadium and other NFL-sized stadiums, only sell tickets for the lower bowl of the stadium.
Raymond-James Stadium, home of Super Bowl 55, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and the Tampa Bay Vipers in 2020, is the only large stadium in the Tampa area. It fits 65k fans spread across 3 separate decks. To make the stadium look more crowded on TV, they could do what the XFL's Vipers did and only sell tickets for the bottom two sections of the stadium.
Rice Stadium will more than likely be the home of the Houston Gamblers if they play in their own city in 2023. Brian Woods, the President of Football Operations for the league has experience with this stadium, in that Rice Stadium was The Spring League's southern hub for TSL's 2021 season. The stadium has a capacity of 70k people, but the USFL should only sell tickets for the lower half of the stadium.
This is a no-brainer. The USFL's 2022 season will be played only at this stadium, with all 8 teams playing here for a "bubble season" to kick things off for this brand new spring football league. Protective Stadium (the newer stadium in Birmingham, not to be confused with UAB's old stadium Legion Field, which was also home of the AAF's Birmingham Iron) seats 47,000 people.
If you're playing football in the Midwest, especially up north where it can get rather cold, you would want to play indoors. That is where Ford Field, home of the Detroit Lions of the NFL, comes in to play. Indoor stadiums/domes are always nice, and this is also one of the only venues in the Detroit area, other than Rynearson Stadium in Ypsilanti, MI. Ford Field's capacity is 65,000.
The USFL definitely has some odd choices for cities. By that, I mean these cities all have NFL teams (besides Birmingham) and because of this, the only stadiums that these cities have are rather large, especially for an emerging spring football league. Some cities with smaller stadiums that I believe would fit the USFL would be Chicago IL's SeatGeek Stadium with a capacity of 20k, Canton OH's Tom Benson Hall of Fame Stadium with a capacity of 23k, and Bobcat Stadium with a capacity of 30k, which is located in San Marcos, TX, which is right in-between San Antonio and Austin, making it able to host a team in San Antonio or Austin.