Over half of Detroit Lions fans plan on watching spring football

The XFL 3.0 debuts on Saturday afternoon, with the Vegas Vipers and Arlington Renegades kicking off the 2023 season at 3 p.m. ET on ABC. The eight-team league will stretch through the end of April with the Championship being played on May 13. The league is full of former Detroit Lions players and has a few interesting wrinkles to their rulebook.

Their season will overlap with another spring football league. The revival of the USFL is in its second season and will kick off in April and stretch through all of June. The big local appeal of the USFL is that Detroit is represented by the Michigan Panthers, who will play their home games at Ford Field for the first time this year.

So is the lack of the NFL plus those mild local appeals enough to get you, dear football junkie, to watch some spring football this year? We asked you this question on Thursday, and you all answered with an emphatic... probably. Only 38 percent of you said that you will not be watching either league, while 37 percent said they plan on watching both leagues, with the remaining 25 percent picking one league (mainly USFL) over the other.

Here are my favorite user comments from that post.

dand3, like many in the comment section, is intrigued by watching the Panthers at Ford Field.

Yeah, I’ll probably head down for a Panthers game once or twice. Why not? Might be fun. And almost certainly can’t be worse than whatever is going on at Comerica that day.

Can’t imagine I’ll watch any spring football on TV though. I don’t know if that’d even be an option with Hulu Live.

Hankfan232425 has a very healthy outlook on life and uses the break in NFL to actually breathe some fresh air and take back their weekends.

Springtime for me means some hard-core walleye fishing. I might watch on a bad weather day, but I love being outside.

sprtn66 is also passing on spring football after trying the USFL last season:

Nah, I tried to watch a “Michigan” Panther game last year, I didn’t make it through a quarter. It’s a pretty poor substitute for NFL/college football.

JayBDet is back in on the Michigan Panthers because after going 2-8 last year, they parted ways with head coach Jeff Fisher. And they know that the further away we get from the Super Bowl, the more our addiction will kick in.

Yes, will be very interested in the Michigan Panthers, especially since they got rid of Fisher, and by the time it rolls around would likely watch the toddler bowl just to get some football in my veins “Come on Tommy! Don’t let him grab your diaper like that! Pad Level!”

Treef!try doesn’t plan on being an avid watcher, but plans on tuning in and really believes the NFL could be better with a farm/developmental league like these:

I voted no because I believe the question refers to watching like one would the NFL. I did manage to watch a couple of Panther games last year and imagine I’ll probably watch a couple this year, but nothing like trying to see every Lion game. I do hope the league does succeed as it would be ideal to have a minor league to help produce players for the NFL. Especially if it helps develop decent QBs and CBs. Seems like the NFL could use a league like that to develop players similar to that of the NHL. I think that’d be better than the practice squad set up they have now as there’s no substitute for real game experience.

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