Louisville: The Next Great Destination For The UFL
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Louisville: The Next Great Destination For The UFL

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As the UFL gears up for their 2026 season, there will be some changes in the coming months. Since Mike Repole took over as new co-owner of the league in late July, relocation has been a hot topic. Louisville, Kentucky, is a market that has come up quite often in those conversations.

Back in July, we reported that the UFL was planning to move four teams, with one of those destinations being Louisville. Of course, we did not originally report the fluidity of the situation when the news broke. Things have changed a bit.

Since then, Mike Repole joined the UFL – and is now steering the ship. He immediately came out with a statement that the league would be relocating at least two teams, and potentially up to four. Repole also confirmed that Columbus would be joining the UFL as a new market in 2026. There hasn’t been really any news regarding other locations, though – with the exception of the UFL re-listing job opportunities in Houston, signaling that the Roughnecks are safe. And, of course, the “Save The Stallions” campaign kept the Stallions in Birmingham.

Over the past few weeks, we have heard more noise about Louisville being a place the UFL plays in during the 2026 season. It’s a city that has been on the UFL’s radar for some time – and per multiple sources – is very close to being secured.

Of course, until the UFL makes it official, anything can happen. With that in mind, let’s take a closer look at why Louisville would be a strong market choice for the UFL in 2026, and beyond.

Lynn Family Stadium

Right off the bat, the stadium choice in Louisville is an obvious one. Both Repole and Dany Garcia have made it clear in recent interviews: the UFL needs to lock in smaller venues. The TV product has taken a hit with empty stands, something that is being addressed this offseason.

Lynn Family Stadium is perfect for the UFL. Including standing rooms, its capacity is just over 15,000. That fits right into the sweet spot that the league is looking for in its venues moving forward, between 10-20k capacity.

LFS is home to the Louisville City FC soccer team, which is something the league would have to navigate, if they decide to lock in the venue. Similar to Audi Field, the UFL would have to schedule their games around the soccer games, according to rules set in place by the USL. Painting the field and endzones is also a factor that could cause issues (i.e. Audi Field).

Market Size & Attendance

With the Repole-led-UFL aiming to average at least 15,000 fans per game in each market, Louisville’s size makes that goal reasonable. Its metro population of around 1.39 million residents makes it the 43rd largest metro in the United States, similar to current UFL markets such as Birmingham (1.1M). While Louisville would be on the smaller side for the league – it’s a city that doesn’t feature an NFL team. They’re hungry for professional football. Louisville’s college football program, the Cardinals, averaged 50,863 fans per game in 2024.

The question remains: will Louisville support a pro football team? Louisville doesn’t feature too many sports teams as is. Here are the attendance numbers for the professional/semi-pro organizations that are present in the city:

Louisville Bats (AAA-Baseball): 4,857 fans/game in 2024
Racing Louisville FC (NWSL): 6,624 fans/game in 2024
Louisville FC (USL): 9,474/fans game in 2025

Louisville’s United Soccer League team was the third highest-attended USL organization in 2025, according to USL Tactic.

Of course, baseball/soccer typically garner less attendance than football. This is evident in markets across the country. Considering the large opening that Louisville has for sports in the spring – it feels like a no brainer for both the UFL and the city.

TV Ratings

The UFL has centered itself around its strong TV partnerships with FOX, and ESPN (Disney). Over the past couple of years, we’ve seen the UFL boast some excellent viewership, especially in markets such as Birmingham and St. Louis. There is room for growth (which was evident in 2025), but the UFL has consistently competed well with other sports in the spring.

When it comes to Louisville, it was a top-five city for the UFL in 2025 with a household rating of 0.8 – surpassing several other current UFL markets. This is another factor that makes Louisville such a promising future home for the league.

Positive Press Around Louisville

Over the course of the last couple of months, Louisville being a potential location for the UFL has those in the area buzzing. Former Roughnecks and Brahmas OC, A.J. Smith, had this to say about the development:

Clearly, Louisville has picked up the story in a positive light. There are many sports fans in the area who believe that the league would fit right into the city’s ecosystem. A couple of local news stations also featured the development, which excited local fans.

John Lewis, an independent journalist and content creator in the Louisville area, had this to say on the subject:

See also

“When the UFL first talked about expansion in November, they said they wanted a city with fan interest, a good sports culture, along with population and venue availability. Louisville was a top 15 market in terms of TV viewership. University of Louisville sports are huge in the area, and its top 30-40 in terms of population. Lynn Family Stadium also seems interested in hosting the team. Louisville seems to check all possible boxes for the UFL.”

Mike Repole even took to X earlier this summer, about Louisville as a potential host for the UFL.

“I love Kentucky. Would Louisville and Lexington rally behind a @TheUFL team? Lynn Family Stadium feels like the perfect place to make it happen.”

Final Thoughts

Across the board, Louisville appears to be a strong suitor for the UFL. Mike Repole claimed in early September that “I feel extremely confident that we will be able to name at least all 2026 teams by no later than October 8.”

With that statement in mind, if Louisville is indeed a part of the UFL in 2026, we should know pretty soon. Everything we’ve heard points in that direction.

If the UFL locks in Louisville for 2026, it likely marks the end of the Michigan Panthers’ hopes to remain in Detroit. They would likely be moved to Columbus/Louisville, with the Memphis Showboats also en route to one of those locations.

What are your thoughts on Louisville as a UFL market in 2026? Will you attend a game at Lynn Family Stadium? Let us know down in the comments below, or join the conversation on Discord!

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James Larsen
Growing up, football was one of the few things that brought me joy. It's always played a major role in my life, and continues to do so. As I've delved into sports reporting/writing, spring football has become my passion. Covering the XFL & USFL is a dream come true, and I look forward to plenty of excellent seasons in the years to come.
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8 Comments

  1. Memphis was a no brainer bad choice from the get go. Low income demo and high crime city that also has a massive stadium that’s too big for CFB Memphis Tigers to fill let alone UFL. USFL left a very positive market in Tampa for Memphis due to FedEx’s Fred Smith, and it never paid off.

    Louisville is about the same size MSA but is has better demo’s, the smaller stadium, a slightly larger Nielsen TV mkt size and some buzz.
    Regardless of which “team” is moved there its a natural swap from Memphis to Louisville based on population and tv mkt size. Its still pretty close to Birm and its right in between Columbus and Birm and could create two natural rivals.

    I do think the UFL needed to get into a bigger TV market when moving however. Just because a local market TV ratings are good, does not mean lots of viewers. Bigger TV markets have more potential viewers, period.

    And example NYC TV Mkt is 7.50 million households. Birmingham is .77. Lets round it for easew and say Birm is 10% the size of NYC.

    So a 4.0 rating in Birm is 30k HH’s tuning into UFL while the same rating in NYC would have 300k Households (HH are not viewers but its apples to apples). And more than 1 viewer is in most HH.

    So saying Birm has good ratings isn’t enough… UFL needs viewers and small cities don’t have the local population totals that big cities do.

    If Houston is staying and Michigan is iffy, could a surprise city be losing a team, could that be SA? A swap of SA to Columbus would be a TV and MSA would be a much closer match in size.

    In the end UFL wants smaller stadiums but NEEDS bigger TV mkts. I hope the 2028 expansion includes those.

    Reply

    1. Great points made! Whatever the UFL decides to do though, this time they need to use the NFL Cleveland Browns example, and learn from their own Gamblers/Roughnecks mistake. KEEP the team names “on reserve” with the cities that are being left. Sort of a “we’ll be back someday” pie crust promise. Easily made. (And with relocation, easily broken… just leave the name behind.) Memphis Showboats is a name that can stay behind. Louisville should be their relocation though. And since Roughnecks fits Houston just fine, bring back the Gamblers name… Louisville Gamblers. Kind of fits with the horseracing…
      .
      I really hate to think they’ll be cornered into moving Michigan though. Wish they’d just play in Ypsilanti until the soccer field is ready — but the whole sense of Ford Field was that there was no weather issue being inside. Again, leaving for a couple years would “hurt” less if the “Michigan Panthers” name stays, and the new Columbus team goes with Aviators. Michigan could then “return” as an enhanced expansion team when UFL goes to 10 teams, and play at the new soccer stadium.
      .
      Just wish they could work something out in the Mid-Atlantic/Northeast/New England area. DC at Audi should continue to work well. Just not any good domes available. Getting the Philadelphia Stars back, at the Union soccer field?

      Reply

  3. Any potential UFL expansion after the franchise relocation issue is resolved MUST include Oakland and San Diego BEFORE any of the more trendier markets are considered…….

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    2. Unfortunately, playing in California and the costs involved is about the same as playing in another country. San Diego and Oakland would be awesome in theory — there’d be fans in the seats, and the weather is awesome… but the taxes: income taxes on the players and owners and businesses… and all the regulations… fageddaboutit. If the UFL goes West Coast, it’s going to be Seattle and Portland, where the California issues Washington State and Oregon share are more cultural than governmental.

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  4. There is less than a 1% chance they could use Lynn Family Stadium for American football. That pitch is immaculate for use by two professional soccer clubs. Putting American football on that pitch would ruin it. There’s a significantly higher chance of playing at UofL’s stadium, which is already designed for American football.

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  5. The attendance figures listed for other pro sports teams is incomplete and without context unless the number of games are played in each team’s season. In the case of the baseball team, they play 75 home games each season, meaning that despite having a lower number of attendees than “reported” by the others, 365,000 fans attend pro baseball games in Louisville, far outpacing the total number of fans elsewhere. And that does not include exhibition games such as the Savannah Bananas, adding an additional 40,000 baseball fans watching live action. This is a significant part of the story that was left out.

    Reply

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