RUMOR: USFL Reportedly Rebranding Tampa Bay Bandits to Memphis Showboats
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RUMOR: USFL Reportedly Rebranding Tampa Bay Bandits to Memphis Showboats

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In the leadup to the inagurual USFL season the new league filed a handful of trademarks for team names. Beyond the eight teams that took the field in 2022, the league also resevered a few from the USFL’s past. These names included Denver Gold, Jacksonville Bulls, LA Express, Memphis Showboats and plenty of others.

At the moment the league is working towards season 2, a first in the world of spring football in a very long time. Beyond retuning to Birmingham next year, they’re also looking at expanding the number of hubs in 2023. We’ve heard that the USFL is looking to expand into between 2-4 hubs for next season.

With that news out, many have been wondering where the new hubs will land. Well, it’s time to throw some more speculation into the mix.

Earlier this morning @NewsUSFL posted on Twitter that the Tampa Bay Bandits will be relocating and be re-branded as the Memphis Showboats.

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He credits Tony Catalina, who states that the USFL filed for the Memphis Showboats trademark within the last week. Although not confirmed, the reports mentions that there may be an updated logo in the mix as well.

We’ve reached out to league officials, but could not confirm if there is any truth to these rumors. Generally @NewsUSFL is accurate with his reports, otherwise we may not be writing this piece at all.

It’s hard to say when and if this will be made official, but we expect more USFL news to come down the pipeline in the near future. As always we’ll keep you posted as more information comes out on season 2 of the USFL.

What are your thoughts on the Tampa Bay Bandits potentially moving to Memphis and becoming the Showboats? Let us know your thoughts down in the comments below or join the conversation on Discord.

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Stephan Rachuk
Owner/Editor Pro Football Newsroom
Originally from Detroit, I grew up a Lions fan, which has now led me on a lifetime journey to find better football. I'm now living in the greater Houston area and I am one of the few journalists covering spring football. Contact: stephan@rachuk.com
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10 Comments

  1. Absolutely the best news of the day!!! Florida already has 3 NFL team along with an XFL. Move the Bandits out and on over to Memphis who are starving for a pro football team. Next I would move Houston up to Chicago. Too much football even in Texas. Chicago only has the bears and the Blitz has been a fan favorite to return. Leave all the others in place for now.

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  4. I was actually doing some research as I would want to expand before the XFL does. As we would have to grow in twos as we are not the CFL, I was looking at Memphis and Denver being the two locales. Other places I like would include Oakland (no stadium), unless we play in San Fran, Canton (bring back the Bulldogs, San Diego (the Aztecs have a nice new stadium and possibly Tulsa, They have a stadium and very cool unis. As we both know Canton is beautiful this time of year and San Diego is always beautiful, so that is a possibility. As it seems they are not ready to grow the league, but looking for a way to put a best product out there, this truly makes the most sense, at least to me. First, I love the Tampa Bay Bandits, as they are one of the success stories of the old guard, USFL, but we are quite a ways from playing there. However, Memphis makes all the sense in the world for us to play in. First of all Nashville is 3 hours from Memphis, so the Titans are their NFL team, but not THEIR team. Also Little Rock is only two hours away so they could get some fans from there as well. I will miss Tampa Bay and hope to get it back one day, but I bet Todd Haley and his boys would rather play in front of their fans. Hopefully this could work.

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  5. I could understand them wanting to move to a more profitable city and leave Tampa, but getting rid of the Bandits name is utterly stupid. The Bandits were top 2 in attendance during the 3 years existence in the original USFL. It just shows the league will again fold, since they seem to still have not very smart people running this league like when Trump decided to be in charge.

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  6. Hi, Yes we are in agreement that we both like the Bandits. I am only ok the Memphis Showboats so that the USFL could get another locale with limited financial risk. I don’t think the USFL wants to rent something as expensive as Tampa’s stadium. It was easier in the 1980’s because no one had stadiums like some of them are today. Even Giants stadium is much closer to the Liberty Bowl then say MetLife is. I feel the USFL has to play a game between wanting to have smaller teams, but larger city names too. The smaller teams for the smaller investment risk. The larger for the tv market revenue. I just don’t want the Bandits to give up the name to another city, because I want them in Tampa Bay, when finances allow. The USFL plays some night games. The USFL can schedule Bandits home games later in the season as night games. Let’s hope it’s soon. Bring back Bandit ball as soon as you can.

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  7. Exactly. And the original Bandits were the only USFL team to show a profit in any of the original three years of existence.

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  9. The Denver Gold is the team thart turned a profit from the first season of the USFL. Thus they were the first city to host the USFL Championship.

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  10. During those years the Buccaneers were among the losingest teams in all American sports. It does not surprise me that the Bandits had more support!

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