Pittsburgh Maulers Return? UFL Announces Expansion Plans
The UFL has announced it is expanding from the eight teams that played in 2024, opening the door to a return for the Pittsburgh Maulers.
Could the Pittsburgh Maulers be making another comeback? The United Football League announced on Monday that the eight-team circuit is seeking expansion after its inaugural season in 2024, and the Pittsburgh squad could be among those looking to return from hiatus in the UFL.
According to a report by Mike Mitchell of Sports Illustrated, the league is seeking to expand to 10 teams for 2026 and 12 teams for 2027.
The UFL was formed for the spring 2024 season out of a merger of the XFL and USFL, the two spring professional football leagues that had popped up in recent years. Both the XFL and USFL were eight-team leagues when the merger was formed, but only eight survived the process.
The Pittsburgh Maulers were one of the four left on the cutting room floor by the USFL. That league, which branded itself after the 1980s league of the same name, did not have all of its teams playing in home markets.
The Maulers and the entire USFL played in Birmingham, Alabama in 2022. In 2023, the league moved to four pods, with the Maulers playing their home games in Canton, Ohio. The four USFL franchises to survive the merger were the Birmingham Stallions, Memphis Showboats, Michigan Panthers and Houston Roughnecks. All but Houston had already been playing in their home markets, and Houston had been home to an XFL team.
The franchises left out of the USFL side of the merger were the Pittsburgh Maulers, Philadelphia Stars, New Jersey Generals and New Orleans Breakers. None of those teams ever played in their home markets, and it’s unclear if they would be able to secure leases to do so. The three XFL teams cut were the Orlando Guardians, Seattle Sea Dragons and Vegas Vipers. In 2024, the UFL averaged 12,817 fans per game, with the St. Louis Battlehawks leading the way at 34,365 and Memphis bringing up the rear at 6,893.
St. Louis plays in The Dome at America’s Center, the former home of the St. Louis Rams before they moved to Los Angeles. Other venues in the league include an NFL stadium in Detroit, college stadiums in Birmingham, Houston, Memphis and San Antonio, a former MLB stadium in Arlington, Texas and an MLS stadium in Washington, D.C. Audi Field, where the D.C. Defenders play, is the smallest venue in the league at 20,000 seats.
If the Maulers were to return to play in the UFL, they’d need to find a home stadium. Highmark Stadium seats just 5,000. PNC Park is a right-sized 38,747 seats, but it’s unclear if the UFL schedule could fit in with the Pittsburgh Pirates’ regular home slate. The UFL runs from the end of March to the beginning of June, with the championship game scheduled for June 14.
Acrisure Stadium could be an option, though it is likely oversized. The original Maulers played in just one season in the original USFL, going 3-15 back in 1984. They drew 53,771 for the season opener at Three Rivers Stadium, but five of the final six games had less than 20,000 in attendance.
Pittsburgh would be a good geographic fit for the league, which has just two northern teams in Michigan and Washington, and would be able to fill in the gap. The presence of a more-suitable stadium in the 23,000-seat Tom Benson Hall of Fame Stadium makes Canton a more-likely fit.
The Maulers were coached by a pair of former Pittsburgh Steelers assistants. Ex-running backs coach Kirby Wilson coached the team to a 1-9 record in 2022. The following year, former Steelers secondary coach Ray Horton led the team to a 4-6 mark overall that included a division championship, a playoff berth and a run to the 2023 USFL Championship Game.
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