Jonah Dylan from The Commercial Appeal examined the Memphis Showboats’ struggles this season and their surprising path to survival in the United Football League. It looks like the team will return in 2026 but it could be for the last time. That is, if Fred Smith and FedEx have a say.
Team Performance Hits Rock Bottom
The Memphis Showboats posted a 4-16 record across two UFL seasons, making them the worst team in the league. The franchise finished 2-8 in 2025 despite bringing in a new coach, then losing that coach, a new general manager, and mostly new roster. Their season ended with a 46-9 beat down by the Birmingham Stallions on June 1, missing the playoffs for the second straight year.
Attendance Numbers Tell a Concerning Story
Memphis recorded the worst attendance figures in the UFL for both seasons. The Showboats averaged less than 4,000 announced fans per game in 2025, while the St. Louis Battlehawks drew nearly 30,000. Attendance as been down across the board this season but there has been some bight spots. The Michigan Panthers saw an increase in fan support for the 2025 UFL season. Memp
After a full off season of marketing and the league with its eyes on the city, it dropped the worst of all the UFL venues.
FedEx Partnership Provides Financial Lifeline
Despite poor performance and attendance, the Showboats will return for 2026 according to Dylan. The primary reason is continued financial support from FedEx, which has a deal with the league extending through next season. Season tickets for 2026 are already available for purchase.
“If FedEx founder Fred Smith and his family want to continue being involved with the league, it’ll be tough for the UFL to pack up,” Dylan noted.
League Priorities Focus on TV Over Attendance
Per the report, the league prioritizes its television deal with FOX, ESPN, and ABC. This approach makes local attendance less critical for franchise survival.
Steve Macy, vice president of team business and event operations, acknowledged this setup limits local growth.
“It’s winning, it’s the game times — I’d love to get some night games — if the team was here, that’d be a really big positive,” Macy said. “But I don’t think if you said, ‘OK, the team is here,’ that means there’s going to be three times the number of fans in the stands.”
Macy set a goal of selling out Simmons Bank Liberty Stadium’s lower bowl (8,000 seats) within two seasons, assuming the team still exists in 2027.
Bottom Line for UFL Fans
We have reported this for quite sometime. The Showboats exist because of Fred Smith and FedEx. If he wants a team in Memphis, there will be a team in Memphis. The question is how long is he willing to pay for something that the city is not interested in.
We predicted the Showboats will be back in 2026 as part of our UFL expansion report. The question is, will we see movement from other UFL cities for the 2026 season..
5 Comments
by Frank Dux
I’m sure the phone lines are lit up with fans ordering thier 2026 Showboats seasons tickets.
by 4th&long
The Whisenhunt disaster, strike talk, lack of CBA together with a bad record were huge contributors.
But Memphis is an inherently bad market and inherently awful TV marke, so I hope the Smith/Fed Ex money is worth it. I’d prefer they move them to a bigger TV mkt so the league can get better TV viewership.
Can’t have another swing and miss at HC. Bring in a former college HC as that’s what Memphis knows – CFB. And maybe cheerleaders too, something to get fan interest.
by 4th&long
And we now have official confirmation “Per the report, the league prioritizes its television deal with FOX, ESPN, and ABC.”
Been saying this for years on the now defunct UFLboard. Its all about TV ratings, yet they are in the tiny TV market of Memphis… that is against their priority.
Like i’ve posted before XFL 2020 had a presense in TV markets constituting 22% of HouseHolds. The UFL is in 11.3%, is it any wonder XFL2020 viewership is so much greater than UFL? The league needs big markets.
by Ken Granito
I appreciate your insight 4th & Long. This is not the first time you and I have agreed, but from different angles. I agree that TV does mean more to the league than attendance, however the league stands to make around 3 millions dollars more with the Battlehawks hosting a playoff game and the championship game so attendance does matter. As I had written earlier to what extent would the UFL go to to have UFL playoffs in St. Louis. Well the playoffs are in St. Louis so the league will make the money they need to, so attendance does matter. When I look at stuff, just because right now it looks like they are back, I am not 100% certain they will be back in 2026. To me, a lot of things will change before the start of the season. To me, the only business sense of coming back to Memphis is they basically get the stadium paid for. Stadium rental is one of the largest expenses the league will have, to get one paid for helps a lot. Plus every wrestling federation needs to have those wrestlers who wear the black trunks and becomes a sacrificial lamb for the teams that really matter. Let’s discuss just how messed up the Showboats were in 2024.
1. Ken Whisenhunt is signed to be head coach. In his initial press conference he talks about always wanting to be part of a league that develops players. He doubles down on a Memphis radio show and says the same thing. Anytime you coach players you help develop them. To not mention winning being important well let’s just say the joke is on the 4,000 plus fans who showed up each week. The rest of the city didn’t show up. I don’t know if they heard the press conferences, but if my coach said my team was looking forward to developing players in front of a national TV audience then you aren’t reading the room.
2. After the league gave a serious effort to retain many of better Showboats by signing them to LOIs, the new management team goes and cuts almost the whole team. A handful were saved such as Jonathan Adams & Matt Coghlin, but almost the whole roster was let go. Imagine how silly that is. Someone goes through the trouble of signing these players back and the new management team can’t even research the players they have before releasing them. To show how they really don’t get how silly that was, they signed back nearly ten of them, the likes of PJ Hall and Josiah Bronson. Just silly.
3. Many UFL veteran media were all in on Jarren Horton. Don’t get me wrong. I think he deserved a shot again, just wasn’t sure if it was now and I preferred Ray Horton taking over the DC role and let Jarren handle the secondary. I was disappointed when he was the Defensive Co-ordinator. Let’s think this through. He was interim defensive co-ordinator @ UConn before taking over the Maulers job. In an interview with Pro Football Newsroom, he talked about at this level he felt comfortable applying pressure and counted on the quarterbacks and the offense not being good enough to account for the pressure. That did work for a while. However, in the playoffs against the Panthers EJ Perry threw for over 300 yards and the Maulers gave up a ton of yards winning a tight one. In the Championship game Birmingham scored 28 points in a rout of the Maulers, so when the defense truly needed to come up big they came up small. After the Maulers were dropped from the league Jarren Horton became available, but no one picked him up, not for a secondary or linebacking coaching spot, he remained unemployed. The second he signed Boogie Roberts I knew the Showboats were going to be a poor team. He was likely the most overrated player in the USFL and this was two years removed from that. Carlos Davis and Boogie Roberts should not be playing the same position. Olive Sagapolu and Terry Beckner Jr helped stop the run not Boogie Roberts. The fact that Horton could not figure out that Roberts was not up to the task tells me he should not be back as a Defensive Co-ordinator anytime soon. Just a thought too, before the leagues merged, Sagapolu (after a NFL stint) signed with the Generals to be coached by Ted Cottrell and did not re-sign with Horton’s Maulers. To me that says a lot of about how he viewed each team. If there were any doubt, in a game that the receivers are always open in the flat and that he argued a facemask call the offense faced in a game they lost 46-9 really tells me he hasn’t the focus he needs to be a defensive coordinator. It’s more like he thought he was signing up to be coach of my softball team and tried to get all his drinking buddies back. Jarren Horton needs to be gone.
4. I really love the Jim Turner and Noel Mazzone. They know what they are doing, have toughness, but also the know how to put a professional offense on the field. I am not saying they can’t be replaced, but they are loyal to the league and are very capable.
5. Whisenhunt’s follies continued. They bring in Jacob Kibodi, Deneric Prince, Jalen Jackson and DeWayne McBride. The only one of these that had any experience in pro-football was Kibodi and he was let go mid-season. McBride didn’t make it out of camp in the UFL and CFL, yet they did not look to bring back Darius Victor. Maybe they did and Victor didn’t want to play anymore. I just don’t believe that to be the case. It’s interesting because the best back was signed after Whisenhunt was gone, yes a veteran Wes Hills. Just overall a joke….developing players instead of winning games.
6. UFL meddling. AJ McCarron would have been perfect for this team, but they couldn’t sign him. Quinten Dormady would have been the type of QB that would have worked well with Whisenhunt, but again he was let go. I think by this time Whisenhunt was through. To be honest though he was never a good match for this league. He might be better off coaching a Division 3 college team. How does he not see that?
7. The players I would like to see back. Jonathan Adams, Jay Jay Wilson, Alec Lindstrom, Dresser Wynn, Steele Chambers and Zeke Vandenburg, Deneric Prince, Nash Jensen, Matt Coghlin and Turner Bernard and edge Jaylon Allen. There are others that could come back, but I think these players would be something to build on for the 2026 Showboats or for the 2026 Bandits if Brady buys the team.
by Gary Winter
There’s nothing wrong with prioritizing TV ratings but doesn’t it make sense that there will be more interest in a game if a potential fan turns on the TV and there are actual people interested enough in the game that they show up to watch it?
If I turn on a game on TV and virtually nobody is at the game watching, it somewhat confirms that “this game must not be worth watching”?
If you want to increase viewership, you have to build-up the attendance!
Memphis is a great city but it’s not even close to being a good sports town. The last time my wife and I went to Memphis, we took in a Memphis Redbirds baseball game. I have no knowledge of their usual attendance but the night we were there, there couldn’t have been more than maybe 500-1000 fans in the park. This sort of thing can’t be a good look for the league.