With the rumors of the XFL being revived via a new buyer, the Dallas Renegades packed up their facility, bringing more credibility to the San Antonio relocation rumor from earlier this year. Orlando was rumored to be looked at as the relocation city for the Vipers, for the leagues second season. Will the Vipers be moved to Orlando, this die hard fan is here to say, Get Your Own Team!
The Vipers are always looked at as having one of the lowest attendances in the league, despite only having two home games one of which was a Sunday night game. The first game had 18,117 fans the second only had 12,249. For having a winless record at the time I felt those were decent numbers for an upstart spring team.
I imagine the league saw the untapped potential for Orlando to have pro football with the USFL’s Orlando Renegades averaging 25,000 fans. More recently the AAF’s Orlando Apollo’s averaged about 20,000 fans per game. Former Apollo’s coach Steve Spurrier has said on record recently if the league did come back to Florida he would be down to coach. Spurrier coached the Apollo’s to the leagues only championship.
Not saying that Orlando shouldn’t have a team but I feel it would be better to just revive the Apollo’s or make a new team as an Expansion team to usher in the new rebranded league. With teams in Tampa and Orlando a rivalry is definitely set up allowing fans to travel to both games, making what could be some of the leagues best match ups. Back in the day the Bandits averaged 43,000 fans per game, proving Tampa Bay is a market Spring Football can thrive in.