UFL innovation serves as tech bridge to the NFL

By Kevin Seifert, ESPN Staff Writer June 13, 2024, 6:30am ET

Kevin Seifert is a staff writer covering the Minnesota Vikings and the NFL for ESPN. Kevin has covered the NFL for more than 20 years and joined ESPN in 2008. He previously was a reporter for the Minneapolis Star Tribune and The Washington Times. He is a graduate of the University of Virginia. You can follow him on Twitter @SeifertESPN.

Two years ago, the XFL signed an affiliation deal with the NFL in hopes of becoming a “culture dish” for innovation in the game, looking at things like rules, player development and playing fields.

The arrangement paves the way for the NFL to adopt and modify the XFL's kickoff play, which is scheduled to debut in the 2024 season, and both leagues are now eyeing a series of technological developments that could be introduced to the NFL within a year (or less).

As the United Football League nears the end of its first season since the XFL and USFL merger, the NFL is studying TrU Line's ball-spotting technology and will continue to test it in preseason games this summer.

UFL officials say the technology allows for a more reliable assessment of whether the ball has reached the gain line and, while it doesn't replace the referee's responsibility to put the ball in the correct position, it does eliminate the need for the traditional “chain gang” to determine a first down.

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The NFL is also eyeing the UFL's expanded system for coach and player communications, which would allow up to eight players to hear the offensive or defensive play-caller through helmet speakers and video on sideline tablets to replace the still images used by the NFL.

According to UFL senior vice president of technology Scott Herniman, the UFL's technology team has been meeting with the NFL's technology team every two months this year, and all of that will be on display when the Birmingham Stallions take on the San Antonio Brummers in the UFL's first-ever championship game on Sunday (5 p.m. ET, broadcast by Fox from the Dome at America's Center in St. Louis).

“The UFL's mission has always been to provide fans with the highest level of transparency in the sport, while balancing innovation and change that drives progress in football,” Harniman said.

There are other innovations the NFL seems less likely to adopt, at least in the short term, such as regular broadcasts of referee conversations or wearable cameras on officials and players. Here, we focus on three possibilities the NFL could adopt over the next few seasons.

TrU Line Spotting

While the USFL was using ball-spotting technology for the 2022 and 2023 seasons, the UFL adopted it for its inaugural campaign, working with developer Bolt6 to rebrand it as the TrU Line.

The system uses six portable 4K cameras that can be installed throughout the stadium, one on each side of the 20- and 50-yard lines, and when an official requests a spot via wireless headset, the cameras detect the exact location of the ball in relation to the winning line.

The league set a goal of an average of five spots per game, focusing on when the ball is within 30 inches of the line on the offensive side and within six inches on the defensive side. Within seconds, TrU Line's cloud-based analysis generates a graphic that is displayed both on the television broadcast and in the stadium, showing whether a first down has been made or how many inches are left to achieve a first down.

The UFL's TrU Line ball-spotting technology automated the measurement of first downs this season, instead of carrying markers and chains to measure the spots. Michael Wade/Icon Sportswire

UFL head of refereeing Dean Blandino said the technology has proven reliable, so much so that the UFL no longer requires traditional sticks and chains for timing on the sidelines, instead having designated sideline officials who can use camera-based “laser chains” to time when needed.

“I think we've been successful,” Herniman said. “I think we've definitely been successful in establishing this as a brand, and that was my goal, and then working with the talent, I think we've found the silver bullet of, 'How do we integrate this into the broadcast, how do we make it not disrupt the flow of the football, how do we present it as an innovation, how do we make it part of the game?' So we've got a lot of work to do to make this work better, but I think we've made some really good steps this year.”

One challenge, Blandino said, is breaking old habits.

“The biggest challenge for us was getting the umpires used to the chains and incorporating it into the game because they're used to managing the chains and it's so natural for them. Getting them used to not having the chains on when they want to take measurements was probably the biggest hurdle,” he said.

“But I really believe in it and I think it's the technology and the process. I know the NFL is looking into it. [it] And I think that's good for the game.”

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Blandino served on one of the UFL and NFL boards this season and helped brief the leagues over the past year on the XFL kickoff. NFL owners have approved ongoing testing of a version of TrU-Line operated by HawkEye Technology, which provides some of the NFL's replay review system and tracking services. League officials will decide in late summer whether to implement it during the regular season, according to an ESPN source.

Of course, the obvious question is whether the Football League could pair a system like TrU Line with one that could tell officials where the ball was in the first place. The challenge is similar to one the NFL faced in the 2010s, when it was investigating a proposal by the New England Patriots to install goal-line cameras in each stadium to aid in replays of potential points. Not only would the system need to have a clear view of the ball at the end of the play, it would also need to know when a runner falls or goes out of bounds and provide an exact location.

“I think I still have a long way to go,” Harniman said. “I've tried a lot of things, chips, balls, but… [potential blockage]Any of our technology partners would say that. I think the capability is there, but it would be a complementary technology to what we're doing today. Right now, I don't see a path forward where we can completely eliminate the human element for at least a year from now.”

Coach and player communication

The original concept for the 2020 version of the XFL was for every player on the field to have real-time access to the play-caller's voice, whereas in the NFL, only two players have access to that voice: the quarterback and any defensive player with a green dot on their helmet. The XFL also did away with the NFL's cutoff when the play clock reaches 14 seconds, a change that has been retained in the UFL.

The goal was to increase the efficiency of play-calling by reducing the need for a full huddle and shortening the time between plays — receivers could line up as soon as they heard a play call, for example, rather than waiting for the huddle to break up.

This season, the UFL limited the number of players with speakers, including both offensive and defensive players, to eight. That distribution varied by team, with some using a speaker for the backup quarterback and others skipping that step and adding another position player, but this setup minimized the number of players with whom the quarterback had to communicate directly before the snap.

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“I think as a result of that, we have less of what we call 'non-plays,'” Harniman said. “We don't have the trash plays where the time runs out or the game doesn't finish. That doesn't happen a lot in our league.”

The UFL hasn't compiled complete pace-of-game data for the 2024 season, but Herniman said the entire game will last less than three hours. (Over the past decade, NFL games have lasted anywhere from 3 hours, 1 minute to 3 minutes, 7 seconds.) There's concern that the shorter game times will mean fewer plays, but Herniman said “we're seeing more plays” in 2024, in part due to increased efficiency from installing speakers in multiple helmets.

Without the 14-second cutoff, there would also be opportunities for additional coaching. Blandino, who gets to listen to communications as part of his role reviewing replays during games, said those conversations “don't get too granular,” but that coaches typically use the full 25 seconds to speak.

Harniman said some UFL coaches have been advocating for an expansion to the eight-man limit and the possibility would be discussed before the 2025 season.

Sideline Video

Each UFL sideline has nine iPads connected to an internal fiber network that upload two angles of every play (one from the all-22 and one from high up in the end zone) in near real time for review on the DVSport software, with one designated for medical replays and the remaining eight for coaches and players.

Three additional iPads are installed in the coaches' booths, and two league-designated staff members are stationed on each sideline to charge the iPads and help customize the available video for immediate needs.

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Sideline video would allow UFL coaches to make more timely and precise adjustments, theoretically improving the quality of play in a league that doesn't have many NFL-caliber players.

The NFL has had a similar move since 2014, using Microsoft Surface tablets on the sidelines, but the league has banned video and limited viewing to still images. A proposal by the competition committee to phase in video in 2018 drew fierce opposition from coaches, who argued that allowing video would eliminate the competitive advantage some believed they had over other teams.

“You can't go wrong with video,” then-Minnesota Vikings head coach Mike Zimmer said. “I'm against it because it takes away some of the true skill of a coach and it levels out good coaches and bad coaches.”

The proposal was withdrawn and hasn't been seriously considered since, but Blandino, who spent nearly two decades in the NFL's officiating department before retiring in 2017, believes it will one day “happen in the NFL.”

“I respect coaches who have that opinion,” Blandino said, “but I think in our experience, it's been an overwhelming positive to understand what's going on and be able to make adjustments quickly. Both teams understand that, and the team that makes the best adjustments will ultimately win.”

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