Arlington wins the XFL championship. Now, will the XFL come back for a second season?

Bob Stoops has every intention of returning to Arlington next season to coach the Renegades, with one important caveat.

“I intend to at this point in my life with what’s happening,” he said this week. “Never know what’s coming around the corner.”

Once a coach, always a coach.

We’re also talking about the XFL. It could die in five minutes.

On Saturday night in San Antonio, Stoops coached the Arlington Renegades to the 2023 XFL title by upsetting the D.C. Defenders, 35-26.

In terms of upsets, this isn’t the New York Giants over the undefeated New England Patriots, or The Miracle on Ice.

What went down on in the Alamo Bowl should not have happened; the Renegades finished the season 4-6, and the Defenders 9-1. Arlington was an 8.5-point ‘dog.

This is the first football championship a DFW team has won since ... well, you know.

Fine. Fine.

If you insist, we haven’t celebrated a football title around here since the 1995 season, when the Dallas Cowboys won the Super Bowl.

An XFL championship doesn’t quite feel as big as a Super Bowl, but at this point who are we to ask for anything?

The real winner here isn’t Arlington. The real winner is the XFL. It finally finished a season.

“Just the fact that the league played a championship game is a success,” Arlington quarterback Luis Perez said last week inside the old dugout for the Texas Rangers are Choctaw Stadium.

The questions are: Did you notice? Do Y-O-U want football in the spring?

There are two spring football leagues currently - the XFL and USFL - and no one is sure if the world wants one, let alone two, spring football leagues.

XFL owners Dwayne Johnson and Dany Garcia have told the respective teams, and networks, that there will be a next season of what is the third go for XFL.

Given the history of XFL, everyone who plays, coaches and works for the teams believes this promise with their eyes wide open. The XFL could go on. The XFL could close tomorrow morning.

There is likely a small market for one spring football league. Representatives from both the new USFL and the XFL are all in on these startup ventures, but no one thinks there is enough of an appetite for two spring minor league football leagues.

For decades spring football has been one of those aspirations in sports that sounds great; a modest sized green and white fish for TV networks, and eager business people.

In reality, as much as we ugly Americans love football, we have never loved football in the spring.

We are now in the first year of both the USFL and XFL playing at the same time.

The first year of the XFL’s second return from the dead has gone OK. Attendance figures range from the great - more than 30,000 routinely showed up to St. Louis Battlehawks - to the really bad. Go with a few thousand, if that, for the home games played in Las Vegas.

The Arlington Renegades drew decent crowds; they averaged about 12,000 in their five home games played at Choctaw Stadium in Arlington.

No way to know how many of those thousands for any of the games during the 10-week regular season all over the XFL were freebies. Thirty three percent sounds like a good place to start.

TV ratings were OK; according to Sportsnaut.com, XFL games on ABC or ESPN averaged about 570,000.

The games, and specifically some of the rules tweaks, were roundly accepted, and celebrated. Teams have the option of either an onside kick, or trying to convert a “4th-and-15” from its own 25-yard line, to retain possession of the ball.

The game on Saturday night featured a decent crowd; there was an atmosphere. It played like a middle tier college bowl game from power conferences; a player or two looks like he could make an NFL roster.

The creative rules created an exciting finish. As a sports product, it’s not bad.

“What the XFL has done, the arrow is up,” former NFL cornerback Terrell Buckley said in an interview last week. He is currently the head coach of the XFL franchise in Orlando. “The arrow is up because of the attention to detail with the health of the players, the speed of the game, the scheduling, the rules.

“And, most important, the microphones (on the players and coaches). It’s just all more fan engagement. I think (the XFL) definitely has a shot.”

Both the USFL and XFL operate differently than your standard pro sports league.

Fox Sports owns the USFL. RedBird Capital, a hedge fund that has many other sports projects, owns the XFL. Both teams are creative in keeping costs low.

The USFL uses four different cities for its home games for its eight teams.

The eight XFL teams practice, and are housed, in the DFW area; the teams fly to their respective “home” cities the day before the game. Players live in hotels.

The players love it because it’s a chance to play, and showcase themselves for NFL teams searching for talent. Don’t be surprised if in another week or so a handful of XFL players score invites to NFL camps.

“I love everything about it,” Perez said. “The locker room. The guys. Leading everybody. The X’s and O’s. This is football.”

These are also startup businesses, and startups usually lose money. For years.

For now, the XFL looks like it will finally make it to a second season.

And Bob Stoops is planning on being back, but, as he says, you never know what’s coming around the corner.

This is the XFL. We have a pretty good idea of what’s coming around the corner.

But ... you never know; a pro football team in Arlington, Texas just won a title.