• by Wayne Friedman , May 6, 2019

The return of the XFL next year -- a spring alternative professional football league -- will see games on broadcast networks ABC and Fox, as well as cable networks ESPN, ESPN2, FS1 and FS2.

The league intends to begin play in February 2020, following the collapse of the Alliance of American Football -- another spring football league -- earlier this year. The intended 10-week season only ran from February to April, when the league’s operations were suspended, and the league filed for bankruptcy thereafter.

CBS Sports Network, a cable sports channel, was the league’s TV media partner.

The XFL league is owned by Vince McMahon's Alpha Entertainment, which also controlled the original XFL through its World Wrestling Federation -- now World Wrestling Entertainment.

The original XFL lasted for one season in 2001, with NBC as its TV partner.

New leagues look to take advantage of professional football's strong TV viewership and advertising revenues versus other TV programming content.

NFL regular-season games pulled in around $4 billion in national TV advertising dollars in the 2018 season, $500 million for its playoff games, and $450 million for all Super Bowl related programming, according to estimates.