XFL 2023: Rules, player salaries and everything you need to know

Here's a snapshot of the United States in 2023.

The NFL completed its season Sunday with a Super Bowl that was viewed by 113 million people, making it the third-most-watched television show of all time. On Saturday, the XFL will return to the field to kick off its 10-week regular-season schedule. On April 15, the USFL will start its own 10-week season.

In all, there will be 20 consecutive weekends of nationally televised pro football from now until early July. The NFL hasn't confirmed its preseason schedule yet, but a look at the calendar suggests that 2023 will deliver pro football games on 46 of its 52 weekends.

Purchased out of bankruptcy in 2020 by Dany Garcia, Dwayne «The Rock» Johnson and RedBird Capital Partners, the XFL has spent 2½ years in product development. It now has more than 800 full-time employees, an exclusive agreement with ESPN/Disney to broadcast and stream all 43 of its games and a calendar that will make players available to transition into NFL offseason programs at the start of May.

«We want to be a league of opportunity and innovation,» league president Russ Brandon said. «And we want to continue to advance the game of football and to develop players for it.»

Let's take a closer look at the details within this iteration of the XFL, how it will fit into the larger football ecosystem, its plans for differentiating itself from the USFL and the extent to which it wants to work with the NFL.

In some ways, yes. Garcia, Johnson and RedBird bought the league's intellectual property and other assets from Vince McMahon's Alpha Entertainment in August 2020 for $15 million.

The new owners briefly considered a single-market season for 2021, but the timing of the sale process would have made it a tight turn.