Do XFL’s Seattle Sea Dragons have same stadium as NFL’s Seattle Seahawks? Exploring connection between 2 franchises

Whether it is the Seattle Seahawks in the NFL or the Seattle Sea Dragons in the XFL, the city is never starved of football action. They're not the only ones.

Teams like the DC Defenders, Vegas Vipers, Arlington Renegades, and Houston Roughnecks also play in existing NFL markets. However, the Sea Dragons are the only ones who share their stadium with their NFL counterparts.

This is a unique arrangement that comes about because of the connection both the Seattle franchises have with Lumen Field, its inception and how it came to be. Read on more to find out.

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Lumen Field in NFL and XFL: Home to both Seattle Seahawks and Seattle Sea Dragons

To understand how Lumen Field works for both franchises, first let's look at how other stadiums work in the NFL.

Here, we take the example of the Arlington Renegades. They play in Arlington, in the same place where the Dallas Cowboys are based. However, the Cowboys play at the AT&T Stadium, while the Renegades play at the Choctaw Stadium.

The AT&T Stadium is owned by the city of Arlington, with the Dallas Cowboys as the operator. Therefore, as the NFL team is the sole operator there, the XFL team has to become tenants elsewhere.

However, the politics associated with the formation of the Lumen Field was different. The new stadium was pitched to the public in a referendum as a joint football and soccer field. Instead of directly passing a law, a referendum was held that allowed for it to be put to the voters. Most chose to go ahead with the stadium that remained in public hands. That created the Washington State Public Stadium Authority, which currently owns the stadium.

The Seattle Seahawks, through their operator company First & Goal, have a lease with the stadium and are not the sole operator. Other tenants include the Seattle Sounders in the MLS for soccer, OL Reign in NWSL and now the Seattle Sea Dragons in the XFL. Hence, both the XFL and NFL teams are tenants in the same stadium and play there.

As they play in the same stadium, it should help the Sea Dragons attract existing football fans. Going to a stadium is often a ritual, so going to the same venue as an NFL game should attract more fans, especially for the Seattle Sea Dragons.

In the latest iteration of the XFL, stadiums are not the only place where there has been collaboration with the NFL.

The XFL now has a collaboration agreement with the NFL. The NFL Alumni Academy will help develop players for the XFL. That will allow the standard of the league to go up in due course. In that regard, the XFL is acting as a supplement to the NFL instead of being a competitor. The NFL can also benefit from some of the innovations we're seeing in the XFL.

However, based on the experiment in Seattle, the league as a whole could approach the NFL and ask permission to play in existing NFL stadiums, so that football fans can come and watch the XFL teams in the same place. That would allow for greater catchment and might lead to increased attendance for the XFL.