Seattle Dragons lead XFL in season ticket sales

The Emerald City appears to be ready to embrace its newest professional football team.

The Dragons, Seattle’s XFL franchise, are currently leading the start-up league in season ticket sales, according to Jim Christman, director of communications for Seattle XFL.

Christman could not specify how many season tickets have been sold at this time.

The XFL, owned by WWE CEO Vince McMahon, is football’s latest attempt at a spring iteration of the sport following the NFL season -- serving as a minor league of sorts for potential NFL prospects and personnel. It will kickoff the weekend after the Super Bowl. The last professional spring football league in the U.S., the Alliance of American Football (AAF), lasted just two months last year before going bankrupt.

McMahon is reportedly invested around $500 million in the league for its first three seasons, a much steeper financial stake than his original WWE-inspired version of the XFL, which lasted just a year in 2001. The new version of the XFL is said to showcase a faster version of football with fewer play stoppages.

Jim Zorn, the first starting quarterback of the Seahawks and a member of the team’s Ring of Honor, is the general manager and head coach of the XFL Seattle franchise. He was the head coach of the Washington Redskins in 2008 and 2009.

The Dragons feature a handful of former Seahawk and University of Washington players. Wide receivers Keenan Reynolds -- who appeared in two games for the Seahawks in 2018 -- and Kasen Williams -- a former Skyline High School standout who starred at UW and played two seasons for the Seahawks (2015-16) -- are among the players most recognizable to Seattle football fans.

The Dragons are playing at the Washington DC Defenders in their season opener Saturday, Feb. 8. Seattle will host the Tampa Bay Vipers in its home opener Feb. 15.