No surprise, really.
http://www.abcnews.go.com/sections/us/DailyNews/xfl010510.html
Was it really that bad? Or was it just too much football?
I only watched a couple of games. Looked like football to me, but I’m hardly what you’d call an avid fan. Of any professional sport, really.
At least the cheerleaders didn’t look like Barbie doll clones. 
I repeat; Were they really that bad.
Peace,
mangeorge (Gotta learn that “link” thingie)
I went to the opener here in Orlando. It was fun live but i wouldn’t watch it on tv. It wasn’t bad, it just wasn’t what people expected it to be (more WWF, less crappy football).
The XFL’s quality of play was fine; what did it in was that it was based on the incorrect notion that young men would rather spend cold winter Saturday nights watching football on TV than going out and chasing women.
Didn’t get the wide open, high scoring offense they promised.
Didn’t get the rough and tumble smashmouth they promised.
Didn’t get the fast pace they promised.
What we got was:
Overhyped announcers (at least at the beginning, I understand they got better near the end.)
Just as many field goals as the NFL
Cheerleaders who were about the same as third-rate porn actresses with their clothes on
Infomercials for the WWF
In short, what we got was badly produced mediocre football.
I like to think that if TV disappeared tomorrow, the NFL, NBA, NHL and Major League Baseball would continue to exist (in some form) But it was completely obvious that if they turned off the TV cameras, the XFL would simply disappear. In fact, that’s what happened.
The FIRST week’s ratings for the XFL were very good, which leads me to believe that there IS a big audience of teenage males who’d like to see the quivalent of wrestling on Saturday night.
Problem is, the XFL was too much like wrestling to appeal to ordinary football fans, but (more importantly) it wasn’t trashy enough to appeal to the teenage males who love wrestling. To teens, the XFL was too much like regular, old, boring football. And they can see THAT kind of football any time.
Too bad, too. There was a chance for a lot of nobodies to make a decent amount of money. Now they’ve got to go back into obscurity, and whatever they were earning before their moment of fame. Most of 'em, anyway.
Oh, well. It was, in a way, kind of refreshing.
Peace,
mangeorge
Does this mean that Minnessoooota gets its governor back? If so, what are they going to do with him?
Seriously, ISTM that the XFL’s biggest problem is (was?) that its targeted audience knew something about football and recognized that what was being dished out was an inferior brand of that fine, pure, masculine sport and not worthy of attention. Who after all, was really willing to wack a guy over the head with a beer bottle for the honor of the East Rutherford Honey Dippers?
I’m serious when I said I wanted this to succeed…if nothing else but for pure spite. That’s right, I wanted Vinny Mac to stick one to the pompous, smug, smirking, self-righteous, insufferable know-it-alls who blathered on an on about how this league was doomed before the first training camp was held.
Again, I found the absolutely gargantuan influence of TV RATINGS above ALL ELSE to be mind-blowing. The fans were there. The merchandise was selling. Of the three or four games that I saw, passion was high and everyone, players, fans, and commentators (talentless wrestling hacks or no), was pumped. As I’ve stated before, the concerns about the cold were ridiculous…what, you think the Packers or Bills never play any cold-weather games? There were many, many people who believed in this thing and wanted to make it work. And because the non-paying customers didn’t tune in, the advertisers dropped out and the league folded. Try as I might to find any justice (or sense, for that matter) in this, I just can’t.
There were none of the management or organizational screwups that plagued the WFL or USFL. None. No last-second schedule changes. No contract disputes. No (did I mention this before?) staking the entire future of the league on a half-baked, doomed lawsuit. Everyone was getting paid and no one stepped out of line…or if they did, we weren’t told about it. And the league still folded.
And yet…the problems were there. The choice of commentators was simply horrid. (Lots of fans like to rag on Cris Collinsworth, Pat Summerall, John Madden, Dan Dierdorf, etc., but any of them could have sportscast rings around Jesse Ventura.) The “radical” rule changes either weren’t radical enough or addressed very minor problems (taking out the extra point kick is a good example). Some of the changes didn’t change a thing (did the 25-yard-punt-becomes-free-ball rule ever come into play?). There was a new rule change seemingly ever week near the end, a sure sign of desperation. Most of the gimmicks never panned out; the “radical” camera angles were more annoying than anything (sensing a pattern here?), the oh-so-suggestive cheerleaders never progressed beyond that, and even the candid comments by players and coaches got repetitive. Face it, you hear one “we gotta pull it together”, you’ve heard 'em all. The biggest problem, by far, was time; with all the comments and celebrations and fireworks and assorted hoopla, the games dragged on longer than four hours. Four hours! And to think that we complain about World Series games dragging on too long.
And in the end, how much was really different? Still four downs and ten yards for a first down. The penalties were the same. Passes and runs were the same. Defenses were the same. Field goals didn’t magically vanish. If they wanted an extreme league, why not make it extreme? Like, say…the Arena League? (Which is still alive after over a decade and marginal TV exposure, BTW.)