Looks like McMahon is set to revive the XFL. Do y’all think the American public has immatured enough for this to work?
I don’t know the NFL product has deteriorated greatly. The instant repays, terrible announcing, ever shifting rules, dumb ass rules, lack of practice that show at the start of every season.
I’m not sure if it is time for the XFL, but it might be time for the NFL to get back to basics and stop pandering to the Gamblers/Fantasy Footballers.
Football basically sucks these days.
The cynic in me thinks McMahon knows that WWE’s time is past, he’s pulling cash out of it, and that Alpha Entertainment is the name of his retirement fund.
The rational thinker in me agrees with the cynic in me.
Mythbusters confirmed that literally polishing a turd is possible. So Vince has that going for him.
I’m not super excited about watching XFL games.
I wouldn’t be surprised if Vince’s new league (which, supposedly, will be called the United Football League, as apparently Vince has the name trademarked) is just a front. Something tells me Vince isn’t so much interested in football as football players.
Here’s something I see happening: Vince signs players who are probably good enough for the NFL but are too young to enter its draft, and manages to get through one season before closing up shop again, but all of the contracts say that if the players play in the NFL, they have to have Alpha Entertainment as their agents. Originally, I was going to say that “logistical problems” would prevent the league from playing any games at all, but if that happens, the older players can’t return to college (technically, they signed agents) and are still too young for the NFL, and sitting around for a year is not going to help their NFL prospects any.
Vince is driven to find success outside of wrestling. It’s a dumb idea, but as the article discusses, telling that to Vince will make him want to do it more.
As I said in another thread, a B League that focused on solid football towns that were not huge metropolises, like for example Columbia, SC where they regularly get 80k showing up for the college game. Focus on patriotism, which Vince is big on and would play well with those markets. Have musical acts before the game and at half-time. Country stars when you can get them, regional acts, choirs, etc.
Play 6-8 home games, bring in $10-20 mil box office per team, plus local TV, sponsorships, merchandise, etc.
That’s the only thing I could see working, but I don’t think it is a grandiose enough vision for Vincent Kennedy McMahon.
Those who do not learn from the mistakes of the past…do seem to end up in pro wrestling a lot, don’t they? (See also: Bischoff, Eric; Russo, Vince.)
This tells me that there’s a fundamental truth that McMahon simply cannot grasp: Even if you a certain subset of fans are unsatisfied with certain qualities of the current product, and what you’re offering has the qualities they want, you still have to deliver on the basics. In the case of a sports league, that means (at an absolute minimum) quality players, quality officiating, proper pacing, rules that make sense and can’t be easily exploited, PR, a strong rapport with the fans, and something that makes it stand out. That takes knowledge, dedication, and plenty of serious effort. Whining about snowflakes and SJWs is easy; creating a viable product, not so much. Remember that blowhard who proposed an all-white basketball league? What, nothing ever came of it? Well, of course not. All he wanted was to spout racist crap and spit on the NBA; he didn’t want to work or anything.
This is going to fail, and it’s going to fail for the exact same reason it failed the first time. To paraphrase one of the Bleeding Cool respondents, plenty of fans want to see hardnosed real man football, but they want to see it with NFL-quality players, not a bunch of 4th stringers and never-weres. Once it sinks in how dreadful the quality of the talent is, the buzz is going to go ice cold like it was doused in liquid helium, and no amount of crowing about there being no fair catch is going to reverse that.
(Footnote: I was going to compare McMahon to George W. Bush, but given how he’s putting a ton of his own money on this because he can, maybe Ross Perot is a better choice. Eh. Some overprivileged white guy.)
Vince usually has a few aces up his sleeve. One could say he learned from his mistakes. NFL viewership has been slipping, and one cause is the extra amount of officiating it takes to review every close call, which takes away from the action. Vince loves to thrive on controversy, and allowing referees’ words to be final would at least speed things along, and fan pushback could make for high drama. Vince loves teh drama.
Of course, the fans would first need to care about the players, and if Vince can’t produce enough name recognition, he’d have to allow some pretty drastic shit to happen for the talent to have some kind of notoriety. This goes beyond just letting the players choose their own names on their jerseys. “He Hate Me” Rod Smart is probably the only XFL vet whose name is still remembered.
Maybe Vince has some inside access to emerging technology that could see productive use, like he did with overhead cable cameras. XFL used that tech before the NFL and NCAA caught on, but it didn’t draw enough of an audience to last beyond one season.
Maybe he’ll make good on showing the cheerleaders naked in their locker room like he teased doing in the final XFL game. That turned out to be a dream sequence, much like his whole idea of competing with the NFL.
One good thing about this is that he’ll have less time to micromanage WWE, and HHH will be able to take charge.
“Hey guys, Vince won’t be back for a month! Someone give Cesaro a title run!” 
One mistake from which he learned: trying to play football outside of the fall. The new XFL (presumably called either the UFL or the URFL) will be a fall league.
Hmmm…URFL…United Rugby Football League? Maybe that’s Vince’s angle - he’s going to try to form a rugby league (maybe using “Rugby League” rules, which are closer to football, rather than the “Rugby Union” ones most people who watch/play rugby in the USA are familiar with) because he thinks that, eventually, there will be enough of a backlash by mothers keeping their sons out of youth/high school football out of fear of concussions that schools will replace it with Rugby League, which will be sold to the people as “a safer, and cheaper, version of football.”
One of the criticisms of the XFL was that he didn’t build up the league by starting in smaller markets. Vince and his dad made it big in wrestling by exploiting (and controlling) the huge markets in the northeast, he’s always got the desire to go after the biggest venues. He’d probably do better by financing and adding entertainment value to a secondary market league as you describe, concentrating his influence on the show instead of the game itself, much like you describe.
Yup, this is pretty much my view, too. A lot of fans are dissatisfied with certain aspects of the NFL, yes, but the NFL will still have the best players and coaches, by far. It seems really unlikely that the on-field product will be seen as anything other than substandard to NFL fans, and I just don’t see it generating enough fan support (and TV ratings) to be more than a short-term spectacle.
They would be lucky to get 4th stringers. Those guys will be on NFL practice squads or CFL.
Well, with my plan, it isn’t like there is a shortage of guys who played college football and didn’t make it to the pros. Or who keep getting cut because they’re at the edge of the skill requirements.
Certainly, and those are the players who currently fill the rosters of indoor football teams, fill the “non-Canadian” roster spots on CFL teams, are on NFL teams’ practice squads, etc. But, as you note, that’s unlikely to feel nearly “big league” enough for McMahon.
I don’t see any way that this can work. This is a very different era than during the first XFL. There’s far more football available to watch than there was back in 2001, the NFL is massively overexposed with Thurday night games, London games, Sunday night games and Monday night games. Plus, endless draft hype and coverage.
There are many reasons NFL interest is declining and it isn’t mainly due to anthem protests. People have access to just about any sporting event on the planet now, this isn’t the 3 channel universe where you had a choice between NFL football and an old western on TV Sunday afternoon. In addition to sports, you can stream almost any movie or tv show, why would someone take time to watch a bunch of players that are on the NFL bubble, at best.
There’s another issue I never see brought up. Even if there are fans who don’t like practices like instant replay or quarterbacks being coddled or touchdown celebrations being penalized, do they hate them so much that they’ll embrace any alternative, and, more importantly, devote their time and money to it? (The hype over “no fair catches” is a perfect example of this. Was there ever a massive groundswell of rage over not being able to take a cheap shot at a punt returner?) Some fans find them a little annoying but tolerable, some fans see them as unpleasant necessities, some fans realize that there are other voices besides theirs and nobody can get everything they want, some fans think they’re actually good ideas that just need a little tweaking, some fans have bigger concerns, and of course some fans can put up with anything as long as their team is winning. The percentage to see not being able to rub an interception in an opponent’s face with impunity as a COMPLETE DEALBREAKER is probably quite small.
I own an electric vehicle, a Mitsubishi Miev. Are there things I don’t like about it? Of course. The range is pretty limited, even small imperfections in the road shake it up very badly (something of an issue in Hawaii, as you may have heard), and replacement parts cost a lot. What I do like is that it’s quiet, it’s compact, it makes amazingly sharp turns, it doesn’t require an elaborate cooling system full of parts that fail all the time, it’s very economical to run, it tells me when I need to reinflate the tires, it requires almost no service, and it’s never shut down on my even once. If the car you’re trying to sell me can’t do all that, I’m not going to be impressed by “You won’t even feel those speed bumps!”
It could work if they do it right this time.
Entertainment wrestling is a show with a pre-decided outcome, with dramatic twists and turns to keep the audience interested. No one really believes it’s a true contest. The same model has been followed by most Reality-tv contest shows, where the rules can change arbitrarily, and it’s clear that the contests are fixed to maximise audience interest etc.
Now - imagine that in football. There’s some obvious ideas -
The Star Quarterback in deep conversation with the opposition GM at half-time - after which he comes out and thows 3 INTs. Cue opposition GM smiling and rubbing his hands.
The injured Linebacker (Oh Mah Gawd - he’s Dead!) who returns to the field and makes the winning tackle, spitting out teeth as he does.
(My Favorite) The glamorous, high-stepping Wide Receiver racing down the sideline to the endzone, when one of the opposition cheerleaders steps out and gives him a quick flash of her special pom poms. WR does the classic double take, head spins, eyes roll and he falls down.
No one is interested in a 4th-rate football competition. But a theatrical production based around football - yeah, I’d give it a try.
Update: New XFL set to launch in 2020 (found out from MovieBob…he really is the man! :)). A number of sites have already covered it; this one has an excellent synopsis. In short, the big pitch this time is that is that it’s no longer a rebel league. It’s going to be geared toward safety and family-friendliness (there won’t even be cheerleaders), all players are going to be required to stand up for the national anthem or be fired, and if a player has ever been arrested…not convicted, not pleaded no contest, simply been arrested, once, for anything…he can’t be a part of the league.
Man. You know what, if I still remember this nonsense two years from now, I’m definitely going to follow this, simply because it’s going to be damn gratifying to see Vincent Kennedy McMahon get the freezing cold shower of his life. If he thought the reception to the first XFL or the World Bodybuilding Federation was a big letdown, he ain’t seen NUTHIN’ yet. He’s going to learn that there just aren’t that many goddam fans who care that much about the national anthem, and the vast majority of the ones that do care are too busy spreading filth on Twitter to support fourth-rate football that promises to be even more tepid than the NFL. He’s going to learn that targeting Colin Kaepernick is a no-win situation…either Cap’s cause gains real traction and Mac’s a villain, or Cap fades into obscurity and Mac’s an idiot ranting about nothing. He’s going to learn that there are reasons mainstream sports have stopped marketing to dumb obnoxious Neanderthals who want to see others suffer horrible breakdowns they’re far to cowardly to ever risk themselves.
Better late than never, I guess.
(Footnote: I saw the video of him talking about the XFL on ESPN.com, and he sounded absolutely haggard. Given his enormous wealth and how he’s not suffered a major setback in his career since…well, ever, to be honest…I’m baffled as to why he didn’t just take his money, walk away, and do stuff he enjoys at least fifteen years ago. Seriously, why does a man who’s done nothing but win, win, win give a rip about anything?)