Original CBS Sports story, but you can Google XFL for a ton more right now: https://www.cbssports.com/wwe/news/this-is-the-xfl-again-controversial-football-league-set-to-return-in-2020/
In the age of concussion protocol is the XFL model of even-more-dangerous football viable 20 years later?
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The return of Jim Druckenmiller!
I wish I had so much money I could throw this much away two different times.
Sidenote: I think Vince is one of the most gifable people ever...just google it, you will have endless laughs.
/r/gifsthatstarttoolate
I recognize that guy on the left from somewhere...
I had to google it but it turns out he was on that reality tv show, The Apprentice.
Sorry yall, but MaroonX2 is dead right about this.
I predict that it will be just as much of a cluster as the last attempt.
Man, the actual football in that league was just horrid. Even worse, the league knew it as well, and in lieu of trying to make the play better, they just went full bore pandering with gimmicks like "camera in the cheerleader's dressing room!" stunts. After fans realized that gimmick wasn't nearly what they thought it would be, they just tuned out.
And if you think this is going to be any different, they are already pandering with promoting it as the league where everyone stands to respect the flag. Its not going to be any different than the last time.
The ratings were off the charts for the first game and then plummeted after everyone realized the joke was on them for watching the garbage.
To be fair, I'm going to watch the first game again then not watch any more... again.
But what if it's fucking awesome?
I think the idea this time is that the teams/league would have more than a couple of months to pool talent, assemble rosters, and practice together... unlike the last time where the league was announced in Feb 2000, players drafted in Oct 2000, first game kicked off Feb 2001.
Building in more than 12 months lead time should improve logistics and the final product.
....and the current NFL CBA is up after the 2020 season. Gives the XFL 1 season to show some legitimacy and then it could capitalize in 2021 if there is a lockout.
IIRC, XFL had huge ratings first couple of weeks, which dropped drastically and limped the rest of the way to the championship when it was canned immediately afterwards.
It was everything I do not like about professional wrestling wrapped in a football uniform and I wholeheartedly believe that it will be the same this time around if it even happens.
The funny thing is, they can't even get wrestling right nowadays. More and more frequently you're seeing the non-ppv events with sparse crowds that force the venue to tarp off thousands of off-camera seats to hide it from the TV audience.
But yeah, good luck building a competitor to a hundreds of billions of dollars empire from scratch.
I would be much more excited if Jim Crockett Jr and Ron Fuller were uniting to bring us a pro football league.
via GIPHY
I was way to young to have any idea what the XFL was, so I guess my question is what was the state of the NFL the first go around? Given the state of the NFL today it feels like the best opportunity to go for a reboot ? I think some aspects will be able to be kept like the sprint for the football or no PATs/punts (Bad for the brand imo) but obviously a lot of the different cheerleader aspects would be cut given the climate of today. I think it is the best time and it could succeed, but it depends on what Vince wants to do, and he is known to not listen to anybody but Vince.
To many people got hurt from the "Sprint to the football". That will never happen again.
Yeah should have included /s looking back at it, probably better as a tongue in cheek comment like it was over the top violence and the Jeff Brohm interview can be painful to watch. I wonder if the NFL would use the violence against the XFL and if the XFL could come back with examples like the Tom Savage video from this past season.
The NFL was stronger then. NBC had been frozen out of the TV coverage of football. The issue that killed the XFL is that the quality of football is worse. Now the NFL is even more diluted and there is less interest in secondary leagues (at that time the Arena League was pretty hot and players sometimes made the NFL, etc.) Plus, every player eventually wants to play in the NFL. Lots of borderline NFL guys don't sign with secondary leagues like the CFL or Arena League because if the NFL comes calling, they can't get out of their contracts to go.
Feel free to correct me if I am wrong because this is going off memory and some innuendo, but a few years back, Macho Harris had kind of washed out but was still a borderline NFL guy. I had heard he was playing flag football in Northern Virginia instead of signing a CFL/AFL deal and sure enough the Redskins signed him.
Thus why you would have the league in the spring.
I'd argue the NFL has never been stronger. Its a league right now where the value of any individual franchise is over $2 billion each, meaning, at a minimum, the league as a whole is worth $64 billion. Ad revenue in Super Bowl LII alone is expected to near $400 million.
And really, what are the biggest issues we have with the NFL right now? Rules that err on player safety, diluted talent, players making 'political statements', etc? None of that will change in this new league. If you don't have the same kind of rulebook that you see in the NFL, you're not going to attract the kind of talent who would use the league to show themselves off to NFL teams. So either the talent won't be there, or the rules will still frustrate the fans who want it to go back to the glory days of the 1980s and NFL Films' snuff videos of guys getting crushed. And regarding the political movement, its already being widely rumored that, following the model of the WWE, the XFL is going to take a hardline conservative approach to their product to 'counter' the NFL. So they'll still be politics, it'll just be politics that don't make certain people feel uncomfortable.
And in the offhand chance that the XFL does something that helps it compete with the NFL, the NFL will quickly adopt it, and eliminate any advantage the new league has. The only way this will really ever work is if the XFL becomes a feeder, subservient league to the NFL, and even then it'll only be as successful as the AAA system for baseball.
Ratings have been pretty alarming.
Hard to make a clear assessment of financial strength given a lot of the shenanigans people say they are tuning out for weren't baked into the 2017 season ticket sales.
We'll learn more about just how "strong" the NFL is when season ticket sales come in next year to get a clear idea of just how many people have truly tuned out.
I don't know how frequently ad-contracts are redrawn, but if that's an annual thing as well, I would imagine the NFL could see a significant revenue hit there as well given that ad prices are pretty strongly related to viewer statistics.
As in all things, I like to wait for all the data to come in before I make any judgments.
A new XFL would be stupid to ignore the things that fans are looking for.
And even if it's a spectacular failure... at least it'll be spectacular.
To me, the NFL on the field product is at a nadir. Nobody has depth, so teams have such obvious flaws that it cripples fundamental execution or creates ridiculous match up issues. It makes for a very poor product.
Free agency (which I am an advocate for) coupled with the salary cap (which I vehemently oppose) have turned the league into boring no name blah. The same thing is slowly happening in the NHL, except the NHL does a slightly better job of marketing their stars (and the stars usually can stick around a little longer, where only QBs have marketable longevity in the NFL.)
I think I said this in another thread. The best thing the NFL does is post classic complete games on the Youtube channel. On some of these nasty winter days, sitting back and watching my Bills beat the Raiders in the playoffs on an icy day with Dick Enberg calling the game is a great time machine. And man, Thurman Thomas was so frig-gen good.
I know when Andrew Miller was in Arena for a year or two, in his contract was basically a written agreement whenever a team came calling he was free to go, but that team still had his rights if it didn't pan out.
JR Collins and David Wang were on the DC team's roster last summer.
Apparently Vince will be teaming up with the NFL to make the XFL more of a minor league system for the NFL. We'll see what happens. I think they will learn from their mistakes from the first try. Hell the NFL took somethings from the XFL, like the skycam.
That still won't make it successful IMO. The NBA has the G league where kids can go instead of college and it is the minor league of the NBA but the best kids still go to college. I see the same thing in the NFL, the best kids will still go to the Best colleges and the minor league will be hurting for talent and viewership.
Maybe so, but the NFL has a three-year requirement, vs the one-year requirement for the NBA. That might cause more football players to go XFL out of high school. That, and the fact that college basketball players are paid more than college football players, makes me think that they might be able to make a go out of being an NFL D-league.
Only slightly /s.
They need to get paid something at least as well or better then what the bag guys pay down in the SEC...
College Football is the NFL's minor league. (Although its better)
Vince Hate Me
#VINCEHEHATEME
I hope we get a jersey just as iconic
What they need to do (all other details to be determined), is have a BELT just like they do in wrestling. And the teams play for the BELT. There is not championship game, just every couple of weeks or so there is another match for the BELT.
Then they can figure out the rest.
call it the Super Belt lol
We need President Dwayne Elizondo Mountain Dew Herbert Camacho to award the BELT to the winners.
There's already a BELT for college football. Too bad they stopped updating it last year. It appears after Clemson beat Alabama in the CFP last year, it stayed with Clemson, passing to Syracuse, then to Miami the next week, who held it for a few weeks before handing it to Pitt, who currently wears it.
Pitt. Ugh.
(Psst...we held it through two successful defenses in 2011.)
http://collegefootballbelt.com/Seasons.htm
If they want to shake it up, allow anyone out of high school play. Any fab freshman or high school stud can get paid until they are eligible for the NFL. Not saying it will be good for the kids, but it would certainly add some interest.
I do think this is part of the plan. I think collegiate football is to big for all the best players to leave. Unless they actually pay their players well, which I doubt will happen.
He Hate me!!!!
Can you Smell what the Rock is cooking?
"Tonight, on the XFL! The Roanoke Valley Rebels take on the Macon Whoopee!"
FYI, there really was a Macon Whoopee at one time...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macon_Whoopee_(CHL)
XFL to return as a "gimmick-free" league
Its funny that, while saying he's trying to not make any social or political statements, these rules he's putting into place are doing that for him.
Aaaaaanyway... It appears he's going to be the czar of the XFL. Owner of all teams, commissioner of the league, and the one who will dole out punishments for violations. It does bring into question, knowing his background in the WWE and selling that wrestling as real for as long as he did, how legitimate the games will be when he is the sole owner of it all.
Wait, punishments? violations? What the fk kind of candy-ass league is he starting up here with rules and shit?
We'll know if they're legitimate if Vegas puts out any lines on them.
No Manziel? I had him and Baker Mayfield pegged to be the starting QBs in the 2020 Million Dollar Game.
I'm ok with this as long as the punishments include things like a Stone Cold Stunner from Steve Austin, a Rock Bottom from The Rock, and the Worm from Scotty2Hotty.
The Worm is one of my all-time favorite finishers. Absolutely devastating.
Funny, Vince makes money over political things all the time. The Iron Shek vs. St. Slaughter, more recently Russev vs. John Cena.
So stating as a rule: "No social or political commentary on company time" is itself a social and political statement and in violation of the rule? That's an enormous brush you're using there.
With it we could fairly say TKP missed the mark badly when they put in the rule against political comments.
That's sort of like saying any sign stating "Post No Bills" is itself a violation of the rule and therefore hypocritical.
Now granted, it can lead to good fun, but at the end of the day, the owner gets a say in how his or her fence is used, or in how his or her company is represented by employees, particularly if some activity can be detrimental to the bottom line.
On its face, no... But when your policy is that you must follow certain policies, that in and of itself is political. For example, if, and it's widely assumed this will be the case given things Vince has said recently, you make a policy that all players must stand for the anthem, given the reason the NFL players are doing so, you are making the political statement you don't agree with such things as the Black Lives Matter movement.
Everything is political. Censorship is political. Abstaining is political. By saying you are banning politics, all you're saying is that your banning any political leaning comments that you don't necessarily agree with.
Look, this is just again a very broad brush. You are divining intent that may or may not be true, and almost certainly isn't wholly true. Logically you can't take someone's disagreement with a tactic used by a group and then throw a blanket intellectual, moral or political indictment at them.
That is as broad and likely incorrect a judgment as claiming players kneeling for the Anthem hate veterans.
It does everyone little good to try to divine intent. Certainly it makes it easier to argue when you get to say what other people mean by indirect words or actions.
Certainly that is the soundbite world we live in.
But it's not terribly conducive to comity and civil discourse.
Divining of intent?
Seriously, context is a thing that exists. If you can't see the context in which Vince McMahon is stressing this "no opinion" opinion, you just aren't paying attention.
My 4 year old could figure out the intent behind the statements and timing of them and who it is meant to appeal towards.
I will leave it at that, but I don't think its so much "broad brush"ing it as much as it is a simple, objective analysis of the reality of the situation.
So now I know who I'm not watching.
God forbid an employee has to obey his employer's rules
OH! But the names!!! The names!!!!
I just googled the lyrics in your signature and I am very excited to listen to the song when I get off work. I cannot even imagine how
sounds when sung, but I look forward to finding out.
Fun Fact: The vocalist on that track is the singer from the Butthole Surfers. They released a version of that song called "Some Dispute Over T-Shirt Sales". It is a bit easier to understand what he is saying in their version and some of the lyrics are different. Even though the Ministry version was released first, it is suspected that the Butthole Surfers played their version live first.
As a football fan who is done with the garbage product the NFL puts on the field, I say bring on the XFL!
Wait, you think the XFL will have a better product ON THE FIELD than the NFL?
8 teams, targeting NFL infrastructure, not necessarily opposed to NFL cities, like the last run:
Orlando would be at the top of the list.
Las Vegas is getting the Raiders, curious if they go there
San Diego
St Louis
NYC/NJ
Utah/Colorado, either is a strong growing market
LA
New England - based solely on Kraft/McMahon/Trump relationship
other options:
Texas, somewhere, anywhere
Nashville
Atlanta
Ohio
Detroit
Indianapolis
Virginia Beach (needs stadium, now that basketball arena fell through)
With McMahon/Trump relationship, I'm expecting politics in this, Trump probably supports this, as he's not fond of the NFL after his own attempts at owning a team, he'll probably make an appearance or two, and have some money in the game.
I'd say you need a city with a decently-sized stadium that doesn't already have an NFL team. That would mean Vegas, NYC, LA, Colorado, Atlanta, Nashville, Detroit and Indy might not be ideal. The first places I'd expect them to look include former NFL cities (St Louis, Oakland/San Jose or San Diego) and markets that currently house MLS teams/stadiums. (Columbus, Utah, Orlando, and Portland could work) You probably want to be in Texas, but want to stay out of Houston and Dallas (too much competition from the NFL for fan attention and loyalty), so San Antonio could be a good location. And since you can't exclude the northeast entirely, maybe you put a team in New Jersey?
So that gives you a Western Division of Portland, Utah, Somewhere in Cali, and San Antonio and an Eastern Division of Columbus, St Louis, Orlando and New Jersey. That could work.
Gonna be a winter league so will have to be warm climate or dome.
Starting the season in February shouldn't lead to significantly more weather issues than the NFL has in the December-January portion of their season. They had teams in Chicago and NY/NJ last go round at the same time frame.
If you look at the attendance from the first iteration of XFL, San Francisco had by far the best average attendance. So I'd say the Bay Area is essentially guaranteed a team between that and the Raiders leaving town. Orlando had solid attendance in 3rd place (25,500) so that seems like a good bet as well. I was somewhat surprised to see NY/NJ in 2nd and it's hard not to notice the smallest market teams (Memphis, Birmingham) came in 6th and 7th in attendance. Chicago really struggled (15,700) so I don't think they'll try there again. Regardless it'll be interesting to see what happens this time.
Came here for the Vince McMahon gifs. Was not disappointed. Well played, all my Hokies
No criminal records and no political statements, call me intrigued
Call me crazy, but I think this idea can work. The two biggest flaws with the old XFL were the WWE-ification of football and the crazy rush to get the league started with approximately zero preparation. You can use a lot of unsavory adjectives to describe McMahon, but I don't think stupid is one of them. I suspect he'll learn from those mistakes and put a better product on the field this go-round. I do worry that the "no political statements" promise is just pandering and could easily get out of hand. I'm curious as to how that will be enforced. I do like the win more, earn more idea they're talking about.
If done right, this could serve as a quasi-minor league for the NFL. If they avoid the NFL's "three years removed from high school" eligibility rule, they could attract some very talented players and alleviate some of the amateurism concerns that are plaguing the NCAA right now as well as benefitting players who have the talent to play professionally but lack the ability or interest in going to college for three years first.
If the XFL removes the '3 years removed from high school' rule and is a legit option it could really throw a wrench in the NCAA as well. Let's just say they institute a "guaranteed six-figure contract" for top 100 high school players. If I am a top high school recruit, I could either go to college for 3 years and have to attend class, or go directly to the XFL and make $100k+ a year plus endorsements. I think this could be the XFL's most attractive selling point and it would be very interesting to see what the NCAA would do if some of the top recruits started going this route.
I prefer baseball
I hope its scripted like the WWE and in arenas instead of outdoors.