The Longest Yard
April 27, 2007
Yeah, I’ll admit it: I’m one of the few people in the United States who actually liked the XFL.
When World Wrestling Entertainment CEO Vincent K. McMahon announced the formation of the league in February 2000, I actually thought he had a better-than-average chance for success. McMahon had turned his primary business into a multimillion-dollar sports and entertainment entity comparable to the NHL, NBA and NFL–and was just a year away from putting his prime competitor, World Championship Wrestling, out of business. While McMahon’s World Bodybuilding Federation was an early-1990s failure, I figured he’d learned from his mistakes, and that NBC (which actually co-owned the XFL) would help McMahon shape the new league into a second profitable entity.
The XFL debuted with much fanfare in early-February 2001, with unusual camera angles and players who wore nicknames on their jerseys (who could ever forget Rod "He Hate Me" Smart?) Unfortunately, by the middle of the month it became obvious that the league wouldn’t last. One Saturday-night game went into double-overtime, forcing a nearly one-hour delay of a highly anticipated episode of Saturday Night Live featuring Jennifer Lopez. The presence of Jesse Ventura as a broadcaster annoyed the sports press, which viewed the league as a bizarre wrestling/football hybrid. McMahon’s attempts to appeal to a wrestling audience by having The Rock and The Undertaker appear in pre-taped segments to promote the league were also met with derision. In addition, many of the football games were far below NFL quality in terms of athleticism.
After the XFL’s championship game in April 2001, NBC announced that it would not air a second season, essentially dooming the league. McMahon planned to continue running games on UPN and Spike TV, but he soon realized that those plans weren’t feasible, and officially pulled the plug on the league in May. Both McMahon and the NBC were said to have lost millions of dollars on the project.
The XFL’s legacy isn’t entirely negative; several former players (most notably Tommy Maddox) eventually became central figures in the 2000s NFL. However, the XFL is still regarded today as "McMahon’s folly." If someone else had co-promoted the XFL, would the league have received nearly as much negative attention?
If the quality of play had been just as poor under another owner as it was under McMahon, the XFL still would have received criticism. However, some of the scorn directed towards the league clearly stemmed from sportswriters’ loathing of McMahon, who was always viewed by the Fourth Estate as a carnival barker who got lucky. An XFL featuring high-quality play–and not associated with McMahon in any capacity–would have received a fairer trial in the court of media opinion.
What would have happened if McMahon’s XFL had actually succeeded? Would the sports press have given him grudging praise, or simply labeled him a sleazy media maven with an excess supply of Irish luck? It’s a question whose answer we’ll never know–because when he asked "Are you ready for some football?", plenty of folks said "No!"
April 29th, 2007 at 6:48 pm
The XFL was nothing more than a cartoon. There was way too much blending of it with WWE product and as such, no one could take it seriously. And the NFL is so good at marketing their product that it is next to impossible to put up a competing league, especially after the last TV rights deal that essentially locked up Fox, NBC, CBS, and ABC (through its sister entity ESPN) from even considering another football league. Arena Football exists because the NFL allows it.