DANTE LASTING
Sports Editor
From Xtra Fun League to innovations for the game of football, the XFL seems to have changed its image and has so far received positive reviews.
The XFL was originally founded in 2001 by Vince McMahon and Dick Ebersol. McMahon is the CEO of WWE and Ebersol a senior executive at NBC. The XFL was an effort to try and combine the game of football with the WWE. The games relied on tacky gimmicks, violence and sex appeal to try to attract viewers to what was a new concept of football after February.
The league folded after one miserable season with player injuries at an all-time high and team bad names like the hitmen, enforcers, rage, outlaws and demons. McMahon and partner NBC both lost $35 million dollars because of the epic failure that the league was.
NBC sportscaster Bob Costas said in 2001 that the league was a combination of mediocre high school football and a tawdry strip club. Many documentaries were made on this odd attempt at spring football since it folded in April 2001, and they shed light on many problems the league had. This bad attempt of football past the NFL season showed America that the NFL owned football and no one could come close to taking that away.
There were really no successful attempts to bring pro football to viewers in the US from 2001 to 2019. That was until Ebersol’s son Charlie decided to start a league of his own. It was announced in 2018 that the Alliance of American Football would play games a week after the Super Bowl LIII in February. There would be eight teams that would play a 10 week season. With many problems throughout the season between viewership, funding and not being able to build a connection with the NFL, the league folded after eight weeks of play. The quick folding and eventual bankruptcy of the league was in part to the owner of the Carolina Hurricanes and major AAF Investor Tom Dundon pulling out his investment. He pulled out his funding because of the AAF, NFL and NFLPA not being able to come to an agreement on player sharing. A smart move by the NFL because of injuries and other reasons, but it killed off the AAF before it could even complete a season.
[RELATED: Could experimental AAF league be a game changer for the NFL?]
It seems that past mistakes by the XFL and the AAF have paved the way for the newest attempt at spring football and that is the XFL. Yes, it is the same name and is still run and owned by Vince McMahon, but this time he is doing things differently and the league has a better chance to succeed than its predecessors.
The redesigned and reimagined XFL has left all its gimmicks behind and the league is better for it. After two weeks of play, it seems they might have come up with a solution to bring pro football into the spring.
The league’s motto is “For the love of football,” and they are trying to put the fans first to give them the best experience they can. The XFL has come up with some new and exciting rules to try and make the game of football more exciting and faster with “less stall and more ball.” These phrases coming from the commissioner of the league, Oliver Luck, father of former NFL quarterback Andrew Luck. Some new rules involved the kickoff, overtime rules, clock changes, the Points After Touchdown and even the ball has a new look. This new XFL, although just getting started, is shedding some light on some former NFL players, coaches and assistants all trying to make it back in the league. It is also giving a shot to some players who have never played pro football and gives them a chance to achieve their dreams.
While the league is only two weeks through its first season, initial thoughts are that it will complete a full season and could have the potential to continue playing games over the next couple of years.
For highlights, final scores, rule explanation, videos and a lot more on the XFL visit https://www.xfl.com/en-US/about.