US sports 'No kneeling, no criminals': Vince McMahon announces return of XFL for 2020 WWE head announces revival of controversial league for 2020
McMahon promises faster games and no kneeling players
First iteration of XFL ceased operations after one season Vince McMahon speaks at the 2000 news conference to announce the launch of the XFL, which ceased operations after one season but is set for a surprise revival. Photograph: Ed Bailey/AP
Professional wrestling magnate Vince McMahon is resurrecting the XFL, his ill-fated professional football league that ceased operations after only one season in 2001.
McMahon, the chairman and chief executive of World Wrestling Entertainment, announced on Thursday that he is bringing back the much-maligned league. It was first conceived as an out-of-season competitor to the NFL nearly two decades ago.
The age of Trump seems like a better time than ever for an XFL revival Read more
The XFL will launch for 2020 with eight teams, 40-man active rosters and a 10-week regular-season schedule followed by playoffs, McMahon said. No cities or television partners were named.
McMahon, who funded the league through a new private entity called Alpha Entertainment, will continue in his current role with WWE.
The XFL first launched in 2001 as a joint venture between the World Wrestling Federeation – as WWE was previously known – and NBC. Promotion for the upstart league promised fewer rules and rougher play, even more scantily clad cheerleaders, cross-promotion with pro wrestling personalities and liberal use of emerging technologies including aerial cameras and player microphones.
The league debuted to massive ratings, but viewership plummeted rapidly as the novelty wore off and lackluster quality of play and a dependence on gimmicks became evident.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Vince McMahon is taking a second crack at professional football.
Unlike the original iteration, McMahon promised a “family-friendly” version of football with “simplified” rules designed to speed up the games to about two hours. He said players with criminal records will not be welcome.
Rumors of an XFL revival began swirling in December when it was revealed McMahon had created a new private entity called Alpha Entertainment that will “explore investment opportunities across the sports and entertainment landscapes, including professional football”. A number of the patents McMahon’s ventures have applied for include “For the Love of Football”, “UFL”, and “United Football League”, which prompted observers to speculate on whether the opportunistic McMahon sensed a chance to capture NFL fans who have expressed disgruntlement over the ongoing player protests against social injustice.
“People don’t want social and political issues coming into play when they are trying to be entertained,” McMahon told ESPN. “We want someone who wants to take a knee to do their version of that on their personal time.”
McMahon’s wife, Linda, has served in Donald Trump’s cabinet at head of the federal small business administration since February.
As if 2017 was not crazy enough, 2018 has fired its opening salvo as the return of the XFL, a controversial football league originally founded by Vince McMahon in 1999, was officially announced on Thursday.
CBS Sports first reported the nature of the announcement earlier in the day and that the league is not planning to start up again until 2020. McMahon, who rushed the original XFL into existence without so much as a full slate of offseason practices to prepare for the league's inaugural year, said he learned his lesson from one of the XFL's biggest initial mistakes.
"The new XFL is an exciting opportunity to reimagine America's favorite sport," said McMahon in a statement. "As we move towards kickoff, we look forward to listening and implementing innovative ideas from players, coaches, medical experts, technology executives, the media and most importantly football fans."
There had been unsubstantiated talk about the XFL making a return late in 2017, but Brad Shepard first reported in mid-December that McMahon, WWE's chairman, was planning to make such an announcement on Jan. 25.
WWE clarified at that time of the initial reports that it was not going back into the football business but McMahon will rather be doing so on his own. McMahon, who will continue in his role as chairman and CEO of WWE, has created Alpha Entertainment separate from WWE and recently sold 3.34 million shares of WWE stock (about $100 million worth) in order to help fund the company. Alpha Entertainment also acquired five XFL trademarks that WWE abandoned between 2002 and 2005.
McMahon confirmed Thursday that he would solely fund the venture with the aforementioned $100 million. Furthermore, the new XFL will not have any attachment to WWE financially or otherwise, unlike the previous incarnation of the league which featured WWE superstars promoting the product and even WWE announcers calling the action.
The company released this mission statement following the announcement.
This is the future. This is not the past. This is the future. And the future moves fast. This is quicker, simpler. Rules, reformed. This is your game safer. This is football reborn. This is gaming and fantasy, this is padded roulette. Make a trade, make a team, make a move, make a bet. This is fans above all. This is maximum action. Less stall more ball. Fewer infractions. This begins in 2020. The future is near. More access. More everyone. More everything here. This is our moment, our story to tell. This is history begun. This is the XFL.
Though details were scarce, McMahon confirmed the XFL would be a single-entity structure consisting of eight league-owned teams in cities that have not yet been determined. He does not plan to play a front-and-center role with the league as a figurehead or otherwise. Current plans account for a 10-game regular season beginning in late January or early February followed by a postseason consisting of two semifinal games and a championship game. Active rosters will consist of approximately 40 players with winning incentivized.
Furthermore, he wants games to be sped up and played perhaps in as quick as two hours. "Sitting and watching a three, three-and-a-half hour game is laborious sometimes," McMahon said, a statement that surely made WWE fans that have to sit through a three-hour Monday Night Raw each week smile.
McMahon also made it clear he does not want any political affiliation or social controversy to surround the league, which he said will have rules put in place that everyone must abide by. He wants fan input and integration to be a major part of developing the league over the next two years, from rules and team locations to everything in between.
The original incarnation of the XFL was a joint venture between WWE (then-WWF) and NBC with McMahon and former NBC executive Dick Ebersol spearheading the project. ESPN produced a fantastic "30 for 30" documentary on the successes and failures of the XFL that is a must-watch for any sports fan, but the long and short of it is that the league attempted to do too much -- too extreme -- too fast. NBC got uncomfortable, and once it pulled its support, McMahon's baby was dead in the water. (Ironically enough, the end of the doc features McMahon and Ebersol musing about whether the XFL would work today and lessons learned from the venture.)
I've long maintained that the XFL has actually received too much grief from those looking back on its failures years later. It had some ratings successes, the football improved drastically as the season went on (it was rushed into existence and teams did not get an opportunity to truly practice ahead of the season), and some of the game's innovations (sky cam) still used to this day were adopted by the NFL and other networks. The XFL failed in large part due to a confluence of misfortunes including technical difficulties, miscast announcers, changing the rules during the season, and McMahon's decision to go to the extreme by bringing adult themes into the game -- such as overtly sexualizing the cheerleaders.
The XFL of old would have been tough for any network to stomach in 2018 and beyond, which is why McMahon and Alpha Entertainment will take the new league in a family-friendly direction. Aside from the concept surrounding the cheerleaders, the old XFL placed a heavy emphasis on old-school, no-holds-barred football. Considering CTE concerns and increasing attention to other health risks players face, that's an obvious issue to centering a league around such an extreme brand of football. Back in the day, the XFL even trashed the opening coin toss for the "opening scramble," which featured players running and diving for a football at midfield. One player famously separated his shoulder on the first scramble of the season and missed the rest of the year.
McMahon promises toned-down version of the XFL more akin to the NFL and college football but with enough unique elements that will set it apart from the pack.
It will be instrumental for McMahon to find a broadcast partner from the get go, and it will be interesting to see if he went straight for a popular streaming service considering the success he's had with the WWE Network.
Vince McMahon is officially moving forward with plans to bring back the XFL, the pro football league he launched in 2001 which lasted for one season.
The WWE chairman and CEO made the announcement during a press conference on Thursday.
“The new XFL will kick off in 2020 and quite frankly, we’re going to give the game of football back to fans,” McMahon said. “It’s still football, but it’s football re-imagined.” McMahon also said the league would begin with eight teams, each with a 40-man roster. He added that there would be no crossover of WWE talent into the league and that he would not be the frontman of the new league as he was with the original. He went on to say that XFL games would have a faster pace and his goal was to get them to two hours.
When asked if the league would be distributed on broadcast or streaming, he said, “As we re-imagine the game, we re-imagine the way we distribute the game. It’s going to be a combination of any number of forms of presentation.” In addition, McMahon stated that the league would be a single entity and would not use the franchise model.
McMahon also fielded questions about whether or not President Donald Trump would be supportive of the league and if this was a reaction to the national anthem protests that have occurred during this NFL season. “As far as our league is concerned, it will have nothing to do with politics and nothing to do with social issues.”
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“There’s plenty of opportunities and plenty of ways that players, coaches, and members of the media can express themselves… but again we’re here to play football,” he continued.
Rumors of the league’s revival have been swirling for weeks after it was revealed that McMahon had sold approximately $100 million worth of WWE stock to fund a company known as Alpha Entertainment. Shortly thereafter, Alpha Entertainment filed paperwork to acquire multiple trademarks associated with the XFL.
In a statement issued in December, the WWE made it clear that the company is not getting back into the pro football business and that Alpha Entertainment is McMahon’s personal venture.
“Vince McMahon has established and is personally funding a separate entity from WWE, Alpha Entertainment, to explore investment opportunities across the sports and entertainment landscapes, including professional football,” the company said. “Mr. McMahon has nothing further to announce at this time.” Nevertheless, the announcement of the press conference was promoted across WWE’s social media channels. McMahon also stated during the press conference that he would continue to serve as chairman and CEO of WWE in addition to running the XFL.
The XFL was originally founded as a joint venture between NBC and the WWE and was comprised of eight teams. The rules differed from NFL football in several respects, including having no opening coin toss. Instead, a player from each team would line up on the 30 yard line and race toward the ball on the 50 yard line. The first player to get a hold of the ball would determine possession. This method infamously resulted in multiple injuries to players before the game had even begun. The league also standardized players’ pay, with bonuses given out to winning teams.
In the ESPN documentary “30 for 30: This Was the XFL,” which was released in early 2017, McMahon and former NBC executive Dick Ebersol reminisced about the league, even proposing bringing it back.
Charlie Ebersol, who directed the documentary, told Variety upon its release that it was entirely possible McMahon could bring the league back. “He’s a madman,” he said. “If Vince has put enough thought into it, I never question the validity, because you never know when he’s going to walk into the press room and announce that he’s doing it.”
The relaunch of the XFL also comes as ratings for NFL games are in decline. For the regular season, NFL games were down in the Nielsen ratings an average of 9 percent from last year. In addition, the viewership numbers for the recent AFC and NFC championship games was down approximately 8 percent from last year’s championship games. Still, the NFL games continue to be the highest-rated and most-watched programs on television.
