Return of the XFL

For 17 years Vince's ego hasn't got over his biggest failure and his head is that big he thinks he can re-create it all again

It will fail miserably again. Vince is only successful at bullying and wiping out any trace of competition which won't obviously happen in American Football

I'm very surprised the WWE share price has remained more or less intact at this news. For those who don't know, Vince is a complete micro-managing freak who oversees every aspect of WWE. But the shareholders nonetheless put their faith in him - they faked his death some years ago (on screen, as part of a storyline) and the share price fell; he threatened to sell the company some years ago (again, part of a storyline, I think) and the price again fell. The original term of the XFL not only lost a tonne of money from WWE coffers, it also split Vince's time with WWE in half, and completely burned him out. He's already a 72-year-old workaholic who is pumped up to the gills with lord-knows-what PEDs, and he takes on a proven failure of an enterprise on top of his existing insane schedule? Madness.

There's a market for "real football" in the states.
I was watching a youtube video about the greatest superbowl QBS and the throw and pass they used for at least 1 qb would not have been a catch today. There's too much DPI called today, too much holding, and too much personal foul calls.

If they strip it back to real unadulterated football there will be a market for it. I only started really watching in the late 90's/early 00's and the game has changed so much since then, I can only imagine what someone watching from the 70s-80s would think.

Guffy wrote:

Why?

Because this is about making money, no love for football from the owner.

Ugh...this again? Didn't they try it again last year?

ReginaldSmythV wrote: »

No. XFL was always planned for 2020.

I was being sarcastic. This is ****e and nobody is going to care.

Edit: rereading this it sounded a lot more prickish and standoffish than it was meant to. I just remember last year thinking that the Alliance league wasn't just crap, it was another attempt, in a long line of them, including the XFL before, that failed catastrophically.

It just seems to me that people are convinced that because of the spectacular popularity of the NFL that there simply MUST be a market for a lower league. And so each time someone tries it, they convince themselves that they just need to tweak some elements of the idea in order to make it pay off. But to me the repeated failures tell us that the basic premise is what's wrong: there isn't a market for it, nobody is interested in watching guys they know are castoffs and nearly-men, except maybe NFL scouts looking for the offchance that they might find a diamond in the rough. It might work as an NFL farm league if they were able to run it on a lower level, with lower profile and attendant costs, like baseball minor leagues, but that is by definition something that is only watched locally. So yeah, I think this will flop, better TV deal or not.

DC United had an Open House Saturday and had the posts up for the XFL debut. Also have put in safe standing which is great to see and safer for the fans than the previous bleachers!

I just hope they come up with good ideas that the nfl robs when it folds again, just like last time. Interviews on pitch, spider cam etc

lertsnim wrote: »

BT Sport are showing two live games on Saturday.

Im being lazy, what times are they on?

It's actually fun. The kickoffs are so much better than the NFL. Hopefully that is something they adopt at some point but Goodell might not want to admit they thought of something better than his league

Coaches mic'd up is also really nice. We can hear immediately if they are planning to go for it on 4th/kick fg/punt.