Undercover_Man

Hey there,
So, does anyone here remember the XFL? I got my dad to buy tickets for all the one's coming to Memphis. I think that was about 4 or 5 games. We only went to 2 . Still have the other unused tickets. I kinda liked it. Damn hot cheerleaders.

I wonder why it didn't survive. Why do you think it didn't last? Of all the money Vince had it's not as if the game was underfunded or anything. He had the $$$ to do it. It didn't compete with NFL. Was it the rules of the game that people didn't like? Not enough games? Bad television recordings? He should have done something easier like baseball or something. Not sure how Xtreme baseball could be tho. No sexay cheerleader in baseball so that sux.

Anyone want to make any comments on the XFL? I liked it while it lasted.

- Undercover_Man

zenmaster10665

It didnt last because Vince underestimated the potential to make it a proper sport rather than a laughing-stock wannabe WWF entertainment enterprise.

Bad business decision on his part...I thought he had a bit more sense than that at the time and was surprised that he went down the route of making it trashy.

He had the audience, but the f*ed it up.

(just my 2cents)

__________________
"Beware of the man who works hard to learn something, learns it, and finds himself no wiser than before.
He is full of murderous resentment of people who are ignorant without having come by their ignorance the hard way."
-Kurt Vonnegut

CityOfAngels

Not to mention that all of the XFL players were just NFL rejects. Although I did enjoy how they had each team designate a runner to grab the ball at the beginning of each game, rather than a boring coin-toss. That was pretty cool.

He-Hate-Me, just the name itself, is what killed it for me. I-Hate-He-Hate-Me.

__________________
The words "love" and "life" go together. It is almost as if they are one. You must love to live, and you must live to love, or you have never lived nor loved at all.

BonesCPA

Don't forget, He Hate Me is now playing in the NFL. (I guess he really didn't hate him.)

I had a client who played in the XFL. He was a former NFL'er who played part of three seasons, and when he played in the XFL, he ended being a third stringer there. Kinda sad. (Oh, and his wife left him just before the XFL - whole other story.)

__________________
Back into hibernation.

Redlemon

Rod Smart, now with the Panthers.

I tried watching the XFL, but it was aiming too hard for 'entertainment' instead of 'sports'.

Harry Cox

It was only a few years ago, how could we forget? Does anyone remember the USFL?

Averett

I thought the opposite. I checked one game out on NBC, and it was too much like football. Yes, I know it WAS football, but for it to have been successful, it should have been more wrestling. Wrestling with some football thrown in. That's what would have kept the audience that McMahon had from his WWF(E? oh who cares) coming. But it was too much like legit NFL. That's what made it fail.

But what do I know, I'm just a girl

__________________
Absence is to love what wind is to fire. It extinguishes the small, it enkindles the great.

Paradise Lost

Haha, that's the exact point my dad and I made, Averett, it's too much like football. We
were hoping for something like, if a guy makes a breakaway towards the endzone, somebody
comes rushing off the sidelines with a metal chairs and slams the runner over the head with
it. Or when, let's say a linebacker goes to tackle someone, he puts them in the Tombstone
slams them on the ground... that type of stuff, not just reject-football.

__________________
"Marino could do it."

Redlemon

Let's compromise. It wasn't sport enough for the NFL audience, and not entertainment enought for the WWF audience, and therefore it fell through the gap in the middle.

djtestudo

I think the problem was that based on the league name, team names, the fact that Vince McMahan was running it, etc., it was expected to be a fake football, "sports entertainment" thing. Once people realized that it was simply bad football, they ignored it.

The thing is that professional sports has become such a huge business that unless you are creating a niche for an existing sport (Arena football) or building a league for a new sport (MLS, MLL) you are almost guarenteed to fail.

I do love how the later XFL games got the lowest ratings for any television programs in network history, though.

__________________
"Final thought: I just rented Michael Moore's Bowling for Columbine. Frankly, it was the worst sports movie I've ever seen."
--Peter Schmuck, The (Baltimore) Sun

Undercover_Man

LOL!!! That would be so awesome. Someone needs to send a memo to Vince. I can see the comercial now: A big guy dressed as an XFL football lies dead in a black background. A few seconds pass and Vince comes running up with defibrillators in each hand and yells "CLEAR" and starts zappiong the football guy. Then the the footbal starts to move and gets back up and says w00t and runs off in excitement. Then they show a few seconds of highlights of the 1st season of XFL and a message saying "We're back!" or something like that.

Wow...my mind is being creative today. That would be fun to bring back the XFL and try football mixed in with wrestling. But don't I remember ppl saying in the begining things like "Oh it's just going to be football with wrestling. It won't be real football." and stuff like that. Seems like a fun idea to me

- Undercover_Man

Shpoop

as so many ppl have expressed, i expected nothing short of NFL:Blitz in real life...but when i saw it was just crappy real football, i ignored it. And i'm a member of the NFL audience...why do i need to watch two leagues of real football?

dbc

The players were bad and watching it on TV was boring. TV is where the money is.

gar1976

TV ratings dropped like a rock. People like watching football - as long as it wasn't bad football.

But considering these guys were, for the most part, washed up/never rans who didn't get much practice time in, is it a surprise noone wanted to watch?

I tried watching, but it was pretty painful. On a funny side note, though - the "behind the QB" cam that the NFL uses was first used in the XFL. They just waited a year after the XFL folded to not seem like they were stealing a nice idea.

__________________
Blistex, in regards to crappy games -

They made pong look like a story driven RPG with a dynamic campaign.

1slOwCD8

Yes i do remember the XFL. It was a bad memory, but yes i do remember. The cheerleaders were probably the only good part of it. If you start changing the rules of football, that is just wrong.

filtherton

I remember the governer of my state doing on-air commentary. That was good for a laugh.

Silverbrain

I remember watching it, and I loved the alternative to the coin toss, the extra cameras (sky cam anyone?) and much more on the field dialog, really got you involved in the game. High school level ball, unless its your high school or your childs high school, is really not worth watching to me and I guess the rest of people.

__________________
Over Thinking, Over Analyzing
Seperates the Body from the Mind - MJK

jobu

that was the best thing to come out of the xfl

Redlemon

Oh, and don't forget the microphones on the refs as they discussed if there was a penalty or not. That should be carried over to the NFL as well.