Posted on 12/24/2017 6:41:41 PM PST by blam
This. Is. The. XFL! Again?
It's starting to look like Vince McMahon is going to attempt to revive his radical football league and NFL rival the XFL.
The failed league, which played its first and only season in 2001, originally attempted to compete with the NFL by branding itself as "REAL FOOTBALL," with fewer rules, harder hits, and no fair catches. Now, evidence is building that McMahon believes the time is right for the league to make a comeback.
Talk of an XFL revival started recently when Brad Shepard reported that McMahon was considering a revival of the league and was aiming to make an announcement in late January. A WWE spokesperson told Deadspin's David Bixenspan that McMahon "has established and is personally funding a separate entity from WWE, Alpha Entertainment, to explore investment opportunities across the sports and entertainment landscape, including professional football."
It didn't sound like a denial.
Bixenspan also found a number of trademarks that seemed to suggest McMahon's interest in bringing the league back Alpha Entertainment registered both "URFL" and "UrFL" back in September, and VKM Ventures LLC, a company bearing McMahon's initials, filed to trademark "For the Love of Football" and "United Football League" at a similar time.
On Thursday, ESPN's Darren Rovell reported that McMahon had sold $100 million worth of WWE stock, and that the filing noted that the sale was "primarily to fund a separate entity from the Company, Alpha Entertainment LLC."
Considering all of the evidence, it looks like McMahon is serious about giving professional football another try, and it's not hard to imagine his reasoning.
The NFL's television ratings are down, and thanks to a slew of injuries to star players, the on-the-field product is not as good as it has been in recent years.
(snip)
(Excerpt) Read more at businessinsider.com ...
I agree, the XFL chances have come and gone.
Now, if Vince was smart....he’d go and introduce Rugby to the American public, with glamor and hype pumped into it....which he is an expert.
Finance it through their own Draftkings type FF.
Much better than any college team.
Hartford might get a team...hope he does...
Starting a competing, serious pro football league is a great idea. Reviving the XFL and all the nonsense that went along with it isn’t.
Or Australian rules football. Part rugby, part American football, part bar fight.
Sometimes the threat is greater than the thing itself. If there is a legitimate threat of competition with the NFL, then it could bring about needed changes. Then again, we are talking about the NFL.
I imagine that prompted a Lombardi rant of galactic proportions!
I’ll watch it unless it’s some sort of Pay-Per-View scheme.
Then, I won’t.
Wait wait wait wait wait! I see no commitment from McMahon that he will demand respect for the National Anthem and the Stars and Stripes by the staffs and players. At what point would I want to watch a doofus leauge of potential orthopedic casualties and brain-damaged football players who are going to do the same thing the NFL is doing?
Kickoffs and punts.no fair catches? - BenLurkin
Im not impressed with that change, and IMHO they should keep the rules requiring facemasks - which only date back to 1960 or so, but are de rigeur for avoiding (inobviously, but . . .) spinal cord injuries.Otherwise, to make the roughness of the game less limited you would go back to immediate post-WWII rules. Meaning, for one thing, that you had to stop a runner, not just touch him before his knee hits the ground. I was very young then, and could not tell you precisely how the rule was enforced - but I know runners would crawl forward even after being tackled.
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