And this time the gimmick is there will be no gimmicks.
WWE founder and chairman Vince McMahon announced Thursday he is giving a professional football league another go.
It will be called the XFL, the same name of the league McMahon and NBC tried for one season in 2001, but it won’t rely on flashy cheerleaders and antics as its predecessor did, he said.
McMahon said he is the sole funding source for the league, which is slated to begin in January 2020. Its first season will have eight teams around the country playing a 10-week schedule. The initial outlay of money is expected to be around $100 million, the same amount of WWE stock McMahon sold last month and funneled into Alpha Entertainment, the company he founded for the project.
“I wanted to do this since the day we stopped the other one,” McMahon told ESPN in an exclusive interview. “A chance to do it with no partners, strictly funded by me, which would allow me to look in the mirror and say, ‘You were the one who screwed this up,’ or ‘You made this thing a success.'”
McMahon told reporters on Thursday afternoon that he has had no initial talks with media entities.
One mark of the new league, McMahon said, will be faster games. The ideal running time, he said, would be two hours.
As for the timing of the announcement, two years before the league’s debut, many might point to McMahon’s relationship with President Donald Trump, who this fall criticized the NFL for allowing its players to kneel and sit during the national anthem. McMahon said players in his league will not be given the forum to take a personal stance while on the playing field. McMahon’s wife, Linda, heads the Small Business Administration in Trump’s Cabinet.
Hey, everything else from 20-30 years ago is being rebooted, so why not the XFL? I can’t say I’d care – I didn’t watch the original version – but it will provide a few jobs, so that’s something. And for what it’s worth, I’m rooting for El Paso to get a team. Deadspin has more.
I’m looking forward to being entertained with pro-America content. Bring it on. Hopefully Houston will get a team without offering up taxpayers money….for a change.
So, what I’m seeing is, Vince thinks what America really needs is a pro sport that coddles cowardly racist white people.
By the way, how many people of color get to be “faces” in WWE? Hell, how many people of color get to be in WWE at all?
Kris:
I read the ESPN article, Kuff’s comments, and the only mention of race I found was….in your post.
From the article:
“People don’t want social and political issues coming into play when they are trying to be entertained,” McMahon said. “We want someone who wants to take a knee to do their version of that on their personal time.”
Are you saying that only cowardly racist white people would enjoy entertainment that is free from social and political statements?
Reading the ESPN article, it seems hiring by the XFL will be based on quality of the player, and that the player NOT have a criminal record or commit crimes while employed by the XFL. Are you impugning that is some kind of racist dog whistle for cowardly racist white people? Is that some kind of Jim Crow to eliminate players of color? What, exactly, are you saying?
Stormy Daniels,
I suspect Vince means “convicted” criminals will not be allowed in the XFL. But if you are an indicted, but never convicted, criminal like Vince (federal drug trafficking) then it will be all right.
Now as for race, I am sure you’ve never heard of racist white people dog whistle tactics anywhere in your political spectrum. Have you?
@Brad:
I don’t think you realize how hurtful intentional misgendering is to our GBLT allies. Perhaps these websites can help you.
https://www.glaad.org/
https://www.stopbullying.gov