Shining a Spotlight 2.10.11t: The XFL

It’s interesting how it’s timed, however. Because this huge event of the sporting world reminds me of the fact that it’s been ten years since the last attempt to prove the NFL wasn’t the only football game in town. An experiment that has now gained the reputation as one of the single greatest debacles in the history of both sports and television, one that still has wrestling fans rolling their eyes at how it all came about:

The XFL.

The very mention of the name still causes derision and jokes and discussion of how such an incredibly bad idea could ever come into being. Yet, in the decade since its short-lived debut, the XFL’s reputation has overwhelmed some of the initial feelings and observations of the league when it originally aired. Don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t that great but it did have potential. Sadly, that potential was never fully realized due to a variety of factors….not the least of which was the man in charge of it all and how his all-too-public pushing of the league ended up undoing his own creation.

The League

The story of the XFL has been well-detailed, most notably in the great book Long Bomb so this won’t be really in-depth look but more about the general feeling of the time. It’s easy to dismiss it now but you have to remember the times. The NFL in 2000 was in a down cycle, ratings were low and lots of criticisms on how dull the game was. The Patriots was a total joke, the Super Bowl was often a lopsided affair and broadcasting these games wasn’t much better. Back then, ESPN hadn’t quite gone into the ultra-hype we know today and the once venerable Monday Night Football had fallen into ratings so low, ABC hired Dennis Miller as a commentator. That proved a disaster as Miller’s snide voice and penchant for dropping little-known historical or cultural facts left viewers more puzzled than enthralled. So the timing seemed right for a new take on football to grab viewers.

New leagues had been tried before. The infamous World Football League had a single season with much promise only to fall apart with horrible finances. The United States Football League actually did some good business in the mid-80’s but as a recent ESPN documentary showed, it came apart when some owners (particularly Donald Trump) made the mistake of reaching too far too soon. And while it never got major press, Arena Football is still around with a passionate fan base. But to throw on another league, in under a year, in eight cities with a major TV network deal was something else altogether. Indeed, a common statement has been that maybe if Vince had spent another year or two in preparation things might have gone better.

But in 2000, new ventures were abounding. The dot com bubble was at an all-time high, convincing people that pretty much any website could gain huge dividends. Of course, these investors overlooked the fact that every bubble bursts and when it did, the effects would be huge. Yet in this time, before the controversial 2000 election and 9/11, America seemed a time when anyone could achieve anything and taking a daring chance was worth the risk. And if there was one thing Vince McMahon knew about, it was taking risks that paid off. He’d done it with WrestleMania, with PPV and more so he had reason to believe he could do just about anything.

As 1999 drew to a close, WWF was at an all-time high with massive ratings and merchandise sales, a huge mainstream presence and crushing WCW on a regular basis. They had a thriving website, their own Times Square restaurant and sales of their stocks were at a brisk pace. So Vince was cocky as hell but had good reason to be. As with all men flushed on success, Vince no doubt felt he could do just about anything and have it work out. McMahon himself has acknowledged his ego and harshness but has also said “wrestling’s a rotten business and you have to be a rotten guy to survive in it.” That mix, the massive ego and a passion to prove himself the best, had managed to put Vince on top of the wrestling world but such things don’t always lead to success in other areas. But, like many a proud CEO before and after him, Vince refused to see any possible problems, just the massive payday awaiting his chance.

It wasn’t just the money that drove Vince, however. For a man who built his company on the lowest common denominator of the public and still panders to that today, Vince has always had this need to feel accepted by his critics. It’s fascinating, really, this man who does the most ridiculous stuff on television wanting to be seen as truly respectable and even admired by the same people he often rails about being against him. The XFL seemed the chance to do that, to give the sporting public a new way to enjoy football and prove that Vince could do more than just wrestling. With WWF riding so hot, it took little persuading for NBC to agree to the entire idea and so in early 2000, it was announced that the XFL would begin in exactly one year’s time with games on Saturday nights. That led to a big change as back then, the networks actually did original programming on Saturdays but NBC had to cancel their shows (including the popular Profiler and The Pretender, both of which ended on cliff-hangers). This shift, combined with the XFL’s eventual failure, pretty much began the transformation of Saturdays to rerun-filled wastelands.

But Vince had big promise for how this league would be hard-hitting. There would be no “fair catch” rule; instead of kick-offs, the game would begin with the teams fighting for the ball for the first possession; no extra point kicks; and overtimes would be like college, each team having a chance to score. McMahon also promised plenty of attitude with his infamous press conference on how football of the time pretty much sucked, it wanted it hard-hitting and in-your-face. The press conference was pure Vince McMahon, belligerent and show-boating and made sure that the XFL would be Vince’s creation, his spirit in every part of it.

And that’s why it was doomed to fail from the start.

The Reality

Vince McMahon hates to admit failure. It’s not surprisingly as very few CEO’s in his league want to do the same. He does take responsibility for things he does that are wrong but acknowledging total defeat is something else. So it’s no surprise that on the 2006 McMahon DVD, the XFL is painted as a noble experiment that was undone by lack of support. But at the same time, you have comments on how Vince pretty much ruined it from the start by binding it too much to WWF.

It did make sense to have the XFL promoted on WWF programming as Vince knew his fanbase and expected a lot of crossover appeal. That was to be expected. But having Jerry Lawler and Jesse Ventura as color commentators was something else. Lawler’s entire act of a goofball guy who lusts after ladies is okay for a wrestling ring but for football fans, it came off far too jokey and annoying. Ventura sounded just plain bored most of the time and for all his football experience, Dick Butkus wasn’t much better. More importantly, it was just one of many links to WWF, links that really shouldn’t have been there as it was just offering the sharper critics all the ammo they needed.

On that DVD, Joey Styles best summed up the problem: The very first thing people saw on the very first XFL game was the Rock doing an in-ring style promo on how huge this league was going to be. Then out came Vince, in his classic power walk and Mr. McMahon voice booming “This is the XFLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL!!!!” That was followed by numerous shots of the ultra-sexy cheerleaders who acted more like strippers amid so-so games. From the very start, Vince seemed to go out of his way to ensure that the XFL would fall on the worst opening possible. This was never presented as a serious football league, just a wild new venture by a man who loved the spectacle and attention and thus it’s no surprise the mainstream media reacted as it did.

Vince’s biggest mistake with the XFL was how he badly misjudged the media reaction, not just to the games but to himself. His overreliance on a reputation as a modern-day P.T. Barnum may have worked wonders in the world of wrestling but only made him look foolish for the media. Wrestling has always had to battle the perception of pandering to the least intelligent people; hell, it took so long to get wrestling books out because publishers thought fans couldn’t read. Vince may have made WWF a monster success but it was the same success as, say, a sleazy reality show producer or such. That was something he could never wrap his head around, that the media were never going to give the XFL a fair chance at first, they were ready to rip it to shreds and Vince just played right into their hands with the over-the-top presentation.

I do have to say that the media reaction could be a tad bit overblown (and keep in mind, this was before sports/entertainment news got so ridiculous) with how they handled the coverage of the league. My local paper, like many, didn’t even put the games under the sports section but in TV reviews. ESPN would barely cover any of the games and when they did, it was always with snide jokes and other comments. I’m not saying the games were really that good but some did offer some nice excitement and the players themselves were doing their best. Had it been most anyone else in charge, maybe it would have been perceived differently. But because it was Vince, the man behind the biggest wrestling company in the world, people thought the whole thing was an absolute joke. Indeed, a lot of folks assumed that, like wrestling, the games were all pre-determined, which they weren’t (in fact, probably would have helped if they were). That was the big reaction Vince hadn’t expected but he didn’t help matters at all with his actions.

It wasn’t just the presentation of the games, although that was a key reason. Vince’s attempts to “spice things up” with stuff like a hot tub in the end zone and going into the cheerleader’s locker room backfired and just played right into his critics’ hands. Worse was Vince’s attitude with NBC and the other sponsors. By his own admission, Vince has never been one to play well with others. When you spend twenty years as the boss of a company, the final word on every major decision, you naturally assume others will go along with what you want. So Vince made the mistake of throwing his weight around a lot with the network and others involved in the league and that just added to his reputation as a total asshole that couldn’t be trusted. Lorne Michaels got in on the act when one XFL game ran long and delayed a highly anticipated Jennifer Lopez-hosted Saturday Night Live by nearly an hour but Vince just brushed him off. It was at the height of all this that Vince had his infamous interview with Bob Costas where he played his character to the hilt, shouting at Costas about the media blasting WWF all the time and making Bobby Knight (who followed him as a guest) look the model of civility. Another highlight of the McMahon DVD is Stephanie moaning about watching it and worried Vince was going to hit Costas while HHH laughs “good thing he didn’t because Costas would have killed him.” The fact is, throwing a man of Vince’s mind-set into a rough operation like this was just a recipe for disaster. That really came up as the networks began balking at another year while Vince went into full-scale persecution/attack mode to ram it down their throats, something that they didn’t take well to.

I’ve always found it highly ironic that the XFL’s end was much like WCW’s. Despite all the bad press and low ratings, there was still some interest with UPN seemingly ready to take it full-time after NBC had decided to drop it. But when UPN decided to buy up Buffy the Vampire Slayer from the WB, they didn’t have the money for the XFL and it ended just as a new season was being prepped. It was a humbling experience to be sure and looking back, you can see it as a turning point for WWF as the Invasion would be added on to end what had been the boom time for the company. An ironic note is that for all the derision thrown at the XFL’s presentation, so many of their innovations (a sky-cam, miking players and some of the more in-your-face commentaries) have been used by the NFL since. Not to mention how quite a few NFL players have taken on wrestling-like personas. The reputation of it being a disaster remains but NBC would end up pulling more than a few other costly blunders over the years that have minimized the XFL a bit. As for Vince, he may have lost money but the guy still got a lot of press and for him, any publicity is a good thing and, as noted, the man today brushes the XFL aside as something worth trying. He overlooks the fact that he played no small part in the XFL never getting a good start and had he just taken less of a visible role rather than brand the WWF style to the league, it might have had a better shake from the public. But, as far too often happens with Vince, his belief that he knows best ended up shooting the promise in the foot, leaving behind something that would be more of a joke than the grand evolution he planned.

Summation

The XFL wasn’t pretty to look at. The games could be ugly and the presentation way too in-your-face and over the top. But it did have potential as there were fans behind it and teams in key markets. Had it been almost anyone else in charge, it would have been viewed as a real football league, like the USFL had been. But Vince McMahon was a different story as people were never going to give the XFL a chance because of the man’s reputation. They were ready to rip it up as being planned in advance or too ridiculous in the presentation. Unfortunately, Vince ended up playing into their hands with his style, believing that what worked for wrestling would work for this football league and only made the XFL’s public image worse. Maybe the XFL would have lasted longer had Vince taken a less visible role, maybe it wouldn’t have. But I do believe that the pro wrestling influence marred the entire product from the very start and Vince just made it worse. Its status as a massive debacle has eased a bit in the last few years given how both Vince and NBC have made some huge mistakes but it still annoys that something that had some potential ended up being marred by the very man who created it. Which, sadly, is something that’s all too common for wrestling history.