'Strip Club,' WWE Attitude, Innovation and Bad Timing: Evolution of XFL
With the UFL merger official and the March 30 opener rapidly approaching, the very different histories of two very different leagues are merging as well. And though its past may not be as extensive as the USFL’s, the XFL experienced plenty of drama in its short runs.
Good and bad, much of the league’s fate was determined by timing, starting with its birth.
In the 1990s, the Toronto Argonauts of the Canadian Football League were struggling with attendance after a series of ownership changes and inconsistency on the field. Vince McMahon, the billionaire behind the modern WWE, was targeted by the CFL as a potential owner who could come up with creative ways to grow a fan base.
McMahon was more receptive than anticipated, and he proposed instead a purchase of the entire league, with a plan to eventually move it to the United States. The CFL declined the offer, but his interest in football was piqued.
Around this time, CBS outbid NBC for the broadcast rights to the American Football Conference in the NFL, spending $4 billion over eight years. For the first time in decades, there was no football on NBC.
The two parties teamed up, announcing a 2001 launch date for the XFL, with McMahon joking that “if the NFL stands for the ‘No Fun League,’ the XFL will stand for the ‘Extra Fun League.’”
McMahon and Dick Ebersol of NBC Sports promised a fast-paced, hard-hitting style of play, and they drew heavily from the WWF's “Attitude Era” in their attempts to deliver.
Trash-talking PA announcers and seductively dressed cheerleaders roamed the sidelines, the latter of whom were actively encouraged to date players. TV crews gave audiences inside access to the locker rooms. Players and coaches were “mic’d up,” an innovation now used across the sports world.
The teams, all eight of which were owned and operated by the league, bore edgy names like “Maniax” and “Hitmen,” and players were encouraged to put custom nicknames and phrases on their jerseys. The championship game was initially called “The Big Game at the End of the Season,” but was renamed “The Million Dollar Game” in reference to the prize money that the winning team would split.
Additionally, the actual game play was modified. Changes were made to kickoffs, and extra point kicks were eliminated entirely, with one point instead awarded for a successful play run from the 2-yard line and two points from five yards out. Two forward passes on a single play were also allowed, as long as the first occurred behind the line of scrimmage.
The XFL also required all of its games be played on natural grass surfaces, citing concern for player safety.
Contradictorily, the opening coin flip was replaced by the “Human Coin Toss,” where players from both teams scrambled for the ball to determine the winner. Unfortunately, Orlando free safety Hassan Shamsid-Deen separated his shoulder in the season opener participating in the “toss” and missed the entirety of the season.
The Las Vegas Outlaws and New York/New Jersey Hitmen faced each other in the first XFL game — a 19-0 Vegas victory — and drew 14 million viewers, well above expectations. The 9.5 Nielsen rating over the first week of action was more than double what they had promised advertisers.
Those numbers didn’t last, however. The quality of play was heavily criticized, and by the end of the season, that 9.5 dropped to a 1.5. By Week 6, McMahon was already leaning even harder into the WWF-style gimmicks in an attempt to bring back viewers.
In a move that quickly drew backlash, McMahon promised a “Live Look-In” into the cheerleaders’ dressing room during a game broadcast. During the sketch, he “accidentally” knocked out the camera man as they attempted to enter the locker room, triggering a dream sequence in which the cheerleaders were clad in skimpy robes.
The league's legitimacy wasn't helped by Ebersol's decision to allow veteran announcers like Bob Costas to opt out of working XFL games.
Costas didn’t hold back regarding his opinion of the league, saying in an appearance on Late Night with Conan O’Brien that “It has to be at least a decade since I first mused out loud, ‘Why doesn’t somebody combine mediocre high school football with a tawdry strip club?’ Finally, somebody takes my idea and runs with it.”
Despite its ownership in the league, NBC pulled out of its deal to air games through the end of the season as it struggled to find advertisers. Additionally, the network had just acquired the rights to the 2002 Winter Olympics and no longer had a full season of Saturday nights available.
McMahon responded by announcing that all broadcasts would be moved to UPN and TNN, which were already airing XFL games. UPN demanded they cut WWE's Smackdown from two hours to 90 minutes to make room for more XFL coverage, however, and McMahon refused.
On May 10, 2001, just weeks after league MVP Tommy Maddox led the Los Angeles Xtreme to a 38-6 victory over the San Francisco Demons in the Million Dollar Game, the XFL announced it was shutting down for good.
In 2017, ESPN aired a 30 for 30 documentary titled “This Was The XFL” that stirred up significant renewed interest in the league.
McMahon announced in 2018 that he was rebooting the XFL, but that it would bear none of the gimmicks of the original iteration when it launched in 2020. The new XFL featured eight new teams with more traditional names, and once again, the season opened to strong ratings.
This time, however, it was derailed by COVID-19.
Three weeks after pausing game play, the XFL announced it was suspending all operations and filing for bankruptcy.
Months later, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson and Dany Garcia purchased the XFL for $15 million and announced a 2022 relaunch. After discussions with the CFL about a potential merger fell apart, that date was postponed a year.
The 2023 season kicked off on Feb. 18 and concluded three months later when the Renegades defeated the D.C. Defenders by a margin of 35-26 in the first XFL championship game in over two decades. Three months after that, intentions of the merger with the USFL were announced.
The Renegades and Defenders are two of four XFL teams that will survive the merger, joined by the St. Louis Battlehawks and San Antonio Brahmas. The Renegades will play in the first-ever UFL game on March 30, a showdown with the reigning USFL champion Birmingham Stallions.
Unique History of USFL: Past, Present and Future
You can find Kacy Sager on X at @THESagerbomb.
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