There are Rumors that Vince McMahon is going to Revive the XFL

http://www.businessinsider.com/vince-mcmahon-revive-xfl-2017-12

I believe the U.S. sports market is too saturated for American consumers to support a start up football league. The XFL was competing with the longevity of other sports leagues that have built fan bases over the span of decades (or in some cases more than 100 years). Turning a start up sports league into a successful venture in this saturated sports market would take many years of building consumer trust and sinking tons of money into building franchises and staying committed to certain markets. I doubt it is really plausible to invest that kind of money, but I would do the following things to give the XFL the best chance at success:

- Take all of the same precautions to protect players that the NFL is taking. I know the spirit of the XFL was violent hits, but it will just hurt the league in the long run if the starting players go down due to injury. Plus, with what we know now about CTE, Vince would be stupid to use the same old gimmick from 2001.
- Start the league in the late Spring/early Summer instead of in February to avoid competing with the saturated early Spring sports market. The time of year that NFL Europe used was the best one because it didn't compete with the NCAA tournament, NBA playoffs or NHL playoffs.
- Place franchises in San Diego, St. Louis, Oakland (eventually), and any other media markets that the NFL vacates in the future (Buffalo to Toronto? Jacksonville to London?) to fill the void. The best consumers of professional football to exploit are the ones who have been screwed over by the NFL.
- Make a real play for recognizable NFL free agents when they become available and hold a college draft before the season to make a real play at some college prospects (just like the old AFL did).

I have zero confidence that the XFL (or any start up league) can survive for any respectable period of time, but I am more than happy to tune in and watch if Vince wants to throw his money away.

UPDATE:

Vince's full press conference announcing the XFL relaunch can be found here...

 

I've heard he was thinking of naming it the Make America Great Again Football League, and emphasizing that standing for the anthem is mandatory, and focusing on areas where Trump is popular. Capitalizing on some old time fans' frustration with the reduced physicality of the game and the protests.

Now that i think about it, I heard this on The Opposition which is a comedy show that satirizes that kind of thing, so I could be wrong.

 

I have heard speculation that he is intending on making it mandatory to stand for the anthem. I guess we'll see.

 

If he goes in this direction, he's going to generate some initial interest. But ultimately the XFL didn't fail because people didn't like the gimmick, it failed because it had AA minor league level talent. Unless he can draw the top talent away from the NFL somehow, I can't imagine it not going the same way again.

All the people who initially are like "YYYYEAAHHH JINGOISTIC FLAG WAVING AND NO UNPATRIOTIC TRAITORS THAT'S WHAT I WANNA SEEEE!!" will eventually notice the players just aren't as good as the NFL players.

 

I agree with that. Your players are your revenue. He will need to shell out some dough to snag some NFL free agents, and maybe some rookie prospects, and hope it's enough to generate some interest. Even then though, he will still have to fill most of the rosters with NFL leftovers. That was the model the USFL in the 1980's used, and they spent themselves into bankruptcy. The strictly minor B league route certainly will never go anywhere though. Go big or go home.

 

He could coax some name players into his league if he shelled out the cash. The UFL attracted a few name players without a union.

He will have a hard time competing with the NFL for many name players though because most NFL worthy players are already locked into contracts with NFL teams. There are few options available during free agency that are really worth going after, and building a league would probably take many years of investing in attracting players worthy of NFL rosters. But, by that time, he has already dropped many millions on the league.

 

Players that were already used up and broken by the NFL.

He better be ready to lose a couple of billion dollars over the first couple of years if he's going to try and compete with the big boys (NFL/NCAA Power 5).

 

More like the RoFL...

 

Now that I think about it, you know who the best player is who is most available to play in a competing league?

A certain political activist maybe?

 

If Vince has a mandatory stand for the anthem rule (as rumored), that will never happen.

 

Skippy. I wonder how heavily Fox & Friends will promote this league.

 

The full press conference is on the XFL's web page:

https://www.xfl.com/

At least it does look like he is taking the venture way more seriously this time. Some positive revelations that came out of the press conference:

-Vince will not be the CEO/Commissioner of the XFL. He will hire someone who understands football.
-They will be talking to medical experts to make the game as "safe as possible" instead of using the old gimmick of making the game even more violent.

However, I am not a fan of making the game closer to 2 hours though. The game should resemble an NFL game in some respects and shouldn't be too vastly different. I am also not a fan of the fact that the XFL season will still overlap with March Madness.

 

I wish him luck (competition is always good) but I wont be surprised if it goes the way of the USFL, WFL and his first XFL. The only league that ever competed and won was the AFL and that happened because it had owners with deep pockets who didnt mind throwing it around to NFL players and college athletes.

 

The old AFL had another advantage. There were still a number of major media markets in the U.S. that didn't have NFL teams (e.g., Miami, Houston, Boston, etc.) or were underserved. Now the market is saturated. The markets that don't have NFL teams today won't generate as much advertising revenue. The USFL of the 1980's tried the same strategy as the AFL and completely tanked because it was spread out over so many weaker markets.

Also, the All-America Football Conference (AAFC) from 1944 to 1946 was a semi success. It produced the San Francisco 49ers, the Cleveland Browns, and one incarnation of the Baltimore Colts. The Cleveland Browns of those days dominated when they merged into the NFL too.

 

Pretty much this. Plus, football, even with small salaries, is a lot more expensive to produce than most other sports. Not sure I see this version of the XFL ever playing a down.

 

On one hand this will obviously be fixed, team names will probably be something hilarious like "Orlando WeLoveAmerica" and Tim Tebow will be signed to a team that will miraculously go undefeated

On the other hand, forget attacking the NFL, go after the kids going to college who don't want to be there, that might work.

 

So they're not using the same teams as before? Some of those names were pretty funny...Los Angeles Xtreme, New York Hitmen, Orlando Rage, Memphis Maniax...

 

Being facetious? There is no reason to believe the games will be "fixed." There was no indication the games were "fixed" in 2001.

The original Orlando team was called "Rage." Given the fact that he decided to tap into the "equity" of the original XFL, by keeping that name, I am willing to bet he will keep the old team names as well if he puts teams in those same cities.

He should do both. Go after professional free agents as well as rookie prospects with name recognition. A "fun fact" though: There are about 5000 NCAA football players that graduate from college every year but a very small fraction of them make the NFL obviously. I don't think the secondary talent remaining after the NFL draft is as bad as most people think. There are some good players that go undrafted (Kurt Warner would probably be the best example of that).