XFL v2.0 Wants to Out-Vanilla the NFL

Published on 25-Jan-2018 by Biff BoJock

Football - NFL    NFL Daily Update

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XFL v2.0 Wants to Out-Vanilla the NFL

Remember, the monolith that is the NFL will fine a player if his jersey's untucked or his socks aren't pulled up.

It also has a monopoly on the best 1696 football players in the world, 53 per team.

The sobering thought is that total includes the Cleveland Browns' roster.

Let all that sink in for a moment.

 

Exactly.

That is, if you were the dude deciding to dump $100million into a re-born football league whose lasting image was its unbridled tackiness ...

 

... and total disregard for the human body.

 

Right.

Vince McMahon made a kajillion dollars setting a low bar with the WWE, but that didn't work the first time he launched the XFL. This time, then, dude's flipping the script.

He's gonna turn this XFL into the Beaver Cleaver of pro football. Kinda.

 

McMahon was short on details, but what he did share would make Ward and June real proud:

  • He's gonna own all eight teams, so no one's gonna pull stunts like Donald Trump did to wreck the USFL by blowing up the salary cap, convincing the league to move to fall and compete with the NFL head-on;
  • He's gonna hold players' pasts against them -- even DUIs -- which means sinners don't sign;
  • Each team will carry 40 players who are as pure as the driven snow;
  • And they'd better stand when the band starts playing, dammit;
  • The league will have a 10-week schedule, starting after the Super Bowl; and
  • No game will last longer than two real-time hours, with halftimes eliminated.

And definitely no cheerleaders because, you know, the Beaver ...

 

Only one league has ever successfully challenged the NFL, and that one -- the American Football League -- wound up merging with it.

Then, there are budgets. Not McMahon's. The fans'.

Wages only go so far for the great unwashed, and if they've got a choice among:

  • the MLB, the traditional springtime sport featuring the world's best players,
  • the NBA's and NHL's race to the playoffs,
  • plus the NBA and NHL playoffs, and
  • a league featuring the 1697th through 2016th best football players in the world,

 

Broadcast revenues have long outdistanced paid attendance in the NFL, but with its ratings declining over the past two seasons, who knows what rights fees are gonna look like by 2020 when the XFL joins the fray?

Odds are it'll be a prime candidate for a streaming deal.

After all, if the notorious Big Ballers can draw a crowd on Facebook, the XFL has hope.

 

As family-friendly as McMahon wants to make this ironically hip-hoppin' adventure, maybe the Hallmark Channel would be interested.

Because, you know, for the Beaver.