So, I was thinking that I'd talk about Triple H and how he's holding people back this week. Then I mentioned it to Widro and he threatened to fire me. I thought it hasn't been discussed enough quite yet.
But then, I was saved.
The XFL goes down in flames, so I have something to talk about… WAHOO!
I know this isn't related to wrestling, per se, but it is about Vince McMahon, and since Vince McMahon is wrestling now, it fits by default. The XFL was a good idea. Even though it crashed, burned, exploded, and will be mentioned on WWF television about as much as the WBF, I still think it was a good idea. I think a lot of the US population has become thoroughly disillusioned with professional sports in general.
The NBA playoffs are going on. I barely noticed. I used to fix my calendar year by what playoffs were when. Spring to early summer, basketball. Fall, baseball. Deep winter, football. This year, I didn't even know the basketball playoffs were going on. I only found out because I went to a sports bar last night and saw the end of whatever game was on.
Me: Basketball playoffs are on?
Guy I was with: for a couple weeks now.
Me: Damn.
People are sick of professional athletes. Alex Rodriguiz and his quarter billion dollar contract, which entire towns combined won't see in their lifetime (who, I'd like to point out, had the gall to make an error Thursday Night. For 260 million dollars, he should NEVER miss a play). Latrell Spreewell attacking his coach with a two-by-four and then being not only allowed back on the Knicks, but apologized to by the NBA and the Knicks (if I attacked Widro with a two-by-four, I certainly wouldn't be writing here). Athletes in the NFL on trial for murder. Stadiums being named for everything except feminine hygiene products. Women in the broadcast booth and on Sportscenter (no offense to female readers intended). Teams (and players for that matter) jumping ship at the drop of a hat. Sports fans are seeing a lot of things change.
The NBA, NFL, and MLB have to focus on a younger generation, but in doing so are alienating the old fans. I don't think a majority of men, who are the bulk of professional sports viewers, want to listen to a lady in the announce booth unless she looks and sounds like John Madden. Call me sexist… that's fine. How can fans get behind a team, when the team changes from year to year? Not like, we got some rookies here and a retiree or two there. But the entire landscape of their favorite teams changing yearly? The younger fans may not be bothered by it, but the old guard is.
Enter the XFL.
Market the idea of the NFL before free agency ruined it. When guys like Fran Tarkenton played football for four months a year, and had a regular job for the rest. Guys that are all paid the same, so there's no team jumping. A guy is on a team, and he stays there. He's not going to another team because his agent got him more money. He doesn't have an agent… he doesn't need an agent. Market the idea of guys who love the game playing the game.
Market hot chicks and fireworks and excitement to the young guys. Even if that doesn't work… hell, it's still football. Someone's gotta watch it, right?
Well, not necessarily.
I think the XFL failed because it expected too much too soon. The XFL took guys; some of whom used to be pros, some of whom just were one step beneath the NFL, and some of whom never even thought about trying out for the NFL. They threw together eight expansion teams, and expected people to care. People complained it was sub-par football. Well, of course it was. Not only were they guys who weren't the level of the players we're used to watching, but they were guys who only got to play together for three or four months before they were televised. These guys weren't a team yet… they were just a bunch of players.
In comparison, let's look at a football league that worked. When Arena football first burst on the scene fifteen years ago with were four teams. I found arena football by mistake in its first season, and I thought it was kind of lame. A fifty-yard football game? What was the point? But they didn't expect too much, too soon. They started with four teams, and played a couple of seasons. They expanded slowly, and it started to catch on. They didn't try to immediately air themselves on national networks. They played on ESPN. They slowly added teams, slowly built the league up. Arena Football didn't get a network contract, with ABC, until 1999, THIRTEEN YEARS after the league began. By this point, people already knew what Arena Football was, it had its fanbase, and people already cared. Arena Football is so successful now it has its own AAA league, the NFL purchased an equity interest in it, changed their rules to let NFL owners invest in AFL teams, and the federal government filed an anti-trust lawsuit against them. You know you're successful when the federal government tries to shut you down.
Now, look at the XFL in comparison. Vince hyped everything about the XFL on WWF television. NBC did their best to hype the XFL. They marketed the XFL as a professional football league. The first night, people tuned in out of curiousity, expecting to see a good, NFL-quality football game. These players were just the guys that got burned by NFL politics, but they were still professionals.
But they weren't.
What they got was a decent football game, but the things that were supposed to be "uniquely XFL" didn't fly very well. The on-field cameramen got in the way. The on-field interviews detracted from the flow of the game. Coaches and players don't need a camera and microphone in their face every three seconds. It turns out that coaches don't really flip out on their teams all that much in the locker room at halftime. They just coach. The camera angles were annoying. If I wanted to watch a game from behind the quarterback, I'd play Madden. The names on the back of the jersey were an interesting idea, but ultimately kind of stupid. The punting rules sounded like a good idea on paper, but really didn't change the flow of the game all that much. Arena Football play tested their games for two years in dead arenas before they put game one on television. The XFL was thrown on NBC, prime-time television, and expected people to flock to it. They did, and then realized it really wasn't professional football.
I think the XFL could have worked, if the forces were willing to stay with it. But they would have to stay with it for a very long time. In perspective, Arenabowl TEN only scored about a 1.1 rating on ESPN in 1996. But, they were smart enough NOT to put it in Prime Time on Saturday Night. Or, Prime Time period. They knew they weren't the NFL.
To the XFL's credit though, they really didn't get any mainstream media coverage. None of my local newspapers, including the New York Post even had the scores. I don't think Sportscenter even covered them. In fact, the only coverage the league got was the last couple of days when they announced it was over. But, it had to be expected. Building a league takes a lot of years and a lot of loss, but I think it could have been done, given time.
I think the winners in the whole thing, though, were the guys who got a chance to live their dream. The guys who were never pro, who got a chance to play on television for the first, and only, time of their lives. It let a bunch of guys do something they never thought they'd be able to. To them, I say congratulations. It's them I feel sorry for, not Vince and Dick. THEY should have known better.
At least my New York Hitmen hat is a collector's item now.
So, I guess we'll just have to continue to watch the withering of the established professional sports teams and watch them lose increasing numbers of mainstream viewers.
At least until Jordan and Barkley play for the Raptors next year.
(Credit to Arena Football.com for filling in the gaps in my memory)
