OT: ESPN and Fox Will Broadcast XFL Games
Maybe this will give is a better chance of survival than the Alliance of American Football had. LINK.
Their season starts just six days after the Super Bowl in 2020.
Pep Hamilton is the head coach of the Washington, D.C., team. Do we know of any other U-M connections thus far?
Can't wait to not watch this and have it go bankrupt within 6 months.
Why would you want that? Your comment tells me that you are a complete POS. This is a job and livelihood for thousands of people. It’s not just about players and coaches. Concessions, janitors and many others are employed from something like this. You should crawl in a hole.
or maybe it was sarcasm because fans get excited about these non-NFL leagues and then they frequently disappear which sucks?
Where does it say I want it? I'm just saying it will follow the history of every single other professional football league over the last 20 years. You seem fun and smart.
Holy triggered, Eli.
All this from a person whose avatar says to keep calm. Hate to see it.
Awesome. Already far superior to what the AAF had.
While it is important to get as many eyes on their product as possible I don't think this helps as much as we might believe. The AAF was broadcast on CBS when it wasn't streaming on Youtube. It got pretty good ratings on both services. There are many other factors that will dictate the success of the XFL. I can't imagine Vince McMahon will be interested in making a "minor league" like the AAF was trying to be.
Also when I was watching the AAF I personally felt like I had seen enough football for a while and this new league that provided a less impressive product just wasn't cutting it for me. Watching Trent Richardson average two yards a carry wasn't fun.
I agree with this. Exposure is necessary but not nearly as important as fiscal responsibility.
Vince doesn't seem like a guy who wants to have a "minor league" product. He's a "major league" sort of guy. He's also up there in age too. He's not on his deathbed but he is 73 years old. So he has to feel the clock ticking to some extent and as such may not exhibit a ton of patience.
Expenses can go up pretty darn quickly - the USFL is the ultimate example of such.
The USFL was on both ABC and ESPN, of course. Network exposure equivalent to what the XFL will have. One thing the USFL did well was have their product on at a consistent time - 2:30 ET on Sundays on ABC, Saturday and Monday nights on ESPN. Viewers knew where and when to see the product.
Reading up on this XFL contract, they're a bit more inconsistent. That could limit them.
The XFL has money behind it that the AAF never did. It also has an owner that already had one league flop. I think that's a plus for the experience and perspective.
I still wouldn't put money on their long term success, but they should last longer than the AAF.
Who is Fox Will?
Kissin cousin to fox trot.
I liked the AAF as a sort of minor league NFL. I couldn't find the games after the first weekend. This TV deal should help the XFL. I would like to see one of these upstart leagues succeed as long as it is a good product.
Why? Just why?
Why must we be tormented with another bad football league?
If this league offers a way for guys to play pro football before they are eligible for the NFL draft, it could survive and potentially destroy college football as we know it.
Other than that, I have no idea why anyone would watch second-rate football run by Vincent Kennedy McMahon after watching the NFL for 6 months. Obviously some people will, and to each his/her own.
I’d love to see pre draft eligible players have an option outside of playing in college. I think it would actually help college football and it’s current “amateur” structure by validating the current value of a full ride athletic scholarship.
That would seem like the most cost effective way to get some higher profile players. If they don't have the three years post high school rule they could try to grab up some young college stars relatively cheaply. They could offer relatively short contract terms so guys could go pro on the same schedule as if they stayed in school, so it wouldn't cost them on their NFL contract. If you were Tua or Trevor Lawrence would you sign a one or two year deal for a million per year vs playing for a scholarship?
Great something else I can now gamble on!
It will be interesting to see how Pep Hamilton's "four corners" offense, designed to kill clock and keep the ball away from the opponent translates in to the XFL.
I don't understand why they have these leagues start in the winter. It would make more sense to me if they started them in June so that they would only have to compete with baseball for viewership. If the season starts in March, then it has to compete with basketball, hockey and baseball.
If you start in June you'd run into NFL training camps.
It seems like the XFL is getting backing that the AAF never could have hoped for, so with luck that means that it will be around a fair bit longer, or so we hope. I will definitely tune in anyway.
When will these people with too much money figure out that football outside of college and the NFL will never work? We love it so much every Fall because we are starved for it. We really don't want a watered-down product with marginal players to watch during the off-season.