Could the XFL have worked?

[TheSammichEater]

I stumbled upon the week 4 game between the Las Vegas Outlaws and San Francisco Demons and started to wonder...could it have worked?! It was scheduled during the offseason of the NFL which I believe was smart. It would allow the most die-hard football fans a chance to watch football all year long. Sure it wasn't the NFL or NCAA but it was still football. Despite the "injury zone" instead of the coin flip and the lack of penalties compared to the NFL, was there much of a difference? Week 1 had great ratings and judging by the crowd during the Week 4 game, it had great attendance. I'm too young to remember watching it when it started but do have a slight memory of it.

So did anyone watch the XFL?

Do you think it could of worked?

Did they jump the gun too soon on killing it?

 

[Davi323]

So did anyone watch the XFL?

Do you think it could of worked?

Did they jump the gun too soon on killing it?

Yes, yes and yes.

I watched it every week, and my impression was that it wasn't great football...but that it was entertaining anyway. It was better football than the UFL currently is, it just needed a few years to get away from the stigma of being involved with the WWE. A lot of people refused to watch it because they moronically assumed that it was fixed just like wrestling is. Completely ridiculous idea, but some people held on to it anyway. I do think they should have tweaked a few things had they gotten a second season, but conceptually, I was behind it.

 

[Big Sexy]

It depends on what you mean by work. Could it have lasted ten years and had moderate success like the AFL? Sure. Was it going to do anything beyond that? No. That's not a knock against the XFL it's just a fact for any football league broadcast in the United States. If people want to watch less talented football then the NFL then they'll watch college football where there is at least an allegiance to schools and you can see the future of the NFL. You can have a league in the NFL off season and give it as many gimmicks as you want, in the long run it isn't going to last.

 

[TWJC: The Beginning]

No. There wasn't a market for it. People buy substitutes when they offer a superior product or an alternative.

For example, if you don't like Pepsi, you buy Coke. If 90% of people felt this way, no more Pepsi. That's the "superior product". The "alternative product" is like, people are bored with the slower pace of baseball and start watching pro football more.

The market isn't big enough to contain 2 football leagues, plus the NFL had such a huge market share that it was an uphill battle to begin with. In other words, to beat the NFL, you need either a superior product or a true alternative. One more thing to consider, college football is also huge. College football is almost a complimentary product to the NFL because it's on saturdays and it's kind of a "tomorrow's stars today" kind of thing with regional allegiances that can transcend to pro teams. So really, the XFL was competing with more than the NFL.

The XFL tried being an alternative because Vince was smart enough to realize that you can't beat out the skill of the NFL, so he gimmicked it up. However, the alternative wasn't something that people wanted to see.

So, just like the USFL, just like the ABA in basketball, just like the Pacific Coast League in baseball (originally wanted to be 3rd major league), it died out.

No it shouldn't have continued, typically a leagues' first year is it's most successful because it has that new interest. It would have dwindled and been even more of a financial catastrophe than it already was. Vince knows more about business than anyone on here, if he didn't think it was a good idea, it likely wasn't.