So the XFL is back, and with Week 1 out of the way, we can kind of get a general idea of how things may end up going. Operative phrase: kind of.
The league drew 12.47 million viewers for its opening week, which was roughly in the neighborhood of the first week of the Alliance of American Football league. You know, the league that is now, uh, defunct.
But the thing is, people do love football, so whenever people see football on television, they are going to be tempted to tune in. That means that technically, all of these leagues that have tried (and are currently trying) have a chance.
Remember: the XFL originally launched back in 2001, but lasted just one season after ratings plummeted after the first week. I guess there is only so much that people can watch a bunch of guys they have never heard of on teams with weird, corny names throw an oddly-shaped leather ball around.
Which is why I am skeptical.
Am I saying for sure that this supposed new and improved version of Vince McMahon's XFL is going to fail? No. Again, I think it has a shot, merely because football is probably the most popular sport in the country (although basketball is gaining, and we have already seen the Big 3 league have some success since opening up in 2017).
Sometimes, people just want to watch a football game, especially with the NFL season over. You would think fans will have already had their fill after digesting nothing but football for the last, what, seven months dating back to training camp? But hey; there are a lot of football nuts out there who love their pigskin.
And hey; the Arena Football League did really well, running from 1987 all the way through 2019 (well, kind of; it briefly dissolved in 2009 and then opened up again the following year) before finally filing for bankruptcy. Yes, the league's attendance was steadily dipping, but it had to be doing something right to last for over three decades.
Based on that, we can say that McMahon has a shot here. He wants to make the game simpler, faster and cleaner, which I guess could be enough to draw in some casual fans who don't necessarily understand the ins and outs of the NFL.
A lot will depend on how well the league does ratings wise in Week 2. If the ratings hold up, then that is obviously a very positive sign for the future. If they drop, particularly drastically, then that does not exactly bode well long term, as it probably means that people were just watching to see what it was all about in Week 1 before deciding “yeah, this stinks.”
If the XFL had some big-name former NFL players, then I would be a heck of a lot more optimistic. Kind of like the Big 3 league in basketball, which even had Allen Iverson at one point.
See, I'm not one of those football fanatics who go to games in freezing cold weather with letters painted on my bare chest, so I'm not someone who particularly cares about the XFL. But not everyone is like me.
For now, count me as someone who thinks the league has an outside shot to be successful, merely because football is football. Otherwise, I don't see how this XFL will be any different than the one we saw a couple of decades ago.
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