Why the XFL Will Succeed

By: Adamo Marinelli

February 15th, 2020

     In May of 2001, after a short 1 season stint, the XFL collapsed after owner Vince McMahon stated the league would continue even without sponsorship from NBC due to plummeting TV ratings. He planned to add more expansion teams to begin the second season despite lacking the necessary funding to do so. With disappointing ratings and a lack of funding and entertaining play, the league unfortunately folded. 

     In March of 2018, Tom Dundon founded the AAF, a football league to keep NFL fans entertained through the spring. Without even finishing its inaugural season, it shut down after week 8 as a result of many combining factors, mainly because of lackluster play in the first half of the season and because Dundon had a different vision for the future of the league than the other general managers. Dundon rushed talks between the AAF and NFLPA on allowing practice squad players to develop in the AAF. 

     Nearly 20 years after the XFL’s first attempt, it has come back better than ever. Despite only seeing only a little more than a week of action, the play has been excellent. All eight teams have several skilled players at various positions, making the game fun to watch and the various rule changes such as the new and improved kickoff, the various values of the PAT, the new overtime rules, the shortened play clock and the continuous game clock outside of 2 minutes makes for a fast-paced, entertaining game. This entertaining style of play added with considerable talent on offense and defense built up a great audience. 

     In week 1, the XFL averaged a viewership of 3.12 million people per game. That is an impressive figure: outperforming all NBA and college basketball broadcasts of the previous week and almost comparing to the NBA playoffs broadcasts which averaged 3.95 million viewers per game heading into the NBA Finals. The Super Bowl hangover was evident last weekend considering the incredible viewership.

     Another problem with the AAF was the lack of stadium attendance. There were no reported sellouts for the entire season, partially because of the lackluster play and lack of innovation in terms of rules. Darren Rovell reported that the XFL had made more money from ticket revenue before any of their games even started than the AAF made in its entire season. The XFL drew over 17,000 fans combined in the first four games, more than tripling the AAF’s total in week 1.

     The attendance in the stadium and the TV ratings plummeted in the AAF during and after week 2. Average attendance stalled at 15,293 and only drew an average of 1 million viewers after kickoff weekend. The XFL arguably has more talent and has innovated the rules more than the AAF. Also, the XFL refs have been pretty good so far, a crucial part in maintaining a loyal fanbase, which in theory should help the XFL maintain their TV ratings and stadium attendance. However, to avoid meeting a similar fate to the AAF, the XFL will need to continue to find ways to innovate and keep their viewers entertained.