The XFL Was A Fun League That Didn't Take Itself Too Seriously And It Absolutely Sucks Everyone Just Got Fired
As Clem blogged, it appears the XFL is done. They had a call today and every employee was fired. Now putting 2 and 2 together, carrying the 1...yeah, you can't really have a league when every employee is fired. Doesn't work that way.
But what sucks is the XFL, once it figured out what it was, was sort of working.
The thing is, the XFL was never going to be a competitor to the NFL. Ever. You need things like "good QBs" and "star players" to succeed as a league. And if there were ever star players in the XFL, they would have jumped to the NFL as soon as they could. So long-lasting star power in the X was never going to happen.
But they were doing other things right that made it fun. And those things are crushing social media, allowing the fans to have fun, not pretending that adults don't drink beer, and just not taking itself too seriously.
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It was a goofy league, man. Pure shenanigans left and right.
Things like this,
and this,
and this.
Was the league sustainable? I have no idea. I know ratings weren't spectacular after the first couple of weeks. They seemed to draw decent enough crowds though, and I know Twitter isn't reality, but the tweets always did well. Sponsors had to have been pretty happy with the engagement on social. And that's a great way to survive as a league.
And of course, the gambling aspect. Openly talking about gambling, lines, over/unders, etc. It provided a whole new element to the league that the NFL is so afraid of.
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I never expected the XFL to last long term. But I really think they were on to something. Let's hope the NFL takes a couple of pointers from what worked in the XFL, just like they did the first time, and makes football fun again. Or maybe they crunch some numbers and decide there is room for a profitable B-League a la NFL Europe and some of the guys fired today get their jobs back.
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PS: Quick shout out to the guy who ran the XFL's social. He knocked it out of the park. Shows what happens when people are given creative freedom and don't have to be corporate robots. Hope he gets a job offer soon, he was great.