Let’s face it, there are probably 5000 Super Bowl reviews right now. The game, the halftime show, the commercials…let’s talk about something else that deserves a look – the new XFL doc on ESPN. It’s worth a view.
The XFL remains, to this day, the last challenge to the “big four” – NFL, NHL, MLB and NBA. It lasted exactly one season. The XFL was the brainchild of Vince McMahon, the CEO of WWE and then got backed by Dick Ebersol, the most successful television producer in history. It was known for innovative marketing, sexed up cheerleaders and one other small thing – the worst football you’ve ever seen.
The opening game got the highest Saturday night ratings in over a decade when it came out; over 50 million viewers. I remember I went to a buddy’s in Youngstown that weekend; we were supposed to bar hop/get shot (what else are you going to do in Ytown?), but we stayed in over my objections to watch the XFL. I wanted it to be good. It started after the Super Bowl, it was supposed to be more violent, more sexy and more entertaining. The game was a hot turd with fireworks and inappropriate camera angles of cheerleaders.
Looking back, it was doomed. The players didn’t even start practicing until less than two months before the season started, the football was so shiny and smooth that quarterbacks couldn’t throw it, and the week 2 game blacked out for two minutes because someone forgot to gas the generators for the broadcast equipment. By week 3, it was becoming obvious as the ratings sunk faster than my interest in the band Velvet Revolver that this league was in serious trouble.
The bad product was number one why the product failed, but the second reason was tradition. Most people start watching football as a kid with an older sibling or parent. It’s hard to generate that. “Hey son, let’s watch the New York Hitmen battle the Memphis Maniax!” “Who?” “Good point.”
Ultimately it failed and McMahon shrugged and bought the WCW. They did leave a great legacy of camera work and player access (the skycam and mic’ing players was their idea), plus they are the only sports league that had a hot tub full of strippers wearing bikinis in the end zone during a game (yes, that really happened). The documentary was very entertaining, plus it reaffirms my number one belief in sports: Bob Costas is a smug ass. The self-righteous imp inserts himself into the documentary as this holier than thou guru of all that is sports and makes you wish the league took off just to prove him wrong. Oh well, more reason to dislike the king of the inspirational story. I dare you to watch the Olympics and not have Bob Costas blather on about a Latvian curler born with a club foot or an Indonesian swimmer that survived a Kraken attack at sea to overcome adversity and leave you with the feeling he pumped his fist in joy when he found the tale, knowing he could use it to make himself look more important than the actual person involved. (I don’t care for Bob Costas, in case you can’t tell).