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From Lycra to Helmets

In Vince McMahon the world of sports entertainment has not only got an icon but the undoubted daddy of his business. McMahon was the man to turn wrestling into a billion dollar global entertainment circus. His foray into pro-football has already come and went once before, back in 2001 in the guise of only one season of his XFL brand.

To understand why another league can fail or survive takes us on a journey of what has gone before. McMahon’s previous XFL experiment lost $100 million in total, split between NBC TV money and WWF joint funding. The league and its eight teams effectively collapsed when NBC pulled out after poor viewing figures. McMahon himself branded his own brain-child a “colossal failure”. McMahon’s desire and intension to restart his league has been in the pipeline for years now and he appears to be taking a new approach to his venture. Learning from his old formula largely comprises of not getting his wrestling brand involved, this is undoubtedly his own separate project. He has made a point of cashing in on his vast wrestling shareholding to make the XFL a fully liquid funded entity. What he has also taken on board is to get a real football man into his new set up, to give it the all vital respectability and experience.

Oliver Luck takes up the role to float the new league. This is not in the guise of a rival league as the 1980s U.S.F.L obsessed over. This is more a feeder league, adding to the thirst for extra pro-games. This approach follows on from the recently failed Alliance of American Football, who promoted a minor league baseball type approach to their set up. Luck was the man who led a trail blazing summer league once before; he took control of the World League of American Football and it’s vital inroads into the European market. The NFL itself funded and provided players for this project. Luck made a massive success of the leagues early days, based hugely on marketing guile, maverick marketing and sales techniques. London’s franchise, The Monarchs, and Germany’s obsessive fan-base managed to power the league until it was doomed by a lack of infrastructure.

Luck approaches the league from a position to know both what works and what fails. Realistically there was only one real candidate to fill the post for Vince McMahon. His single biggest task was to strike some sort of television deal to give the XFL the crucial platform to put its product out to the football hungry public. Recent news of a television deal for the XFL puts it into the sporting headlines. ESPN, FOX and ABC are all now combining to broadcast games weekly and in primetime on weekends. The broadcasting partners have expressed a desire to cover football year round and work with trail-blazers, McMahon and Luck. It’s doubtful to believe how any kind of league could have even got through the doors of the big players without the contacts and clout of the XFL’s two principle leaders.

The rub for the league is to innovate, not simple fireworks and showbiz. This has to be a league that is willing to trial what the NFL is not prepared to do with its own sleek but far from perfect product. This will cover how replay, officiating and rules will operate. Even covering the league’s approach to drug testing, in particular marijuana; players will not be banned for positive marijuana tests. Further to this, early noises coming from the XFL point to advances like two point shoot outs during overtime and similar out of the box thinking.  

It’s how the NFL views what’s going on within the XFL that will give it the essential kudos and validation that ultimately could sustain it. Add to the equation that the league will be run by Luck and financed by McMahon is absolutely crucial to its mere survival, never mind its level of success.

K.C.