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 Originally Posted by spoonitnow
The XFL situation is extremely interesting and has a whole hell of a lot more depth than the treatment that it's getting. Here are a few important points:
Depth??
[*]Vince McMahon wants to get into sports. He's wanted to do this for this a long time, and he specifically wants to get into football. He wanted to buy the Canadian Football League, and he's been in talks to buy different NFL teams at different times.
So he didn't get what he wanted, so he's just gonna force it? Isn't that called a tantrum??
[*]He's waiting until 2020 to properly prepare, which was one of his key mistakes from the initial XFL run. How quickly that first run went from concept to being on television is insane.
Actually, listening to his press conference, it sounds like this is just something he thought of yesterday. I don't really see "patience" from this guy.
[*]This is his hobby, and he's doing it with his own money just because it's something he wants to do.
It's still dumb
[*]The losses of the first run from the XFL were not that bad at all. The WWF only lost $35 million, and that's after NBC fucked them on the TV deal that was originally for two years. I know that $35 million sounds like a lot to most people, but he's lost ten times that on a single day before. It's not a huge deal.
That's dumb. So if I go buy a used, piece of shit, Chevy Monte Carlo and try to qualify for the Daytona 500 and fail, it's "not that bad" because my financial losses are really small?? Wouldn't it have been better if I had taken a bigger risk, bought a competitive car, hired a competent driver, and then attempted to compete? Maybe my losses would have been higher, but so would my chance of success.
I don't care if its $35 million, or 35 cents, there's no justifiable reason to piss it away on something that has a 0% chance of success.
[*]All of the shit about no players with criminal records and all of the shit about kneeling during the anthem is just marketing and promotion, and it worked. It's virtually the only reason it's getting the media attention it's getting. It's carny as fuck because he's carny as fuck, and aside from his massive balls is one of the biggest reasons why he went from getting the shit kicked out of him in a trailer park to being worth ten figures at one point.
He's missed the bus on the anthem stuff. If that's his angle, he should have brought this up four months ago. He's really just saying that he's going to fix all the stuff that people don't like about the NFL. But he's forgetting to include all the stuff people DO like about the NFL. He's also overestimating how negatively the stuff people don't like is actually impacting the NFL.
One thing he emphasized in his press conference, other than "family friendly", was "simpler rules". This sounds terribly naive.
One can only assume he's talking about controversial calls in some games where the definition of "a catch" is open to interpretation. The NFL already simplified this rule. The ball has to "survive the ground". Now it's simple. There's no ambiguous language about "a football move". There's no, "when did he have possession...and was it over the line" That's all gone. Either a catch is a simple, obvious, incontrovertable thing....or it's not a catch.
You end up with some close calls, like the PIT/NE game about six weeks ago. But you actually end up with LESS close calls than you would by creating a set of rules that exactly matches "the eyeball test".
Furthermore, the NFL refs are trained to suck. It's by design. It doesn't matter if they saw the guy's knee hit the ground first...if the ball comes out, rule it a fumble every single time. It doesn't matter if they saw the guy land out of bounds...just rule it a touchdown every single time. They do this, because turnovers and scoring plays are subject to video review 100% of the time. So call it that way on the field, and you'll have the opportunity to get it right, every single time, with the benefit of replay.
If you rule that the guy was down before he fumbled, or that he didn't score, then the play is not review-able. That means that human beings have to get it right every single time.
This is simply a case of the fans not knowing what they want. They want the right call 100% of the time, but they also hate waiting for the video reviews. The NFL seems to have found a happy compromise, and they've refined it slightly as people's tastes change.
Vince hasn't really offered any better solutions. He just says "games should be faster".
[*]The main reason he had a press conference this early without anything substantial to say was to make sure it was understood that it was being done with his own money and not under the WWE umbrella because that could affect WWE stock prices adversely
Just having a connection to this crackpot should send WWE's stock plummetting.
[*]McMahon is getting to the point now that he's going to be phasing out his involvement with WWE. This is the type of thing he's going to be transitioning over to, but it has to be handled carefully because him just pulling out completely would tank their stock.
Trump gave all his businesses to his kids. Haven't heard about any of them tanking. Why don't the shareholders trust Shane-O-Mac and his Mean Street Posse??
[*]The XFL is not competition for the NFL, and it's not trying to be. There's plenty of room for another league, and there's plenty of interest for more football. One particularly strong path they could try is to become a feeder league for the NFL, and that's something a lot of people would get behind because they feel the NCAA exploits athletes.
People would not get behind this. In order for it to be a "feeder" league for the NFL, they would have to recruit young athletes trying to make it into the NFL. And most quality football players know for sure, one way or the other, whether they are on an NFL track by age 19-20. So kids dropping out, or forgoing college entirely is not something I expect will be embraced by the public. It's already a significant knock against the NBA.
Furthermore, there really isn't 'plenty of interest for more football'. Arena Football and the CFL are ratings black-holes. Take a look at how many arena franchises have opened up and subsequently folded. There have been 62 different Arena football franchises since 1987. Only five of them are still in business. FIVE!!! OUT OF 62!!
If people REALLY wanted more football, the NFL would add two more games to it's regular season. But nobody wants that. Literally nobody, not even fans. And here's why. Injuries happen. In order for a team to play two more games, they would have to expand the roster to allow for more players, so teams can make it through a longer season. So let's say you expand the roster from 53 guys, to 60. That's 7 more guys on each team. Times 32 teams. That's 224 players who, right now, could not make an NFL roster.
The NFL runs 16 games a week, and on any given week, at least half of them are unwatchable. Absolutely nobody wants an extra 224 bums running around diluting the talent pool. So it doesn't follow that anyone would want to see an entire league full of bums.
[*]On the topic of investors and league structuring, it's worth noting that the original XFL didn't have franchise teams. The league owned all of the teams. That was an important point, and I think that it's a model that he'll want to continue with.
He is going to keep that model. And so far every reaction I've heard to it has been "awww that's neat". But no one has said "why" that would be a good thing. Seems to me like it would undermine competition and make it harder for the fans in a city connect with it's home team.
It also seems like a system that is ripe for corruption. I mean, an NFL team can't put a concussed player back on the field because there would be consequences from the league. Also, the other competing teams would call them out for it. If the league and the competing teams are all one entity....who's looking out for the concussed player?
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