Category: XFL

Vince McMahon’s XFL Revival Faces Early Competition From New Football League

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WWE’s chairman and chief executive Vince McMahon already has an opponent in drawing away NFL’s football fans, and it comes from a surprising name: Charlie Ebersol. Not only did Charlie’s father, and longtime NBC executive, Dick help Vince launch the original XFL 17 years ago, but the younger Ebersol directed the recent ESPN 30 for 30 documentary on the original failed launch of the XFL. Today, Ebersol announced the formation of the Alliance of American Football.

 After political protests by NFL players and concussion injuries gained recent attention, ratings for the league fell by 17 percent. Perhaps seizing on this environment, McMahon announced this past January that he’d revive the XFL (backed by $100 million in stock he sold). He emphasized a more family-friendly stance than the previous XFL, downplaying the sexy cheerleaders and violence of the original league and adhering more to the current PG-era of the WWE. He also stressed nonpolitical actions during games and employing players without criminal backgrounds.

Ebersol’s announcement of his Alliance for American Football league also might mean McMahon’s plan will come too late. Whereas Vince wants to revamp the XFL in in early 2020, his rival scheduled his launch for February 9, 2019 on CBS, soon after the next Super Bowl.

Ebersol’s father and Vince’s former partner Dick will serve on a board of directors that will also feature former NFL stars Hines Ward, Justin Tuck, and Jared Allen. The stated goals are similar to McMahon’s reboot of the XFL, such as shorter games and utilizing top-level talent from college football who don’t make it into the NFL. In addition, Ebersol wants games to be affordable, with good seats available at $35.

“I wanted to build a team of people who were significantly more accomplished and smarter than I was and let them build what they thought the future of the sport was going to be,” Ebersol said in press announcement.

Ebersol emphasized the AAF is in it for the long haul.

“We’re not looking for out-of-box, rocket-ship success,” he said. “The XFL, USFL as a live event were successful businesses, but expectations were so high. We want to manage expectations, because we’re built for a long-term model.”

Source: WrestlingINC

Triple H Expected To Have More Control In WWE, Vince McMahon On His WWE Role After XFL Relaunch

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On today’s WWE earnings call, WWE Chairman & CEO Vince McMahon addressed the relaunch of the XFL. He once again noted that his near-$100 million stock sale will not be enough to fund the league, and that the venture will require more investment capital. He also reiterated that the league will not affect his role in WWE, and that there will be a separate management team for it.

Despite Vince’s comments, Dave Meltzer reported in The Wrestling Observer Newsletter that the feeling is that Triple H will be given a lot more control in the company, simply because of the realistic demands in running both a pro wrestling company and a football league. Triple H has been putting his own team together, which includes Jeremy Borash, who left recently Impact Wrestling to come on board. Meltzer added that there have been others talked about recently to join his team to eventually fill key roles when he is in charge.

As noted, PWInsider reported this week that Vince recently stepped aside to put Triple H in charge of running 205 Live, which explains the different feel of the show the past couple of weeks. That change, however, was done more to reboot the brand as opposed to a workload issue with Vince. While the original Cruiserweight Classic concept, under Triple H, did very well on the WWE Network, 205 Live usually struggles to make the top 10 episodes of the week on the streaming service. Vince had been trying to make the show more character-driven, while Triple H is now bringing back some of the original aspects of the Cruiserweight Classic, including more of a focus on the in-ring work and the original presentation of the talent.

Source: WrestlingINC

Wrestling News Blog Podcast: XFL Announcement & 2018 Royal Rumble & NXT TakeOver: Philadelphia Previews

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Ed Boston Podcast Network presents The Wrestling News Blog Podcast!

Ed Boston and Vanessa Vasquez discuss Vince McMahon’s huge XFL announcement and give a preview of NXT Takeover Philidelphia and the WWE Royal Rumble.. Which will feature a Women’s Rumble match for the first time ever!!!

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/edboston/2018/01/27/wrestling-news-blog-podcast-xfl-announcement-royal-rumble-2018-preview

Vince McMahon Announces XFL Is Returning In 2020

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Yesterday afternoon Vince McMahon announced that the XFL will return in 2020.

McMahon held an online press conference yesterday afternoon which kicked off with a commercial for the XFL revival that stressed the games will be quicker, simpler, safer and have reformed rules.

Vince kicked off his portion of the presser saying the XFL plans to give football back to the fans by listening to those who love the game over the next two years.

“We will present a shorter, faster-paced, family-friendly and easier to understand game.” Vince explained, “Don’t get me wrong, it’s still football. But it’s professional football reimagined.”

The WWE Chairman revealed that they intend to launch with eight, forty-man teams and a ten game regular season that would finish with two semi-finals and a championship game.

Additional details McMahon revealed during the press conference:

  • He claims the XFL return won’t affect his role in WWE.
  • There will be no crossover between WWE and XFL.
  • Vince says the XFL revival will have nothing to do with politics or social issues. He doesn’t think fans want to deal with things of a political nature while watching. They just want good football.
  • The players will have rules in regards to the National Anthem that players have to abide by.
  • Players with a DUI will not be allowed to compete in the XFL.

Watch the full press conference below:

Vince McMahon To Make Major Announcement Today

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Has WWE confirmed that Vince McMahon is getting back into the football business? WWE announced the following today:

WWE Chairman and CEO Vince McMahon to make live sports announcement today at 3 p.m.

WWE Chairman and CEO Vince McMahon will make a major sports announcement today at 3 p.m. ET, streaming live from the digital platforms of his new enterprise, Alpha Entertainment.

The live stream will be available via Alpha Entertainment’s Twitter (@AlphaEntLLC), Facebook (facebook.com/AlphaEntLLC) and YouTube (youtube.com/alphaentertainment) pages, as well as AlphaEntLLC.com.

According to PWInsider, WWE’s production team has begun working on video footage for the eventual return of the XFL. The report stated that the XFL will officially make its comeback in 2020 to make sure they have a proper foundation put together for the league. This would include building out rosters and coaches.

Vince McMahon had started a company separate from WWE, called Alpha Entertainment – which in a statement given from WWE last month – is geared to “explore investment opportunities across the sports and entertainment landscapes, including professional football.” Since that times multiple trademarks had been filed by McMahon’s company, including: “UFL” and “United Football League.”

Last month, McMahon sold 3.34 million shares of WWE to fund his Alpha Entertainment, LLC. The sale netted McMahon just under $100 million.

While the initial hype of the XFL generated a strong audience, die-hard fans of the NFL heavily criticized the league, and numbers started to reflect the dissatisfaction. As a result, the XFL lasted only one season in 2001, with it resurfacing earlier this year on the ESPN 30 for 30 This Was the XFL documentary.

Source: WrestlingINC

Vince McMahon Sells $100 Million Of WWE Stock To Fund Alpha Entertainment, New XFL Trademarks Filed

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As we previously reported, Vince McMahon is apparently once again interested in getting into the football business. The news, which was originally broken by freelance writer Brad Shepard, was reported by Deadspin after they reached out to WWE regarding the possible relaunch of the XFL. The response from WWE is that Vince McMahon has started a company separate from WWE, called Alpha Entertainment, and is geared to “explore investment opportunities across the sports and entertainment landscapes, including professional football.” In conjunction with the trademark filing in June, the WWE spokesperson did not confirm or deny the possible resurrection.

Today Vince McMahon sold 3.34 million shares of WWE to fund his Alpha Entertainment, LLC. Here is the full SEC form detailing the sale, which will net McMahon around $100 million:

“On December 21, 2017, Vincent K. McMahon (“Mr. McMahon”), Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of World Wrestling Entertainment, Inc. (the “Company”), sold 3,340,000 shares of the Company’s Class A common stock in a block trade made in accordance with the provisions of Rule 144 of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended. Mr. McMahon executed the sale primarily to fund a separate entity from the Company, Alpha Entertainment LLC, which Mr. McMahon established to explore investment opportunities across the sports and entertainment landscapes, including professional football. Mr. McMahon has informed the Company that he has no current plan to sell additional shares of the Company’s stock and that he intends to continue in his capacity as the Company’s Chairman and Chief Executive Officer for the foreseeable future.The shares sold by Mr. McMahon represent approximately 4.3% of the Company’s total outstanding shares of Class A and Class B common stock. After the sale, Mr. McMahon beneficially owns 32,193,375 shares of the Company’s Class B common stock, which represents approximately 82.8% of the Company’s total voting power and approximately 41.8% of the Company’s total outstanding shares of common stock.”

ESPN Sports Business Reporter, Darren Rovell, also noted that Alpha Entertainment filed for five trademarks to “XFL” on December 16 with it showing up in the trademark office filing today. This is in addition to McMahon recently filing additional football trademarks, which included “URFL”, “United Football League”, “UFL”, and “For the love of football.” As noted, WWE filed for XFL trademarks back in June with the foreign filing deadline expiring on December 28.

While the initial hype of the XFL generated a strong audience, die-hard fans of the NFL began to heavily criticize the league, and numbers started to reflect the dissatisfaction. As a result, the XFL lasted only one season in 2001, with it resurfacing earlier this year on the ESPN 30 for 30 This Was the XFL documentary.

Source: WrestlingINC

More On Vince McMahon Possibly Reviving The XFL

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As we previously reported, Vince McMahon is apparently once again interested in getting into the football business. The news, which was originally broken by right-wing writer Brad Shepard, was reported by Deadspin after they reached out to WWE regarding the possible relaunch of the XFL. The response from WWE is that Vince McMahon has started a company separate from WWE, called Alpha Entertainment, and is geared to “explore investment opportunities across the sports and entertainment landscapes, including professional football.” In conjunction with the filing in June, the WWE spokesperson did not confirm or deny the possible resurrection.

However, the spokesperson did say that “Mr. McMahon has nothing further to announce at this time.”

Despite this, the original reporter of the story stated that an announcement about the XFL could be made on January 25, 2018. This is the Thursday following the 25th Anniversary of Raw.

FOX Sports noted that because the news was broken by a political source, the league could be linked to Donald Trump, who has been extremely critical of the NFL during his presidency. Trump owned the New Jersey Generals in the United States Football League in 1984 and 1985, but that organization folded as well, after only three seasons. Trump was often blamed for the failure of the league, as he pushed it to move to a fall schedule against the NFL which cost it lucrative offers to air games in the spring.

The report also states that McMahon recently filed additional football trademarks, which included “URFL”, “United Football League”, “UFL”, and “For the love of football.”

Unfortunately, there were not many ex-XFL players who would go on and have successful NFL careers after the league folded. Rod Smart, who was arguably the most notable XFL player, who went by the nickname “He Hate Me,” would only go on to play in the NFL for the Carolina Panthers from 2002-2005, of which only two of those seasons he played more than 12 games. He was, however, a member of the 2003 Panthers team, which finished the season as NFC Champions and Super Bowl XXXVIII runner-ups.

When the company folded in 2001, former NBC Sports Chairman Dick Ebersol stated, “We knew it wasn’t going to work (in prime time) from early March on. The launch worked, the people were there, and we didn’t answer their expectations, I guess.” However, at the conclusion of the “This Was The XFL” 30 for 30 special, both he and Vince teased possible interest in bringing back the company.

Source: WrestlingINC

XFL Trademark Filed, WWE Responds On Whether It Will Be Returning

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From the very beginning, the XFL was quite a bizarre concept. Intentionally trying to go against the grain of what NFL fans view American football to look like, Vince McMahon sought out to create a league that was extreme and over-the-top.

Here were some rules that the XFL enforced to distinguish them from the NFL:

– Instead of a coin toss, players were placed on the 50-yard line to recover the ball. Whoever recovers had the choice whether they wanted to kick or receive.

– The receiving team had to run kickoffs out of the endzone, unless the ball was kicked through the endzone.

– Defensive players can use bump-and-run tactics down the entire field.

– There was no kicker for the point after touchdown (PAT). It had to be either via pass or run.

– There was no fair catch rule.

While the initial hype of the XFL generated a strong audience, diehard fans of the NFL began to heavily criticize the league, and numbers started to reflect the dissatisfaction. As a result, the XFL lasted only one season, and never returned again. On the ESPN 30 for 30 “This Was the XFL” documentary, the conclusion saw Vince McMahon discuss the ups and downs of the league with former NBC Sports Chairman Dick Ebersol. Interestingly, during the discussion, the idea of revitalizing the company after a 15-year absence was suggested. In fact, the idea was not adamantly rejected by either party.

Based on new information, the XFL could be returning. On Wednesday, June 28, 2017, the XFL trademark was filed by WWE under the category of “Education and Entertainment Services.” WWE has until 12/28 before the foreign filing deadline is expired.

Here is the description provided to the United States Patent and Trademark Office for the filing.

“Entertainment services, namely, an ongoing series featuring wrestling exhibitions and performances by professional wrestlers and entertainers provided through broadcast media, namely, television and radio, and via the Internet or online service; Entertainment services, namely, production of sports and sports related programs provided through broadcast media, namely, television and radio, cable, satellite and via the Internet or online service; Sports entertainment, namely, conducting of sports competitions; Providing information in the fields of sports and entertainment via an online community portal; Providing a website featuring information in the fields of sports and entertainment.”

Deadspin reached out to WWE regarding the resurrection of XFL. Although the spokesperson did not confirm or deny, it was revealed that Vince McMahon has started Alpha Entertainment, which will personally be funded by him to “explore investment opportunities across the sports and entertainment landscapes, including football.”

Source: WrestlingINC