XFL (2020)

Vince McMahon, the founder of Alpha Entertainment, LLC

The XFL originally ran for a single season in 2001, as a joint venture between WWF and NBC spearheaded by Vince McMahon and NBC executive Dick Ebersol. The league attempted to be a competitor to the National Football League—the predominant professional league of American football in the United States (and where NBC had lost its broadcast rights to CBS three years earlier), running during the late winter and early spring to take advantage of lingering desire for football after the end of the NFL season. It featured various modifications to the rules of football in order to increase its intensity, as well as on-air innovations such as Skycams, placing microphones on players, and in-game interviews with players. The league was ultimately criticized for relying too heavily on "sports entertainment" gimmicks similar to professional wrestling. Back in 2001 the XFL aired during the wrestling “attitude Era,” and was more maintaining their lust for violence and sex appeal making them have harder hits, fewer rules, and modest cheerleaders,[5] and for the lack of high-level talent among its players. Despite strong ratings for its first games, viewership eventually nosedived, and the league folded after the conclusion of the inaugural season.[6][7][8][9][10] Both partners lost $35 million on the XFL,[11] and McMahon eventually conceded that the league was a "colossal failure".[12][13]

In the 2017 ESPN 30 for 30 documentary This Was the XFL, McMahon openly mused about reviving the XFL, noting that changes would need to be made compared to 2001 in order to make it viable and relevant in the modern era.[14] McMahon had purchased the trademarks of the defunct United Football League and an alternative brand, "UrFL" (Your Football League), in early 2017.[15] The following year, the director of the documentary, Charlie Ebersol (son of Dick Ebersol), would go on to help form the Alliance of American Football (AAF) in 2018, hoping to beat the revived XFL in being the first to play (they did by a year).[16] While the league was able to launch in 2019, a year before the XFL's first season, it went bankrupt before its first season finished after it twice lost its major investors.[17] On December 15, 2017, Bleacher Report columnist Brad Shepard reported that McMahon was seriously considering a revival of the XFL, with an expected announcement on January 25, 2018. In a statement to Deadspin, WWE did not confirm or deny the rumors, but did state that McMahon was establishing a new company known as Alpha Entertainment, which would "explore investment opportunities across the sports and entertainment landscapes, including professional football."[7] On December 21, 2017, WWE issued a filing to the Securities and Exchange Commission, stating that McMahon had sold $100 million worth of WWE stock to fund Alpha Entertainment.[18] Alpha Entertainment is headquartered next door to WWE headquarters in Stamford, Connecticut.[19]

On January 25, 2018, Alpha Entertainment announced a new incarnation of the XFL, which would begin with a 10-week inaugural season beginning in January or February 2020. In a press conference, McMahon stated that the new XFL would be dissimilar to its previous incarnation, stating that "There's only so many things that have 'FL' on the end of them and those are already taken. But we aren't going to have much of what the original XFL had." McMahon stated that the league would feature eight teams as a single entity owned by Alpha (the previous XFL was also a single-entity league), which had been revealed in 2019. Alpha Entertainment was established in order to keep the league's management and operations separate from that of WWE.[13][20] McMahon is prepared to invest as much as $500 million, five times as much as his investment in the 2001 XFL.[21] The XFL's decision to nix cheerleaders is in part due to changing attitudes regarding women's participation in entertaining sports fans.[21] He liquidated an additional $270 million in WWE stock (representing a 4% stake in WWE) in March 2019 to provide additional funding for the league.[22]

Oliver Luck, the commissioner of the XFL

The XFL discourages political gestures by players during games such as, for example, taking a knee in protest. McMahon also originally planned to forbid any player with a criminal record from participating (Commissioner Oliver Luck later walked back the latter decision, noting that the policy had not yet been finalized,[19] and stated in April 2019 that it would allow its teams to sign Johnny Manziel, who was convicted of domestic violence in 2016.[23] Manziel nonetheless was excluded from the inaugural draft and player allocations, with the league later stating that it had "no interest" in him.)[24] Felony convictions are still a disqualification.[25] McMahon justified his intentions by stating that the XFL would be "evaluating a player based on many things, including the quality of human being they are", and that "people don't want social and political issues coming into play when they are trying to be entertained". He suggested that players who wish to express political opinions should do so on their personal time.[20][13] Luck stated in October 2018 that the ban on protesting during the national anthem would be written into player contracts as a condition of employment and that the stipulation was McMahon's idea; Luck agreed that the league aimed to be as non-political as possible. Players are not barred from using cannabis, as the league will not test for the drug.[26]

McMahon did not initially reveal any specific details on rule changes that the new XFL would feature but did state that he aimed to reduce the length of games to around two hours (in contrast to the standard in American football, which generally runs slightly over three hours). The league later revised this to a two-and-a-half-hour target length.[27] Later, when announcing new changes to overtime rules, it was implied that television broadcasts would have three-hour time slots, into which the entire game and overtime would fit.[28] Test games resulted in an average game time of 2 hours and 40 minutes with a comparable number of plays to an NFL game.[29] Halfway through the first season, the average length of a regular season game clocked in at 2 hours, 50 minutes,[30] exactly the same as the Canadian Football League.[31] He also noted that by announcing it two years in advance (unlike the original XFL, which was only announced one year in advance), there would also be more time to prepare the league in order to deliver a more desirable product.[32][20]

McMahon denied that the timing of the announcement was meant to coincide with a recent ratings downturn being experienced by the NFL, explaining, "What has happened there is their business, and I'm not going to knock those guys, but I am going to learn from their mistakes as anyone would if they were tasked with re-imagining a new football league."[20]

On June 5, 2018, Oliver Luck was named the league's commissioner and chief executive officer. Luck left his previous positions with the NCAA to take over the operations of the XFL.[33] Doug Whaley, most recently general manager of the Buffalo Bills, was hired as the league's senior vice president of football operations on November 8, 2018.[34] On January 22, 2019, Jeffrey Pollack was named the president and chief operating officer, coming from his previous role as the chief marketing and strategy officer and special adviser for the Los Angeles Chargers.[35]

Commissioner Luck announced the eight host cities and stadiums for the first franchises on December 5, 2018, and also announced the starting date of February 8, 2020, the weekend after Super Bowl LIV,[36] the date on which its first two games were later played.[37] Its first head coach and general manager, Dallas's Bob Stoops, was announced February 7, 2019,[38] with the coaches for Seattle (Jim Zorn), Washington (Pep Hamilton), and Tampa Bay (Marc Trestman) following later in the month. The last of the inaugural head coaches, Houston's June Jones, was hired May 13 and introduced May 20.[39]

McMahon stated that he wanted to play in existing NFL markets but did not identify potential cities specifically and did not rule out any specific cities. McMahon also did not rule out playing on artificial turf. The original XFL avoided artificial playing surfaces (as most such surfaces then were more carpet-like); however, the technology has advanced considerably since 2001, with modern artificial turfs mimicking real grass more closely. John Shumway from KDKA-TV in Pittsburgh and local media from Orlando and San Diego both inquired about potential teams in their respective cities, but McMahon (while stating that "I love Pittsburgh") declined to name any cities for teams. McMahon also stated that teams would have new identities compared to recycling old identities from the old league.[40] The league sent solicitations to thirty metropolitan areas as potential locations for a team.[41] Commissioner Luck announced the eight host cities and stadiums for the first franchises on December 5, 2018.[36] The emergence of the Alliance of American Football created issues selecting cities to host XFL teams, as many potential candidates became home to AAF teams (notably Orlando, the next largest city without an NFL team and an acceptable stadium. Orlando was also one of the original XFL's most successful markets and second in attendance for the 2019 AAF season). Not wanting teams to compete against other spring football teams in the same market, the XFL chose different cities than the AAF.

The league chose to focus on placing teams in large media markets, selecting five of the top seven largest media markets in the U.S.; based on 2017 census bureau estimates, all eight XFL markets have over 2.9 million residents each (the smallest being St. Louis).[42] This was seen as a stark contrast to the other emerging spring football league, the Alliance of American Football, which primarily chose markets without NFL teams, seen as a decision to avoid competing with existing fan bases; three of the AAF's markets (Birmingham, Memphis, and Salt Lake, the first two of which had teams in the first XFL) had populations less than half that of St. Louis's.[43] The only XFL market which does not currently host an NFL team is St. Louis, which in 2015 saw its NFL team (the Rams) return to Los Angeles.[44]

In May 2019, the XFL placed a bid on some of the AAF's former assets as part of that league's bankruptcy proceedings.[45] The league was ultimately outbid by former Arena Football League executive Jerry Kurz.[46] Several months earlier in December 2018, Charlie Ebersol asked Vince McMahon about merging the AAF (which had then yet to start its ultimately-aborted sole season) with the XFL. McMahon turned him down.[47]

The league signed its first player, quarterback Landry Jones, on August 15, 2019. The XFL revealed team names and logos on August 21, 2019.[48] Players were assigned to each team in the 2020 XFL Draft from October 15 to 16, with schedules released October 22 and ticket sales opening to the general public October 24. Uniforms were revealed December 3.[49] The XFL did not hold a preseason.[50]

In the week leading up to the kickoff, the XFL secured sponsorships from Gatorade and Anheuser-Busch.[51] The Anheuser-Busch sponsorship is used to promote Bud Light Seltzer; the "seltzer chug" became a postgame locker room tradition in part because of the product placement deal.[52]

On March 12, 2020, the league canceled the remainder of its regular season games over concerns related to the COVID-19 pandemic; similar concerns led other major sports leagues, including the NBA, NHL, MLS, MLB, MLR seasons and NCAA to suspend or cancel games.[53] The announcement came after a Seattle Dragons player, who self-reported symptoms to his team's medical staff, had been tested for coronavirus but had not yet received his results (the unnamed player eventually tested positive).[54] Although teams only played five games, the league announced it would pay all players their base salary for the rest of the season; players who receive legitimate offers from the NFL or CFL would be allowed to sign with those teams but with a clause requiring them to return to their XFL squads if the league were able to hold its championship game.[55] At the time, the league still planned on having a 2021 season; it was exploring relocating as many as three of its teams, with the league contacting authorities in San Antonio, Texas, in early April about potentially placing a franchise there.[56] Other potential 2021 actions included moving the Tampa Bay Vipers to Orlando and the New York Guardians to a smaller New Jersey stadium, Red Bull Arena.[57]

On April 10, 2020, league president Jeffrey Pollack informed employees on a conference call that the league was suspending operations and that all employees would be terminated.[2] Three days later, on April 13, the league filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, stating that the coronavirus pandemic had deprived the league of tens of millions of dollars in revenue.[58] With the bankruptcy filing, the league put itself up for sale and began the process of seeking a buyer in order to maximize the value of its assets to pay off creditors.[3] Luck, who had returned home to Indiana March 13,[59] was fired from his position before the bankruptcy filing, which led him to sue McMahon personally for wrongful termination on April 21.[4]

In May 2020, the league made its first actions toward resuming operations by asking authorities in St. Louis, Houston and Seattle to reinstate stadium lease agreements that it had previously been attempting to discharge in the bankruptcy.[60][61]

On May 27, 2020, court filings in the XFL bankruptcy case revealed key dates surrounding the possible sale of the league. The deadline to file as a bidder is set for July 30, the auction will take place August 3 and the sale hearing is set for August 7 at 10am. [62]

These are rule changes the league officially confirmed in the January 7, 2020 release of the official rule book:[65]

First ever XFL kickoff between the DC Defenders and Seattle Dragons at Audi Field.

The league has an active interest in reviving the kickoffs as an element of the game. This is in contrast to the former AAF, which eliminated kickoffs outright, and the NFL and college football, both of which imposed rules minimizing the impact of the kickoff in the mid-2010s to improve player safety.[66] Many of these kickoff rules were adapted from rules created by The Spring League's predecessor, the Fall Experimental Football League.[67]

• The spot of the kickoff is set at the kicking team's 30-yard line.[68] (The NFL and college standard is the 35-yard line.) However, members of the kicking team (excluding the kicker) line up at the receiving team's 35-yard line and blockers on the receiving team must line up at their 30-yard line. Only the kicker and returner(s) can move until the ball is either caught or three seconds after it hits the ground.
• Kickoffs that go out of bounds, or fall short of the receiving team's 20-yard line,[69] come to the kicking team's 45-yard line.[70] (The NFL and NCAA only require a kick travel 10 yards; kicks out of bounds are placed at the receiving team's 40 yard line.)
• The XFL uses two different types of touchbacks. A major touchback occurs when a kick travels into the endzone in the air, which results in the receiving team taking possession at the 35. A minor touchback occurs when the ball bounces into the endzone, which results in the receiving team taking possession at the 15. These rules discourage either team from purposefully taking a touchback.
• Teams can request to attempt an onside kick under more conventional kickoff rules. If a team opts for an onside kick, the ball must travel at least ten yards before it can be recovered by the kicking team (as with other leagues) but may not travel more than 20 yards downfield in the air from the spot of the kick, to prevent the formation from being used as a loophole.[71]

• The XFL does not allow gunners; all players on a punting team must remain on or behind the line of scrimmage until the ball is kicked.[72] (This is a carryover from the original XFL, although that league had scrapped the rule midway through its only season).
• The coffin corner punt is treated as a touchback and brought to the 35-yard line. The attempts to neutralize punt coverage are made with the intention of encouraging more fourth-down conversions; Luck conceded halfway through the inaugural season that the effort was largely unsuccessful, as coaches continued to punt as usual.[30]
• The same touchback rules for kickoffs also applies to punts.

The conventional extra point kick was replaced with a scrimmage play, varying in point value depending on how far the touchdown-scoring team chooses to take the snap from the goal line: a two-yard attempt scores a single point, a five-yard attempt two points, and a ten-yard attempt three points.[73] (This rule is also a carryover from the original XFL, which added the rule only for the playoffs. The Stars Football League also used the rule during its existence.) In the event the defense secures a turnover and returns the ball for a touchdown, the defensive team scores the same number of points as the offense was aiming to score.

Teams are able to attempt two forward passes on the same play, so long as the ball never crosses the line of scrimmage before the second pass.

Overtime is decided by a five-round shootout of two-point conversions similar to a penalty shootout in soccer or ice hockey. Such a shootout had never been attempted in organized football at the time the rule was proposed; in April 2019, the NCAA adopted a similar concept for games that reach a fifth overtime starting with the 2019 FBS season.[74][75] Unlike other football leagues, a coin toss is not used to determine who is on offense first; instead, the visiting team is on offense first and home team on defense first for each round, similar to baseball. The defense is not able to score, as should a turnover occur, the play would be dead.[69] Defensive penalties result in the ball moving up to the 1-yard line, while any subsequent defensive penalty on any play, even in future rounds, result in a score awarded to the offensive team. Pre-snap offensive penalties result in the ball being respotted pursuant to regular rules, while post-snap offensive penalties result in a loss of down and no score. If both teams remain tied after five rounds, multiple rounds of conversions will be played until one team succeeds, thus ensuring that no game can end in a draw.[69]

• Outside of the two-minute warning, the clock runs continuously. During this time, the clock only stops during a change of possession.[76] This reverses after the two-minute warning (which the XFL uses), after which the clock stops after all plays from scrimmage[77] until the ball is spotted and reverts to NFL timing rules otherwise, stopping after incomplete passes, advancing the ball out of bounds and spiking the football. (Arena football has long used a continuous clock with even fewer stoppages; Canadian football does not use a continuous clock, but stops the clock after all plays from scrimmage following that code's three-minute warning.)
• The play clock is 25 seconds long measured from the spotting of the ball, roughly the same as the NCAA rule for plays when the clock is stopped. (This is five seconds longer than the CFL rule, which is 20 seconds from the spotting of the ball. The XFL's efforts to speed up spotting are aimed to make the two lengths of time nearly the same, 30 to 32 seconds overall.) The NFL standard is 40 seconds from the end of the previous play, also used during the NCAA during plays when the clock is running; the former AAF and previous XFL measure was 35 seconds from the end of the previous play.[73] In conjunction with this rule, the XFL has a one-way radio in all offensive players' helmets to allow the offensive coordinator to run a no-huddle offense and call plays directly to all of the players from the sidelines. This eliminates the need for a huddle.[78]
• Teams are given two time-outs per half instead of three.[68]
• Instant replay reviews are limited to 60 seconds.[79] There are no coach's challenges; the sky judge originates all reviews automatically.

• The XFL expands on the NCAA system of eight on-field officials (which includes the center judge not used professionally in either the NFL or CFL) including a ninth official — a specialized "ball judge" whose only duty is to quickly spot the ball after the end of the previous play. By utilizing the ball judge, who wears a red hat to differentiate themselves from the other officials, the league aims to have a ball-spotting time of between five and seven seconds.[24][68]
• A new rule proposal would add a new "tap penalty", imposed on individual players instead of entire teams.[80] Players who commit a foul which is not serious enough to warrant a penalty flag will be sent off the field for one play. This type of enforcement will keep the game moving quickly without allowing players to break the rules. Unlike the almost-analogous power play used in ice hockey, the offending team would be allowed to substitute another player.
• The defunct Alliance of American Football introduced the sky judge, an additional official in the press booth for the sole purpose of reviewing on-field decisions. Luck had said he thought this was a great innovation to the game and, in December 2019, confirmed the XFL would use the sky judge.[79] Robert Lu, who served as the AAF's sky judge in 2019, continues in that capacity with the XFL.[81]
• Penalty enforcement places priority on fouls that pose a threat to player safety, with less emphasis on procedural violations so as not to slow down the game with unnecessary penalty calls.[25] Officials would also have access to both teams' play calls.[78] The sky judge would also have full access to the officials' microphones.[79]
• All six of the XFL's officiating crews have at least one woman.[82]
• The league uses Lazser Down chain crew equipment, which uses wideband radio waves to precisely measure the spotting of the ball.[83]

The football used in XFL games is the traditional brown color used in most other leagues, but a unique feature is that each team has their own balls for use in home games, marked with the XFL logo and team's name in their respective colors.[84] (This is in contrast to the black ball with red adornments used by the original XFL.) Another distinctive mark is at each end of the ball, where a two-tone "X" in the home team's colors adorns each point and runs through the middle of each panel of the ball, intended to allow the receivers to track the ball easily. Five balls, each with a different texture of leather, were tested during the Summer Showcases and The Spring League.[85] The winning texture, a custom patent-pending design known as "X-Pebble," was released November 25, 2019.[86] The design was created and is manufactured by Team Issue of Dallas, Texas, in what became their first professional football contract.[87]

The league uses the amateur football (high school and college) and CFL standard of one foot in bounds for a complete forward pass.[88]

• Offensive linemen are allowed to advance up to two yards downfield on a forward pass.[68]
• The designated home team automatically gets, at the start of the game, to choose to kick off, receive or defer to the second half. There is no coin toss traditionally seen in other football leagues, or any opening scramble that was a hallmark of the original XFL. In the event of overtime, the visiting team will be given the choice of going first or second or selecting which end zone to attack (with the home team getting the other choice).
• Players are allowed to wear colored or decorated visors.[89]
• There is a 10-minute halftime.

These are rule changes which the league has considered using, though they were either not officially tested or were discarded in preseason testing:

• Previous proposals for the kickoff had the ball moved as far back as the 15-yard line, to make touchbacks all but impossible.[25]
• The original proposal for the multiple forward pass rule would have treated any pass behind the line of scrimmage as a lateral pass. Luck stated that this would also have the added benefit of simplifying officiating, as he surmised it would be easier to judge whether a person was behind a fixed line of scrimmage compared to whether a pass thrown by a moving player was traveling along a parallel line.[90] The XFL ran test plays with double forward passes during its rules testing in Mississippi. Under this rule, all players behind the line of scrimmage would have been eligible receivers, including those on the offensive line, and thus it would eliminate the "illegal touching of a forward pass" penalty at other levels of the game.[29] Offensive linemen would still have been prohibited from advancing downfield before a forward pass that crosses the line of scrimmage is in the air. (McMahon had proposed a similar but broader rule change during the run of the original XFL, which would have made all players eligible receivers, but the league's coaches rejected the proposal as too radical of a change to make mid-season.)[91] It also would have had the intended consequence of providing employment to utility players who play multiple positions and have a broader range of skills.[77] In November 2019, an ESPN.com article noted that the rule had been thrown out before the season began, and that offensive linemen would still not be allowed to touch forward passes, regardless of where the ball was.[24]
• The league proposed using a wider one-yard neutral zone used by the CFL. (The NFL, college, and high school standard is the length of the football, approximately 11 inches.) This rule became less likely after testing, as the league feared it would make short-yardage situations too easy to convert for the offensive team.[29]
• The original XFL allowed for forward motion by a single backfield player (normally, American football allows for only lateral or backward motion by one backfielder, and the CFL allows all backfielders to move wherever they desire). The XFL had briefly mentioned they may use this rule again.
• During the announcement of the league, McMahon suggested the XFL may eliminate halftime completely. This was ultimately abandoned, and instead there is, as aforementioned in the rules above, a ten-minute halftime period.
• A proposed rule would prohibit offensive linemen (excluding the snapper) from putting their hand on the ground, outlawing the three-point stance used at all other levels of the game.[64]
• The XFL had initially announced that there would be no fair catches and that a five-yard halo rule would instead be used; both of these rules are used in the CFL and were prominent rules in the original XFL.[64] The XFL legalized the fair catch in the official rulebook while noting that the other rule changes were intended to make its use uncommon.[65] (The league's rules did not indicate whether or not the esoteric fair catch kick option would be offered.)

Team 9 is a specialized team that acts as a hybrid farm team and practice squad for the league, and was inspired by a similar scheme employed by NFL Europe. It holds a maximum of 40 players at a time and is meant to prepare players for call up to one of the XFL's 8 teams to fill roster vacancies due to injuries of other players or if the teams see a player as a "hidden gem". The team shares practice facilities and support staff with the Dallas Renegades but maintains its own coaching staff; its head coach is Bart Andrus and is assisted by Pete Kuharchek and Peter Vaas.

During the first two weeks of the season, teams are encouraged to use players from Team 9 to fill roster spots, but are not required to do so, as they may prefer to sign a player unaffiliated with the XFL or re-sign a player who participated in their preseason camps but was cut. After Week 2, exclusively using Team 9 players to fill rosters will become a requirement, with Team 9 constantly replenishing itself by adding new players from outside the XFL.

On March 10, each team's maximum roster size increased from 52 to 57 players and the majority of Team 9 was dispersed. Team 9 was to reload to approximately 36 players. Team 9 does not include the specialist positions of kicker, punter, or long snapper, who are instead reserved in a separate "player pool."[96]

The inaugural draft took place on October 15, 2019, with the second part of the draft taking place the following day. A supplemental draft was held November 22 of that same year.

ESPN Latin America simulcasts select ESPN Deportes games. ESPN International's ESPN Player service streams XFL games in the Europe and MENA continents. Fox Sports broadcasts in Hong Kong, Macau, Papua New Guinea, and Southeast Asia.[130] ESPN's British partner BT Sport,[131] and Canada's TSN (which is minority-owned by ESPN) also air XFL games, as does Sony ESPN in India.[108][132][133][134]