News

XFL reportedly set for re-launch in 2020

by
3Down Staff
January 25, 2018

The XFL is back.

According to multiple media reports, WWE CEO Vince McMahon will make the announcement Thursday afternoon.

BREAKING: @VinceMcMahon will announce later today that his investment company @alphaentllc will start a pro football league. Announcement will be made at 3pm ET on company’s social media pages.

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— Darren Rovell (@darrenrovell) January 25, 2018

Reports say the league will launch in 2020.

There has been widespread speculation about the league’s return after McMahon sold 3.34 million shares of WWE, worth approximately $100 million, late last year.

The XFL lasted just one season, in 2001. Co-owned by the WWE (then called the WWF) and NBC, its games aired on the network and on independent channels and were played in the spring, in an attempt to satisfy football fans’ yearnings during the NFL’s offseason.

The new league was meant to one-up the staid NFL by adding some of the violence, raunch and personal rivalries (staged or not) of pro wrestling, and it offered innovations, including extensive use of sky-cam during telecasts, that have lasted well past its demise. That failure was hastened by plummeting ratings, which some blamed on poor quality of play stemming from inadequate preparation.

– with files from the Washington Post