Information AboutXfl |
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The XFL was a professional American Football league that played for one season in 2001 . FOUNDATION Created as a joint venture between NBC and the World Wrestling Federation under the company name "XFL, LLC", the XFL was created as a " Single-entity League ", meaning that the teams were not individually owned and operated Franchises , but that the league was operated as a single business unit. The concept of the league was first announced on February 3 , 2000 . The XFL was originally conceived to build on the success of the NFL and Professional Wrestling . It was hyped as "real" football without penalties for roughness and with fewer rules in general. The loud games featured players and coaches with microphones and cameras in the huddle and in the Locker Rooms . Stadiums featured Trash-talking public address announcers and very scantily-clad Cheerleaders . Instead of a pre-game coin toss, XFL officials put the ball on the ground and let a player from each team scramble for it to determine who received the kickoff option, which unsurprisingly led to the first XFL injury. This type of "coin-toss" has since been referred to as the "injury zone." The XFL had impressive television coverage for an upstart league, with three games televised each week on NBC , UPN , and TNN . The "X" in XFL did not stand for "extreme", as in "Extreme Football League." When the league was first organized, promoters wanted to make sure that everyone knew that the "X" did not actually stand for anything. This particular XFL had no connection to an indoor league also known as the XFL ( Xtreme Football League ) that had launched a few years earlier but merged with AF2 before ever playing a game in its own right (although the leagues did have a connection in both having teams in Birmingham, Alabama ). 2001 SEASON The XFL's opening game took place on February 3 , 2001 , one year after the concept of the league was announced. The first game was between the Las Vegas Outlaws and the New York/New Jersey Hitmen . The game (remembered for Vince McMahon 's pre-game speech that ended with the emphatic, "''This is the X...F...L!''"), a 19-0 victory for the Outlaws, was watched on NBC by an estimated 14 million viewers. During the telecast, NBC switched over to the game between the Orlando Rage and the Chicago Enforcers , which was a closer contest than the blowout taking place in Las Vegas. The show had a 9.5 Rating . Although the XFL began with reasonable TV ratings (the opening-week games actually delivered ratings double those of what NBC had promised advertisers) and fair publicity, the TV audience declined sharply after the first week of the season and the media attacked the league for what was perceived as the poor quality of play. This perception was paired with a perception that the XFL was formed from the dregs left over after the NFL , AFL and CFL had their Drafts . XFL RULE CHANGES Despite the early boasts of a "rules-light" game made by the WWF promoters and the nearly universally negative reviews from the mainstream sports media, by and large the XFL's on-field professional athletes played a brand of 11-man outdoor football quite recognizable to fans of the NFL or NCAA. Aside from the innane opening game sprint to determine initial possession, there were other major obvious changes made to the game of Football in the XFL. No Kick Converts One of the major and obvious changes was the lack of extra point kicks. To earn a point after a touchdown, teams ran a single offensive down from the two yard line (functionally identical to the NFL/NCAA two-point conversion), but for just a single point. By the championship game, two-point and three-point conversions had been added to the rules. Teams could opt for the bonus points by playing the conversion further back from the goal line. Overtime Ties were resolved in similar fashion to the NCAA and CFL game, with at least one possession by each side at the opponent's 25 yard line necessary to decide a winner. However there were some important differences as well: there were no first downs – teams had to score within four downs, and the team that had possession first in overtime could not attempt a field goal until fourth down. If that team managed to score a touchdown in less than four downs, the second team would only have that same number of downs to match or beat the result. If the score was still tied after an overtime period, the team that had gone second in the previous OT would go first in the next OT. The "halo" rule on kick-offs and punts The heavily-hyped "no Fair Catch " rule almost by necessity was paired with a "five yard halo" rule to protect punt returners. Both rule variations were borrowed from Canadian Football , and are also part of Arena Football . However, since few XFL players had played in the CFL or AFL the resulting inexperience with the "halo" rule led to a tremendous number of "halo"-infraction penalties, which took much of the excitement out of the punt return game (exactly the opposite of the intended effect). The human coin toss (Fumble Drill) A fan favorite was the so-called "human coin toss" before the start of the game, in which two players of opposing teams had to run after the football tossed by an official in order to decide who would gain possesion of the ball first. The Amount of Money that Each XFL Player Recieves For Each Game The XFL paid standardized player salaries. Quarterbacks earned $ 5,000 per week, kick-punt specialists earned $3,500, and all other uniformed players earned $4,000 per week. Players on a winning team received a bonus for the week. MEDIA RESPONSE The media observed that the XFL seemed to be attempting to attract two distinct audiences to games, wrestling fans and football fans. Ultimately it failed to appeal to members of either group. Wrestling fans wanted drama and hype, while football fans simply wanted a better caliber of play on the field. As far as attracting fans from other areas of entertainment (e.g., Movies ), the XFL was a complete failure. Also, many football fans distrusted the league because of its relationship to pro wrestling. They had a hard time accepting that a close, come-from-behind win or a controversial ending had not been scripted in advance, although there was absolutely no evidence to support this. The league was panned by critics as boring football with a tawdry broadcast style, although the broadcasts on TNN and to a lesser extent UPN and the Matt Vasgersian -helmed NBC coverage were comparatively professional and workmanlike. Both Vince McMahon and NBC also seemed to have put far too much stock in a football cliché which is frequently mouthed by fans, particularly older ones, about a desire to return to the era of "''old-time smashmouth football.''" While this is often voiced, in fact football is far more popular as a spectator sport now than it ever was in the earlier era supposedly longed for, and the move away from "smashmouth" to a more wide-open offense featuring more passing is largely responsible for this. In fact, scoring was so scarce that bookmakers couldn't set the total low enough. Wise gamblers that took the under, which was often in the mid 30s, would win consistently — they could even parlay the under for all four games of the week and win on a regular basis. Towards the end of the season, bookies needed to make the totals in the late 20s, unheard-of lows in pro football gambling circles. The league was forced to change rules during the season to afford receivers more protection, but the mid-season rules changes did little to bolster league credibility. NOTABLE PERSONALITIES Notable players included league MVP and Los Angeles quarterback Tommy Maddox , who signed with the Pittsburgh Steelers after the XFL folded. Maddox later became the starting quarterback for the Steelers, and led them to the playoffs. Interestingly, Los Angeles used the first pick in the XFL Draft to select another future NFL quarterback, Scott Milanovich. Milanovich lost the starting quarterback job to Maddox, who was placed on the Xtreme as one of a handful of players put on each team due to geographic distance between the player's college and the team's hometown. Another of the better-known players was Las Vegas Running Back Rod Smart , who first gained popularity because the name on the back of his jersey read "''He Hate Me.''" Smart stated that he had wanted to put "''They Hate Me''" (a jab at his critics) but there wasn't enough room. Smart, who was only picked 357th in the draft, later went on to play for the Carolina Panthers , and thus became the first XFL player to play in a Super Bowl , participating in Super Bowl XXXVIII , which his team lost. Maddox became the second former XFL player to play for a Super Bowl team, in Super Bowl XL in Detroit , and he is the first to win a Super Bowl ring. The league allowed, and even encouraged, players to wear Nickname s rather than their actual last names on the backs of their jerseys. Apparently all of the teams but Birmingham had at least a few players who engaged in this. One of the announcers for the XFL was then- Minnesota Governor Jesse Ventura , himself a former pro wrestler, whose involvement was controversial in that some felt that his being an announcer took time away from his job of running his state, even though he did it on his day off from office. Ventura had previously done commentary for WWF wrestling telecasts, and Tampa Bay Buccaneers radio broadcasts. Other announcers included Matt Vasgersian (who teamed with Ventura on the telecasts), Jim Ross and Jerry Lawler for NBC; Chris Marlowe and Brian Bosworth for UPN; and Craig Minervini and Bob Golic for TNN. Actor Super Dave Osborne did announcing for radio in the Los Angeles market. On April 21 , 2001 , the season concluded as the Los Angeles Xtreme defeated the San Francisco Demons 38-6 in the XFL Championship Game (which was originally given the Zen -like moniker ''"The Big Game at the End of the Season"'', but was later dubbed the ''"Million Dollar Game"'', after the amount of money awarded to the winning team). FAILURE Though paid attendance at games remained respectable, if unimpressive (overall attendance were only 10% below what the league's goal had been at the start of the season), the XFL ceased operations after just one season due to astonishingly low TV Ratings . One NBC broadcast received the lowest-ever rating for a major network Saturday night Prime Time football game TV Show . NBC itself attempted to win back the audience that it had lost when it lost the rights to air NFL games two years previously, which seems to have been the reason behind both its investment in and broadcasting of a new professional football league. But despite initially agreeing to broadcast XFL games for two years and owning half of the league, NBC announced it would not broadcast a second XFL season, thus admitting failure in their attempt at airing replacement pro football. WWF President Vince McMahon initially announced that the XFL would continue, as it still had UPN and TNN as broadcast outlets. However in order to continue broadcasting XFL games, UPN demanded that '' WWF SmackDown! '' broadcasts be cut from two hours to one and a half hours. McMahon found these terms unacceptable and he announced the XFL's closure on May 10 , 2001 . One reason for the failure of the league to catch on, despite its financial solvency and massive visibility (perhaps infamy), and perhaps epiphenomenal of its TV ratings, was the disrespect for the league in the sports media. XFL games were never treated as sports events, but were regarded more as WWF-like sensationalism. Lacking any noteworthy exposition of talent, save Tommy Maddox , the league's MVP, or thoughtful analysis or even consideration by sports columnists, the XFL never gained the necessary recognition to be regarded as a viable league. Most news teams refused to air clips or scores of XFL games. Most newspapers did not report the scores either. This led to many football fans treating the XFL as a joke rather than competition. The operation of the XFL was estimated by both the WWF and NBC to have lost both companies approximately $70 million. LEGACY Despite its unimpressive showing among the TV audience, the XFL gave its small group of dedicated fans an intriguing 12 weeks of football. It restored an outdoor professional franchise to Birmingham, Las Vegas and Memphis, each of whom had lacked an outdoor pro team since their CFL franchises were shuttered in 1995 , and to Orlando, which had had no professional outdoor football since the WLAF (now NFL Europe ) folded North American operations in 1992 . The XFL brought a football franchise to Los Angeles, a market which has been a troubling wasteland for the NFL for years, and demonstrated that a baseball-specific stadium such as San Francisco's Pac Bell Park made a remarkably pleasing venue for football as well. However, none of these novelties translated into commercial success. Many XFL "alumni" went on to play in the NFL, including Kevin Kaesviharn of the Bengals , Tommy Maddox of the Steelers , Jose Cortez of the Indianapolis Colts , and Rod "He Hate Me" Smart of the Panthers . The XFL also helped popularize the Sky Cam , an innovative "birds-eye" technique in which the camera hovered directly over the action on the field. The Sky Cam was eventually adopted by both the NFL and CFL after the XFL folded. TEAMS
2001 STANDINGS
AWARDS
STATISTICS LEADERS
TRIVIA
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