Spring Football Returns as XFL Fans Smell What the Rock Is Cooking
Every couple of seconds or so, a national debate erupts over a topic of seemingly lesser significance, and everybody gets all heated. Where you happen to stand defines you as a citizen; thus, you’ll chime in if you know what’s good for you. Is a hot dog a sandwich? You’d better believe it. Is there a provision that excludes dogs from playing basketball? Ain’t no rule. Is spring football really a thing? Well, uh, that—that’s a good question…
In the case of the resurrected XFL, which last Saturday kicked off its third-time’s-a-charm campaign in Arlington, Texas, neutral observers would have to first ask they know more about investing in sports than, say, Gerry Cardinale. A second thing to consider is whether it’d be worth courting the wrath of Dwayne Johnson by answering in the negative.
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A cheery but implacable embodiment of the Work Hard/Play Hard school, Johnson (along with business partner Dany Garcia and Cardinale’s RedBird Capital) scooped up the rights to Vince McMahon’s discontinued asset for $15 million in August 2020. In a recent series of log-rolling interviews with various Disney-owned media properties—outlets that a year ago committed to a five-year broadcast deal with the new-look XFL—Johnson said the investment had less to do with expanding his business portfolio than offering players a shot at the football stardom that eluded him after he graduated from Miami in 1995.
Now, if you’ve ever been in the presence of Dwayne Johnson, you may have noticed that he’s a large man. At 6’ 5” and maybe 260 pounds of what appears to be little more but muscle and a Nietzschean will to power, the man looks like a child’s drawing of a superhero from the future, with a little Old Testament-style, capital-g God thrown in for good measure. So we’re going to tread lightly here. Say what you will about rank cowardice, but as a means of self-preservation, it’s got a better all-time record than the Harlem Globetrotters.
The thing is, the XFL’s opening weekend was not a runaway success, although there seems to be something the partners can build on here if they’re patient. (Garcia on Monday said the XFL brain trust has sufficient capital reserves—and the requisite desire—to commit for “three to five, 10 years.”) Let’s start with a look at the TV ratings. On a holiday weekend larded with high-profile sporting events such as the Daytona 500, the NBA All-Star Game and Tiger Woods’ first Sunday round of golf since the Masters, the XFL’s first four telecasts averaged 1.29 million viewers, which marked a 59% drop compared to the 3.12 million notched by the analogous quartet of games in 2020.
The biggest draw of Week 1 was Sunday afternoon’s St. Louis BattleHawks-San Antonio Brahmas game, which drew 1.57 million viewers on ABC, or roughly half the turnout for the network’s XFL opener three years ago. That said, the attendance figures were impressive, as 24,245 diehards passed through the turnstiles at the Alamodome. All told, the league sold 61,514 tickets, generating an average weekend draw of 15,379 fans per game, and while it doesn’t exactly make for the most elegant comparison, this was sufficient to beat out three MLB home-field averages from 2022: Rays (13,927), Marlins (11,203) and A’s (9,973).
When compared to the truncated 2020 season, the XFL’s attendance figures held up better than did the TV deliveries. Before the coronavirus pandemic wiped away the last five weeks of the league’s schedule, XFL facilities averaged 18,571 fans per outing.
On the advertising front, the first four XFL matchups churned out some $2.17 million in sales revenue, per iSpot.tv estimates, or about one-quarter of the $8.63 million pulled in by ABC, Fox and ESPN during the pre-pandemic opener. While average unit costs are down, they were well within the parameters of what the Disney networks charge on a typical post-NFL weekend. More to the point, the current TV deal is a feather in the XFL’s helmet; while official figures remain undisclosed, people who know a thing or two about media rights believe the five-year pact is worth between $100 million and $150 million. By way of comparison, Vince McMahon’s most recent XFL vintage operated under a no-pay distribution deal, with the networks coughing up only enough to cover the production costs, while pocketing all the marketing dough.
On the production side, the broadcasts looked and felt like the sort of thing you might watch on any given Sunday in the fall. While spring football can serve as an unofficial proving ground for technology that may later be introduced to the Big Leagues, the weekend games were not overloaded with the sort of vertigo-inducing camera gimmickry (helmet cams, drones) that has made previous ventures seem like long-form infomercials for Dramamine. No complaints on the TV front.
Bearing in mind that Johnson could conceivably transform a healthy adult male into an invertebrate in about as much time as it takes for him to cock his right eyebrow—not that he would! he seems nice!—we’re going to give the opening salvo of the XFL v. 3.0 a C+, while noting that there’s plenty of room for improvement. As one might expect of a football league that’s modeled on the owner’s 54th Man philosophy, the quality of play isn’t always elite, but neither does it come off as sloppy as a drunken touch-football game at the Kennedy compound. And shouts out to the pigskin-starved St. Louis and San Antonio fans, many of whom (at least through the mediating eye of the TV screen) seemed ready to run through a brick wall for their team.
A quick word about the XFL branding experience. While there’s no getting around the shock of unrecognition that comes with an off-the-shelf sports league—the monikers give off the same glitchy parallel-universe vibe the Washington Sentinels and Dallas Ropers threw off in The Replacements (and the latter always made us think of Norman Fell leering his way around a rodeo or whatever)—the XFL’s Under Armour unis are pretty damn spiffy. Stare at the BattleHawks helmet decal long enough and tell me you don’t want to fight a bird with a giant sword or enlist as a Space Force cadet. The DC Defenders badge functions as a visual callback to the first Bad Brains record (and though it’s probably not by design, it’s still cool as hell), while the Seattle Sea Dragons emblem looks like that thing that would show up whenever Wink Martindale felt like taking a mouthy Tic Tac Dough contestant down a notch.
No, not that Wink Martindale.
All told, fans and curiosity seekers alike have another 36 regular-season XFL games to check out before the postseason arrives on April 29. That’s exactly two weeks after Fox’s USFL returns for its third bite at the apple, wherein an embarrassment of spring football riches will have to compete with the NBA and NHL playoffs, the early stages of the 2023 MLB campaign and a host of NASCAR, PGA and Premier League events. Boosted by a joint Fox-NBC debut broadcast, last year’s first weekend of USFL action bowed to just shy of 2 million viewers, before settling into a less expansive groove. At season’s end, the league’s four TV partners averaged 693,243 viewers per game.
If we’re all in for probably way more off-season football than anyone asked for, Johnson’s heart, Cardinale’s deep pockets and Fox’s own three-year commitment to the USFL suggest that this latest manifestation of gridiron mania will be with us for some time. However things shake out, it’s unlikely that either of these experiments will fare as badly as earlier efforts. If nothing else, the sports world is no longer operating in the free-floating anomie of the World Football League era.
A bit of context: It is 1974. America is in thrall to Quaaludes, Big League Chew and the drab cop-shop comedy Barney Miller. Everything is molded of orange or brown polymers and the national enthusiasm for CB radio is starting to become disquieting. In short, our collective love for folly is insatiable, and the WFL is the living embodiment of this flighty mindset. The first and only World Bowl features a matchup between the insolvent Florida Blazers, whose owner would shortly thereafter be arrested for selling 4 ounces of Booger Sugar to an undercover police officer, and a Birmingham Americans squad whose gear is confiscated by police immediately after their 22-21 title win. The Jefferson County Sheriff’s Department storm the victors’ locker room on behalf of creditor Hibbett Sporting Goods, which is owed $38,800 for the uniforms.
In a bid to retain mementos from the game, a few determined Americans try to smuggle out their jerseys under their street clothes. One player passes his helmet out a back window to his pregnant wife, who’s been in contact with him via a walkie-talkie set. The police have enlisted the services of a dog, one who doesn’t play basketball.
The WFL folded midway through the 1975 season because of course it did.
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