Xfl
The league was founded by Vince McMahon, better known as the owner of the World Wrestling Federation (now World Wrestling Entertainment). The XFL was intended to be a major professional sports league complement to the offseason of the NFL, but failed to find an audience and folded after its first season.
Founding
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 (as in the NFL), but that the league was operated as a single business unit.
Vince McMahon's original plan was to purchase the CFL, while NBC was moving ahead at the time with Time Warner to create a football league of their own.
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.
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 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.
Contrary to popular belief, the "X" in XFL did not stand for "extreme," as in "Extreme Football League." When the league was first organized in 1999, it was originally supposed to stand for "Xtreme Football League;" however, there was already a league in formation at the same time with that name, and so promoters wanted to make sure that everyone knew that the "X" did not actually stand for anything.
A total of 475 players were selected initially, with 65 additional players selected in a supplemental draft on December 29, 2000.
2001 season
The XFL's opening game took place on February 3, 2001, one year after the concept of the league was announced, and immediately following the NFL's Super Bowl. The first game was between the New York/New Jersey Hitmen and the Las Vegas Outlaws at Sam Boyd Stadium in Las Vegas.
The game ended with a 19-0 victory for the Outlaws, and 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.
A further problem was that the XFL itself was the brainchild of Vince McMahon, a man who was ridiculed by mainstream sports journalists due to the stigma attached to professional wrestling as being "fake"; many journalists even jokingly speculated whether any of the league's games were rigged, although nothing of this sort was ever proven.
Teams
Eastern Division
Western Division
2001 standings
Awards
Most Valuable Player: Tommy Maddox, QB, Los Angeles Xtreme
Million Dollar Game MVP: Jose Cortez, K, Los Angeles Xtreme
Coach of the Year: Al Luginbill, Los Angeles Xtreme
Statistical leaders
Rushing Attempts: 153 James Bostic (Birmingham Thunderbolts)
Rushing Yards: 800 John Avery (Chicago Enforcers)
Rushing Touchdowns: 7 Derrick Clark (Orlando Rage)
Receiving Catches: 93 Christopher Lonson (Orlando Rage)
Receiving Yards: 828 Stepfret Williams (Birmingham Thunderbolts)
Receiving Touchdowns: 8 Darnell McDonald (Los Angeles Xtreme)
Passing Attempts: 342 Tommy Maddox (Los Angeles Xtreme)
Passing Completions: 196 Tommy Maddox (Los Angeles Xtreme)
Passing Yards: 2186 Tommy Maddox (Los Angeles Xtreme)
Passing Touchdowns: 18 Tommy Maddox (Los Angeles Xtreme)
Passing Interceptions: 10 Brian Kuklick (Orlando Rage)
Interceptions: 5 Corey Ivy (Chicago Enforcers)
Quarterback Sacks: 7 Antonio Edwards and Kelvin Kinney (both Las Vegas Outlaws)
Statistics
XFL rule changes
Despite boasts by WWF promoters of a "rules-light" game and universally negative reviews from the mainstream sports media early on, the XFL played a brand of 11-man outdoor football that was recognizable, aside from the opening game sprint to determine possession and some other changes, some modified during the season. In fact, most of the rule changes were inherited from the 1970s World Football League.
Grass stadiums
All XFL teams had to play in outdoor stadiums with grass surfaces. No domed stadiums, artificial turf stadiums, or retractable roof stadiums were allowed.
(This happened to occur during Giants Stadium's brief experiment with natural grass; the stadium's turf did not hold up well in the winter and early spring weather and the stadium reverted to its traditional artificial turf in 2003.)
Opening scramble
Replacing the coin toss at the beginning of each game was an event in which one player from each team sought to recover a football 20 yards away in order to determine possession. Both players lined up side-by-side on one of the 30-yard lines, with the ball being placed at the 50-yard line.
At the whistle, the two players would run toward the ball and attempt to gain possession; whichever player gained possession first was allowed to choose possession (as if he had won a coin toss in other leagues). This injury would keep Shamsid-Deen out for the rest of the season.
No PAT (point after touchdown) kicks
After touchdowns there were no extra point kicks, due to the XFL's perception that an extra point kick was a "guaranteed point." To earn a point after a touchdown, teams ran a single offensive down from the two-yard line (functionally identical to the NFL/NCAA/CFL two-point conversion), but for just a single point.
By the playoffs, two-point and three-point conversions had been added to the rules. If the score was still tied after one overtime period, the team that played second on offense in the first OT would start on offense in the second OT.
Bump and Run
The XFL allowed full bump and run coverage early in the season.
Defensive backs were allowed to hit wide receivers any time before the quarterback released the ball, as long as the hit came from the front or the side (similar to the NCAA). But instead of making punt returns more exciting, it often had the opposite effect, since the XFL players' inexperience with the rule caused a high number of game-delaying penalties.
The fair catch had previously been abolished from Canadian rules, NCAA rules (but only for the 1950 season), and Rugby League.
Another difference was that after touching ground 25 yards or more beyond the line of scrimmage, punts could be recovered and advanced by all players of the kicking team.
This led to more quick kicks being taken on third-down-and-long situations in the one season of the small league than had been seen in the NFL over several preceding decades of longer seasons. XFL's "innovation" was similar to a rule that had been in effect in American football in the 1910s and part of the 1920s.
XFL penalized 10 yards from the succeeding spot punts going out of bounds, even if they first touched the ground (but not a player of the receiving team).
For the initial weeks of the season, the XFL forbade all players on the kicking team from going downfield before a kick was made from scrimmage on that down, similarly to a rule the NFL considered in 1974.
For the rest of the season the XFL modified it to allow one player closest to each sideline downfield ahead of the kick, the same modification the NFL adopted to their change just before their 1974 exhibition games started.
The purpose of these provisions was to keep play going after the ball was punted, encouraging the kicking team to make the ball playable and the receiving team to run it back.
Roster and salaries
The XFL limited each team to an unusually low 38 players (roughly analogous to the 42 for CFL rosters, as opposed to 53 on NFL teams and 80 or more on unlimited college rosters). This resulted, most commonly, in each team only carrying two quarterbacks and one kicker who doubled as the punter.
The XFL paid standardized player salaries.
$5,000 per week, kickers earned $3,500, and all other uniformed players earned $4,500 per week, though a few players got around these restrictions (Los Angeles Xtreme players Noel Prefontaine, the league's lone punting specialist, and Matt Malloy, a wide receiver) by having themselves listed as backup quarterbacks. Players on a winning team received a bonus of $2,500 for the week, $7,500 for winning a playoff game.
This angered Michaels, who expected high ratings with Jennifer Lopez as the night's host. In a rare SNL move, the Lopez show actually started on time for its live audience and was broadcast via tape delay.
Broadcast teams
NBC (first team): Matt Vasgersian, Jesse Ventura, Fred Roggin and Mike Adamle were the opening week announcers.
The XFL also tried to attract fans from other areas of entertainment (e.g., movies).
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 no evidence to support this.
Longtime WWE play-by-play man Jim Ross, who has otherwise gotten praise for his calling of wrestling matches over the years, got the bulk of the criticism for his play-by-play calls of XFL games despite his 30+ years of experience in calling wrestling matches as well as calling play-by-play for the NFL's Atlanta Falcons in the early 1990s.
Scoring was so scarce that Bookmakers could not set the over-under total low enough. The league was forced to change rules during the season to afford receivers more protection, but the mid-season rule changes did little to bolster league credibility.
A group shot from an XFL cheerleader commercial.
In 2000, before the XFL's launch, the league aired a series of cheerleader commercials on NBC, featuring adult models such as Pennelope Jimenez, Karen McDougal, and Rachel Sterling.
The most famous one featured them as some of the cheerleaders taking a shower in the locker room. Deemed too risqué by the media, the commercials were quickly withdrawn before the debut of the league.
End of season and failure
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).
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.
The NBC telecast of the Chicago/NY-NJ game on March 31 received a 1.5 rating, at that time the lowest ever for any major network primetime television broadcast in the United States. In fact, expansion teams were being explored for cities such as Washington, D.C.
XFL games were rarely treated as sports contests, but rather more like WWF-like sensationalized events. With few NFL-quality players, save Tommy Maddox, the league's MVP, and with little thoughtful analysis or even consideration by sports columnists, the XFL never gained the necessary recognition to be regarded as a viable league.
The fact that the league was co-owned by NBC made ESPN (which was part of the same corporation as ABC) and Fox Sports Net (owned by Fox TV) disinclined to report on the XFL. Many local TV newscasts and newspapers (even in XFL cities) did not report league scores or show highlights.
In reality, the league's only MVP, Tommy Maddox, would resurrect his once-undistinguished NFL career with the Pittsburgh Steelers and win the NFL Comeback Player of the Year award in 2002 before giving way to Ben Roethlisberger two years later.
The three-point conversion rule, which was introduced (and only used once) by the XFL, also will see new life. In that league, while extra point kicks will still count for one point and a scrimmage play will count for two points, a 10-yard scrimmage play will count for three points.
Notable players
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 in 2002 and led them to that year's playoffs, as well as continuing to start for them into 2004).
Lastly, Las Vegas Outlaws DB Kelly Herndon played in Super Bowl XL with the Seattle Seahawks in 2005, where he is remembered for intercepting a pass and returning it a then-record 76 yards.
Played in the NFL
John Avery
Andrew Carpenter
José Cortéz
Eric England
Mike Furrey
Steve Gleason
Kelly Herndon
Corey Ivy
Kevin Kaesviharn
Tommy Maddox
Yo Murphy
Rashaan Salaam
Kevin Swayne
Rod Smart
Brad Trout
Played in the Super Bowl
Ron Carpenter (Super Bowl XXXIV, St. Louis Rams)
Kelly Herndon (Super Bowl XL, Seattle Seahawks)
Corey Ivy (Super Bowl XXXVII, Tampa Bay Buccaneers)
Tommy Maddox (Super Bowl XL, Pittsburgh Steelers)
Yo Murphy (Super Bowl XXXVI, St.