All of these elements to various degrees created intrigue about the birth of the XFL, but despite clever advance advertising, my skepticism remained in place. I knew the only thing that might possibly abolish it would be the games themselves. Week 1 arrived as put up or shut up time. As much as I love football, rather than watching it year round, I prefer to balance my sports viewing with basketball, baseball, boxing and tennis. Toss hockey, golf and a few other sports into the mix and there is already athletic competition of some sort to be found practically 24/7, 365 days a year. In order to stand out from the pack and lure us to a new product, the XFL promised the same brand of outrageousness and titillation that its predecessor the WWF delivers. Professional wrestling is not a sport, but rather, pure mindless entertainment that by its nature is tailor made for the theatrics of heroes, villains, and vixens. The WWF is a live action cartoon for an adult male audience. It's a unique commodity, one that isn't competing against or mimicking a more established enterprise. The NFL is a legitimate sports league, and therefore satisfies different desires than McMahon's wrestling venture. We watch football games because we want to see true non-rigged competition amongst athletes at the top of their field. Cheerleaders are a nice diversion, a choreographed touchdown celebration can be amusing, the occasional brawl after a play satisfies our primitive blood lust, but basically, we watch the games to see the games, not the side dishes. The XFL purposely promoted the sides more than the games themselves, so this is what its audience was anxious to see, and this aspect of the games would be essential to either holding or losing our interest. Close-ups of cheerleaders, larger than life characters without the benefit of scripts, and "Any Given Sunday" style editing were the chosen threads for the XFL's hopes to hang on.
Three weeks later, having watched XFL action both on television and nearly being deafened by catching a sparsely attended game live at the Meadowlands, I feel that my doubts have been validated. True, the XFL did pull in big ratings for its debut night. But this is accounted for by the curiosity factor that grows weaker with each passing week. I along with millions of others tuned in for the debut to see what delights Vince McMahon had in store us. Not much, as it turned out. Run of the mill football being played by a watered down talent pool. All of the hype in the world could not change what had been obvious from the get go. The game of football and its loyal fans never needed the XFL, and just as we have lived without it up until now, we'll be fine and will hardly miss it after its inevitable departure. Vince McMahon has earned my admiration for his effort, but in the end, nothing matters beyond the execution, which in this case comes off as forced and obviously inferior to what already exists. No doubt, some further tweaking will be done as the ratings plummet. Perhaps quarterbacks won't be allowed to wear helmets on third down, or maybe the cheerleaders will get to run a few plays in blowout games. But I'm guessing it will be too little too late. At best, the NFL will benefit from the XFL's sure to be brief existence by borrowing a couple of rules, a few technical innovations, some snazzy team logos, and a handful of cheerleaders who will soon be looking for employment.
