One social media website thinks the XFL will succeed.
LinkedIn, a social media website with no experience in evaluating the chances of a football league surviving, thinks the XFL is the 22nd hottest startup business of 2019. There is no evidence from LinkedIn as to why they are so impressed other than Vince McMahon owns the enterprise. McMahon has spent more money than originally anticipated into his planned XFL. Football startups fail with just one group, the American Football League, surviving. The Alliance of American Football could not make it through its inaugural season and entered Chapter 7 protection. Earlier this year, McMahon sold about four percent of his World Wrestling Entertainment stock for a reported $272 million and that money will be invested into his football business. It is estimated that McMahon in total has sold $400 million of his WWE stock to finance the XFL. The AAF almost folded in February only a couple weeks into the endeavor. Unless McMahon is reinventing the wheel, the XFL is not going to be offering a product that differs much from the AAF. His league will feature players looking for a second or third or fourth chance at making a National Football League roster.
The AAF’s plan was to bring football to smaller cities. Neither Atlanta nor the Phoenix area, two of the AAF’s biggest markets were too interested in the product based on attendance. San Antonio had a few decent sized crowds, Orlando and San Diego attracted limited interest. Memphis, Birmingham and Salt Lake City did not well. The AAF TV ratings were adequate but there was not much TV money going into the product. Vince McMahon plans to try bigger cities, New York, Los Angeles, Dallas, Houston, Washington, Seattle, Tampa and one non-NFL city, St. Louis. LinkedIn should know this. McMahon is going to struggle financially. Spring football’s window of opportunity to succeed closed in 1985.
