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How long will the XFL Survive

Mediafrog+ said:
XFL 2.0 seems to be off to a promising start, with enthusiastic crowds and a respectable level of play.
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I watched about thirty minutes of the Seattle game the other evening. Lackluster, kind of amateurish level of play. I had a couple friends who went to the game on comp tickets. Apparently most of the crowd were giveaway or comp (free) tickets. Just like WWF-WWE wrestling events, they only made seats in the lower bowl available for TV or PPV purposes.

Mediafrog+ said:
The game in Seattle drew around 30,000, and attendance has been decent in the six markets that have hosted a home game.
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There's no way they had 30,000 in that lower bowl. Qwest Field seating capacity with all three seating areas packed is 72,000. Suspect that number was inflated for PR purposes. They may have had 30K available, but not with butts in seats.
 
The class of the league in terms of quality of play appear to be Houston, D.C. and St. Louis.

NY and L.A. are experiencing serious problems on offense. That does not bode well for national ratings.
 
RadioPatrol said:
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-sports-with-the-oldest-and-youngest-tv-audiences-2017-06-30

In the Long Run the XFL has to deal with high median ages like the NFL is dealing with today. NFL has the median age of 50 and College Football has the median age of 52.

https://www.sportsbusinessdaily.com...5/Research-and-Ratings/Viewership-trends.aspx
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doesn't traditional TV in general skew old? college football also has problem with students leaving before the 4th quarter if they come at all, even at places like Alabama
 
https://www.thewrap.com/xfl-ratings-week-2-down-more-than-1-million-viewers-game-abc-fox-fs1/

So things took a hit for week 2.

The XFL didn’t put up nearly as good a fight in its second round of games, with Vince McMahon’s NFL alternative losing more than 1 million viewers — per game — in Week 2. Once again, three games aired on broadcast and one on cable.

While the first week of XFL matchups (played on Saturday, Feb. 8 and Sunday, Feb. 9) averaged 3,118,250 total viewers per game across Fox, ABC and ESPN, the second set drew an average of 2,051,750 per game across ABC, Fox and Fs1 on Saturday and Sunday, according to Nielsen.

On average, the Week 2 XFL games shed more than one-third of the Kickoff Weekend’s audience.
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Don CT said:
https://www.thewrap.com/xfl-ratings-week-2-down-more-than-1-million-viewers-game-abc-fox-fs1/

So things took a hit for week 2.
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Doesn't portend well for March, that's for sure. And if they're "papering the house" (giving away tickets or paying people to fill seats so it will look good on TV), the writing is on the wall. How much money is Vince McMahon willing to sink into this, especially since his WWE is in a bit of a down period? And why do the networks keep encouraging the idea of football being played outside of its normal season? I realize that baseball is struggling with demographic and other issues, and that basketball and hockey don't even begin their playoffs until mid-April, but can start-from-scratch leagues like the XFL and its unsuccessful predecessors ever hope to gain any lasting traction with an audience that has just watched five full months of top-level professional football?
 
Kelly A said:
That typically indicates one third of the viewing audience sampled the prior week and wasn't exactly overwhelmed with the product. Doesn't mean they won't come back-ever, but 1/3 of a drop week to week is not a good sign.
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College baseball starts picking up steam with CBS starting their double and triple headers leading to the tournament.
 
CTListener said:
Doesn't portend well for March, that's for sure. And if they're "papering the house" (giving away tickets or paying people to fill seats so it will look good on TV), the writing is on the wall. How much money is Vince McMahon willing to sink into this, especially since his WWE is in a bit of a down period? And why do the networks keep encouraging the idea of football being played outside of its normal season? I realize that baseball is struggling with demographic and other issues, and that basketball and hockey don't even begin their playoffs until mid-April, but can start-from-scratch leagues like the XFL and its unsuccessful predecessors ever hope to gain any lasting traction with an audience that has just watched five full months of top-level professional football?
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Pretty sure the idea would be to catch leftover momentum from the die hard post-Superbowl football fans. Unfortunately, and what the Indoor and now XFL organizations haven't figured out yet; that Superbowl is the right of passage signaling the end of football for the year. Teams and fans drop into planning for next season-mindset.
 
Kelly A said:
Pretty sure the idea would be to catch leftover momentum from the die hard post-Superbowl football fans. Unfortunately, and what the Indoor and now XFL organizations haven't figured out yet; that Superbowl is the right of passage signaling the end of football for the year. Teams and fans drop into planning for next season-mindset.
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Exactly. And what they are waiting for is the NFL and its familiar cast of teams and personnel. The physical toll this sport takes, unfortunately, prevents it from continuing at that elite level for any longer than it now does. European soccer fans have, at most, a three-month offseason in their domestic leagues, and every even-numbered year brings a World Cup (except for Qatar 2022) or European Championship tournament, featuring most of the top stars, in midsummer. If a pick-up league were to stake out May through July in England, nobody would watch it, even in non-WC/Euro years.
 
CTListener said:
Doesn't portend well for March, that's for sure. And if they're "papering the house" (giving away tickets or paying people to fill seats so it will look good on TV), the writing is on the wall. How much money is Vince McMahon willing to sink into this, especially since his WWE is in a bit of a down period? And why do the networks keep encouraging the idea of football being played outside of its normal season? I realize that baseball is struggling with demographic and other issues, and that basketball and hockey don't even begin their playoffs until mid-April, but can start-from-scratch leagues like the XFL and its unsuccessful predecessors ever hope to gain any lasting traction with an audience that has just watched five full months of top-level professional football?
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Reportedly, Vince McMahon is suppose to commit at least $500 million over the first three seasons; he sold about $270 million in his WWE stock to help fund this venture. Also, the TV partners aren't paying a rights fee, pretty much splitting any costs and ad revenue that occurs for each game. Unlike the last incarnation, with NBC being a joint partner, this is one all on Vinnie Mac--this risk is all on him.
 
ShawnHill1 said:
Reportedly, Vince McMahon is suppose to commit at least $500 million over the first three seasons; he sold about $270 million in his WWE stock to help fund this venture. Also, the TV partners aren't paying a rights fee, pretty much splitting any costs and ad revenue that occurs for each game. Unlike the last incarnation, with NBC being a joint partner, this is one all on Vinnie Mac--this risk is all on him.
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McMahon is a smart businessman and marketer, and I give him credit for making the financial commitment. I'm not sure he, or his organization, did the proper research and due-diligence before attempting this venture. Many times when someone reaches the stature and acclaim that McMahon has with WWE, they surround themselves with organizational sycophants which will avoid giving their boss any bad news. That includes trusted management having the guts to speak up, that investing in another football league is a really bad idea, at least from a business perspective.

Isn't Gene Simmons from KISS an investor in the XFL too? If so, then I rest my case.
 
Kelly A said:
McMahon is a smart businessman and marketer, and I give him credit for making the financial commitment. I'm not sure he, or his organization, did the proper research and due-diligence before attempting this venture.
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Especially since he's tried this before. I think the product he's offering this time around is superior to the one he put on the field in 2001, but that may not matter -- it's not the NFL, it's not NCAA BCS-level football, and those are the only two brands a large number of fans want to watch at any time of the year. Another thing that may be working against him now is his choice to retain the XFL league name, which doesn't exactly inspire enthusiasm among potential viewers who were subjected to the league's first attempt.
 
umfan said:
Generally, but Live Sports, more than any other programming skews younger.
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only the NBA and MLS on average skews younger median audiences. The NFL and MLB skews older audiences if the XFL study were to be released I suspect the median audience would have to be within the same area as NFL around 50.
 
CTListener said:
Jon Bon Jovi was involved in the arena league as well, with a Philadelphia team, IIRC.
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Correct, he owned the Philadelphia Soul 2004-08. That ended when the Arena Football League folded for the first time in 2009. Ron Jaworski owned the revived team in 2011. The team ceased operations along with the rest of what was left of the Arena League in late 2019.

Looks like the Arena Football League is gone for good this time, but there are other indoor leagues still in operation: National Arena League, American Arena League, Champions Indoor Football, the Indoor Football league, and the American West Football Conference. None of these have any sort of national TV deal that I am aware of, though many of the teams stream their games, and a few are on local broadcast or cable RSNs. There is also a proposed National Gridiron League supposedly starting this spring, but no game schedule has been released.
 
Mediafrog+ said:
There is also a proposed National Gridiron League supposedly starting this spring, but no game schedule has been released.
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The NGL is 100% a scam. They announced tryouts in early December for late January, and then cancelled the tryouts the morning they were to commence, but they did not refund the scouting fees charged to the players.
 
Mediafrog+ said:
Correct, he owned the Philadelphia Soul 2004-08. That ended when the Arena Football League folded for the first time in 2009. Ron Jaworski owned the revived team in 2011. The team ceased operations along with the rest of what was left of the Arena League in late 2019.

Looks like the Arena Football League is gone for good this time, but there are other indoor leagues still in operation: National Arena League, American Arena League, Champions Indoor Football, the Indoor Football league, and the American West Football Conference. None of these have any sort of national TV deal that I am aware of, though many of the teams stream their games, and a few are on local broadcast or cable RSNs. There is also a proposed National Gridiron League supposedly starting this spring, but no game schedule has been released.
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A lot of these indoor leagues are in smaller markets with no NFL teams, and in some cases no D1 colleges either, so it is easier to get people to support the team as it is the biggest thing they have. Plus they usually wait a little bit and start in March at the earliest, so people have that month off from football to get refreshed. It also is such a different game on the small fields compared to regular football.
 
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