Regular Joe wrote: ↑Sat Feb 01, 2020 10:09 am
StoneSentry wrote: ↑Fri Jan 31, 2020 9:07 pm
It might be appropriate for Vince McMahon to say a few words, but that's all people should see from him; otherwise he (and by extension, his main product) will be a distraction. Oliver Luck should do most of the talking, promotion, and media appearances. The old XFL is remembered by most people as a joke, so hopefully they distance themselves from it as much as possible. They're already risking enough by reusing the name.
I would also not use the word "extreme," "Xtreme," or any variation of it in the branding. That schtick got old in the 90s. Just say it stands for the x-factor, the energy, the magic that football used to have before it got bogged down in bad calls and endless reviews, and that their company is here to bring it back.
Vince has been doing great at letting his people,Luck, et all, do all the XFL work. Good call on his part.
People who remember the old XFL remember it wasn't the peoples favorite.
I laughed when I saw the ESPN Special. They were waxing nostalgic about the old XFL, how people loved it. I was like, huh?!! Everyone HATED the XFL. That's why there was no season 2!!
The only XFL fans were on this board!!
They talked about He Hate Me like he had the #1 selling Jersey that year!! They Hated the XFL.
I love some of the article online. You can tell the writers are clueless. Writing about the league coming back and referring to it in all sorts of glowing terms. But I'm glad they did, because some people do think it was great in hindsight/nostalgia and kinda fuled some of the other positivity I hear all over the place now.
This is the X-EFF-ELLL!!
See, I saw the same special... and that's not the impression I got from it at all.
They did portray a lot of the ideas in a positive light (and indeed, in hindsight some of the ideas were quite clever), but poorly executed. They blamed the failure largely on lack of time and making changes on a whim. There was no denying that the XFL as originally envisioned was a dud. I do think there was more to it, and the XFL has addressed a lot of problems with the original direction of the league this time around. This isn't the Attitude Era anymore, and that kind of presentation doesn't work as well with football, where the hits are real. Plus, one of the things they wanted to do was introduce storytelling—but you're up against the NFL, which has NFL Films, itself one of the best in-house story-telling firms in sport. They were trying to fix things they thought were broken but weren't.
That's something I don't really see this time around. This time, it's just honest-to-goodness football, with a few tweaks to up the excitement, coming at a time when Americans are coming off that Super Bowl high. Do I agree with all of the tweaks? No, and I am a little disappointed that they've toned down some of the more creative changes, but that comes with the territory when trying to get good players. The AAF—and I think they were far more flawed as an organization than this go-round of the XFL—proved there's a market for this. I think the XFL as currently structured has a strong chance of proving it viable and maybe even profitable.
I enjoyed the XFL. Mainly because I was a kid, I didn't have cable or a computer at the time, and it was football—and I loved football. I didn't really care that it was bad football at the time. Most of the other tacky stuff, like the cheerleaders, went over my head.