XFL News lacking, Interest waning ?

XFL Football discussion.
MGB01
MVP
Posts: 3314
Joined: Wed Aug 14, 2019 8:42 pm

Re: XFL News lacking, Interest waning ?

Post by MGB01 »

The USFL looks obvious to go right now except for one thing (and it's not minor): Nothing since the June 3 announcement. It's on FOX, wow, so is Masked Singer and all its spinoffs, if only putting together a league were that simple.

Now the XFL has another problem: The constant Rock vs Roman Reigns rumors that won't die. With Brock Lesnar showing back up, word is that's the plan for WM 38 with Rock/Roman being pushed back to WM 39. Sure, it's bound to follow Rock/Cena, Rock/Hogan, and Rock/Austin (boy Dwayne sure had a lot of these--this time at 50 he'd be sort of playing the Hogan role) down memory lane, but if the XFL is really going to be a thing, this can't happen while the league is being re-established. What would make anyone think this would give them the media coverage they need? Hell Gronk's run as 24/7 champ was hardly mentioned by anybody, and that's the positive. Even if it isn't back to 2001 bashing, you're still taking the focus off the league.

This is why the USFL needs to come out strong, whatever 2022 looks like, cause if they're counting on 2023 to be their big pivot blastoff year (much like Vince was with 2021) they're not gonna get to it with a simple TSL rebrand and 400K viewers in year one.
Gopher123
Quarterback
Posts: 395
Joined: Sat Mar 13, 2021 7:07 pm

Re: XFL News lacking, Interest waning ?

Post by Gopher123 »

MGB01 wrote: Sat Aug 28, 2021 2:43 pm The USFL looks obvious to go right now except for one thing (and it's not minor): Nothing since the June 3 announcement. It's on FOX, wow, so is Masked Singer and all its spinoffs, if only putting together a league were that simple.

Now the XFL has another problem: The constant Rock vs Roman Reigns rumors that won't die. With Brock Lesnar showing back up, word is that's the plan for WM 38 with Rock/Roman being pushed back to WM 39. Sure, it's bound to follow Rock/Cena, Rock/Hogan, and Rock/Austin (boy Dwayne sure had a lot of these--this time at 50 he'd be sort of playing the Hogan role) down memory lane, but if the XFL is really going to be a thing, this can't happen while the league is being re-established. What would make anyone think this would give them the media coverage they need? Hell Gronk's run as 24/7 champ was hardly mentioned by anybody, and that's the positive. Even if it isn't back to 2001 bashing, you're still taking the focus off the league.

This is why the USFL needs to come out strong, whatever 2022 looks like, cause if they're counting on 2023 to be their big pivot blastoff year (much like Vince was with 2021) they're not gonna get to it with a simple TSL rebrand and 400K viewers in year one.

I hear you MGB01. I have voiced that concern before. Don’t sell me an inferior product in a top shelf box right? We aren’t stupid, we are going to know if we are just watching the TSL in a USFL wrapping. I had hoped the USFL would at least fall in between an XFL 2.0 and TSL. Now I’m hoping that it’s just at least somewhat upgraded from the TSL but at least it’s something.

I am on board with 4th&long’s vision of what the USFL is going to be and that it’s going to be a budget league, at least at first. There won’t be and won’t need to be the ramp up that XFL 2.0 had. It’s very possible they will just have hub cities next year so no need for hype in teams home cities. I wouldn’t be surprised if we don’t hear anything out of the USFL for at least another couple of months because they may not feel the need to hype it yet with the NFL to focus on. At some point though, they should start feeling a little sense of urgency to announce something. We are probably less than 6 months away and they don’t even have a t-shirt to sell yet!
4th&long
MVP
Posts: 6475
Joined: Sun Nov 24, 2019 2:27 pm

Re: XFL News lacking, Interest waning ?

Post by 4th&long »

Gopher123 wrote: Sat Aug 28, 2021 10:06 pm
MGB01 wrote: Sat Aug 28, 2021 2:43 pm The USFL looks obvious to go right now except for one thing (and it's not minor): Nothing since the June 3 announcement. It's on FOX, wow, so is Masked Singer and all its spinoffs, if only putting together a league were that simple.

Now the XFL has another problem: The constant Rock vs Roman Reigns rumors that won't die. With Brock Lesnar showing back up, word is that's the plan for WM 38 with Rock/Roman being pushed back to WM 39. Sure, it's bound to follow Rock/Cena, Rock/Hogan, and Rock/Austin (boy Dwayne sure had a lot of these--this time at 50 he'd be sort of playing the Hogan role) down memory lane, but if the XFL is really going to be a thing, this can't happen while the league is being re-established. What would make anyone think this would give them the media coverage they need? Hell Gronk's run as 24/7 champ was hardly mentioned by anybody, and that's the positive. Even if it isn't back to 2001 bashing, you're still taking the focus off the league.

This is why the USFL needs to come out strong, whatever 2022 looks like, cause if they're counting on 2023 to be their big pivot blastoff year (much like Vince was with 2021) they're not gonna get to it with a simple TSL rebrand and 400K viewers in year one.

I hear you MGB01. I have voiced that concern before. Don’t sell me an inferior product in a top shelf box right? We aren’t stupid, we are going to know if we are just watching the TSL in a USFL wrapping. I had hoped the USFL would at least fall in between an XFL 2.0 and TSL. Now I’m hoping that it’s just at least somewhat upgraded from the TSL but at least it’s something.

I am on board with 4th&long’s vision of what the USFL is going to be and that it’s going to be a budget league, at least at first. There won’t be and won’t need to be the ramp up that XFL 2.0 had. It’s very possible they will just have hub cities next year so no need for hype in teams home cities. I wouldn’t be surprised if we don’t hear anything out of the USFL for at least another couple of months because they may not feel the need to hype it yet with the NFL to focus on. At some point though, they should start feeling a little sense of urgency to announce something. We are probably less than 6 months away and they don’t even have a t-shirt to sell yet!
Gopher says at least it’s something. Exactly.
TSL 2021 wasn't bad, and it was better than 2020. I expect another yr will bring more improvements as discussed.

Look at the number of players in TSL getting looks in NFL camps, these guys are on the cusp. They are good players. But the NFL is the best of the best.

As far as when for the USFL? We don't even know when the season starts! Is it Feb or May. To me this is all driven by FOX. Fox is driving this IMO, even if not the primary financier. TSL needs FOX, and FOX needs inexpensive programing that they can fill air time and dictate terms.

We'll see what goes down, but i'm not having high expectation, but am having baseline+ expectations.

The USFL may looking to lock in some revenue sources from being on TV outside of Fox. All those eyeballs have to be able to generate something: jersey ads, in field ads, sponsors, etc... They are going to be budget oriented the more money they can make the less they need from investors (and Fox will be putting in $omething as B Woods did say Fox did provide money last yr).

Look at 2021, they put that together quickly and quietly. I expect more noise and more lead time, but we may not hear nearly what we'd expect from a new league due to the goals and budget and timeline of the USFL.

I do hope they move forward and things go well.
Post Reply