MGB01 wrote: ↑Wed May 31, 2023 3:10 pm
GregParks wrote: ↑Wed May 31, 2023 2:13 pm
MGB01 wrote: ↑Wed May 31, 2023 1:09 pm
Here comes the talking point (again) about a league that was announced in Aug
2020 being rushed as opposed to the one that was in June 2021 for a kickoff ten months later (which would pretty acknowledge that it was Super TSL if it wasn't)
Not sure what the USFL has to do with this particular discussion. But since you obliquely brought it up, people DID raise concerns about the kickoff being so close to the date of creation of the league. The difference is the USFL is about to finish off their second year and head into their third with nary a rumbling of trouble. The XFL just finished its first season and clearly RedBird is unhappy with how certain parts of the league operated in 2023. And when the source of money is unhappy, that raises legitimate questions about the future of the league.
Yes, the XFL had a much longer lead-time from purchase out of bankruptcy to kickoff; but that's why it's extra frustrating for what fans perceived as a lot of last minute and yes, rushed decision-making, from the Vegas stadium situation to other similar announcements. All you needed to do was to track the XFL careers page six months, three months, even one month from kickoff to see how many seemingly important positions had yet to be filled to get a sense of how behind they appeared to be.
This was good enough to get in the door for and through 2023, 2024 is a different story, this reflects that. Disaster says they wouldn't even have seen April and would have been out the door the first cut at Disney, that didn't happen.
I think the bolded part is what people are hoping this represents. But the history of spring football and how groups have made cuts and then said "nothing to see here" shortly before packing up has people rightly concerned. I will just go on the record and say I'm not one of them: I'm confident the league is going to see a year two and perhaps beyond. Again, though, I can understand why this "restructure" would concern people.
The "outraged" sector thinks that you just put a schedule together in like three hours and then magically dates appear, so excuse me if I'm not exactly keen on joining them
Hyperbole aside, I'm not sure picking on people "outraged" about the schedule release - a month and a half before the season began, by the way - is the right battle to pick for this example. I think some did overreact a bit to the timing of information released by the XFL in the lead-up to 2023, but the schedule, to me, wasn't one of them. It should've been done MUCH sooner and it all goes back to the league's insistence on playing in Vegas and the fallout from that.