WWE Chairman and CEO Vince McMahon today announced the revival of the XFL football league during a live stream from the new digital properties of his newest venture – Alpha Entertainment LLC. McMahon will be spearheading the XFL on his own with no partners this time around.
Standing in front of a virtual set, McMahon said that it’s time to give the game of football back to the fans and they will listen to players, coaches, medical experts, technical experts, and the media.
The league will consist of eight teams, all owned by the company, with a 10-game regular season, two semi-finals, and a championship game. The league will kick off in 2020. No cities have been announced but McMahon said it would make sense to go to cities where football is already being played.
McMahon said that there’s no television deal in place yet although there are interested parties and added that this will be a multi-platform league, with fans able to watch on a TV, mobile device and anything in between.
When asked if the XFL will take away his duties from WWE, McMahon said he will continue to be the Chairman and CEO of WWE and the league will not affect his day-to-day operations. He will be hiring professionals to run the league and this would probably be the last time we see him in front of a camera for the XFL.
McMahon said that they are targeting for a two-hour game as three hours tends to be boring more often than not, a somewhat ironic statement considering that Raw is three hours long and often considered to be an hour extra too much.
Vince also said that there will be no cross-over between WWE and the XFL and these will be two separate entities.
The black and red logo of the XFL has been replaced with red and dark blue but the logo has remained largely the same, with a big X behind the letters XFL.
When the announcement was done that McMahon was going to make a major sports announcement, Twitter blew up and ‘Vince McMahon,’ ‘The XFL,’ and ‘He Hate Me’ all started trending worldwide.
