XFL 2023: Third Time's the Charm!

[Cujo]

10 minutes ago, Lumbergh said:

wouldn't be surprised if a few USFL teams eventually get absorbed into the XFL. I can't imagine the USFL wins this battle.

 

Why would the XFL (assuming things go well for them this time around) take on any of the USFL's failing product? It would be far easier to go the expansion route -- move into vacated USFL cities and create their own XFL branded identities once all those USFL teams fold.

[Lumbergh]

7 minutes ago, Cujo said:

 

Why would the XFL (assuming things go well for them this time around) take on any of the USFL's failing product? It would be far easier to go the expansion route -- move into vacated USFL cities and create their own XFL branded identities once all those USFL teams fold.

Maybe a team like Birmingham who might have a chance to keep fan attention could join. They already have a name and identity, and coaching staff/roster. Seems easier to just grab a team instead of throwing more money to start from scratch.

[Cujo]

Just now, Lumbergh said:

Maybe a team like Birmingham who might have a chance to keep fan attention could join. They already have a name and identity, and coaching staff/roster. Seems easier to just grab a team instead of throwing more money to start from scratch.

 

Birmingham drew virtually no fans last year. I doubt more than a dozen locals would even notice.

 

Also, 

[BBTV]

“Absorption” isn’t how ,Oder. North American sports work. Their franchise agreements might be totally different, and even if one league bought the other”s ip, it’d still be a new team with new people. It’s not like 50 guys and a front office simply move over. 

[Kevin W.]

12 hours ago, MJWalker45 said:

And I just realized there's probably an episode of either the Simpsons making fun of these two teams playing each other.  That's flipping crazy!

 

It was South Park. Specifically, it was the infamous episode "Terrance and Phillip in Not Without My Anus."

[Cujo]

14 hours ago, Cujo said:

Rough Riders vs Rough Riders

  

13 hours ago, MJWalker45 said:

there's probably an episode of either the Simpsons making fun of these two teams playing each other.

 

South Park.

 

But on a Simpsons related note:

 

[Red Comet]

Interesting bit of trivia:

 

The Ottawa Rough Riders and the Saskatchewan Roughriders met in the Grey Cup in 1951, 1966, 1969 (nice) and 1976.  
 

As for the XFL? All I can say is enjoy it while it lasts, however long that may be.

[MJWalker45]

https://www.kens5.com/article/sports/football/san-antonio-brahmas-part-ways-gm-mike-sheehan/273-a1c133eb-ee09-4bba-bbb2-156d39a5e3bd

The Brahmas VP of business ops has already been fired.  no real information at the moment as to why he was canned, but some local media types are already bringing out the knives for the league instead of waiting for actual information. 

https://xflnewshub.com/xfl-news/xfl-fires-san-antonio-brahmas-exec-after-one-game/

Don Harris is one of the better know sports personalities in town, and his original comments were much more doom and gloom than the one attached to this article. Seeing as San Antonio met their expectations in terms of fan support at the opener, I'd think it's something else going on. 

https://xflnewshub.com/xfl-news/xfl-2023-week-one-tv-ratings-on-abc-espn-and-fx/

TV ratings are in as well.

 

[Sodboy13]

It's not looking great for XFL 3.0 out of the gate.

 

https://www.sportsmediawatch.com/2023/02/xfl-ratings-opening-weekend-fewer-viewers/

 

Ratings across all four games averaged about half of what XFL 2.0 got in its debut week, with similar time slots and network distribution. As the article notes, those 2020 ratings did not factor in out-of-home viewership, either, so that's twice the eyeballs on fewer measured outlets.

 

Reported attendance was in the 12,000s for three of the games, with San Antonio doubling the field at 24K+. St. Louis should be a solid draw at the gate as well, but I don't know if any of the rest are going to build on these numbers. Obviously Vegas is going to be the league's Mullett Arena.

 

It's also worth noting if there is an expectation for the TV and in-person audiences to grow over the season, that would basically be bucking the trend of every alternative football league to come through over the past 49 years.

 

XFL 3.0 has been a real puzzler for me. Say what you will about Vince McMahon (and you can and should say A LOT,) but you could at least see the direction and vision he had in his two attempts. 2001 was "Football for the Attitude Era" with all its wretched excess, and 2020 was more "Football made accessible with ideas for a better game." And of course, the USFL attempts to deploy the nostalgia hook, however limited the reach may be on that in this case. Since Rock Ex-Wife Capital has taken over, it's been "Merge with the CFL somehow" and when that fell apart, it kinda became "Well, we paid for the IP, let's run a football league I guess." Everything about this go-around has just felt so bland, like the marketing peaks at "Here is also some football." We know the steak isn't going to be USDA Prime, the least you could do is offer me some sizzle. Kudos to the DC crowd for at least livening things up with their end zone lemon party. Be weird, have fun with it, that's how you build something here.

 

Maybe the league maintains its audience or even grows it a bit over the season. Or maybe the network financial interests are willing to look past the numbers and keep throwing in money for any sort of unique live football programming at this point, like Fox has done for the USFL. We're in very weird times for the economics of sports broadcast rights, after all. But if I were a betting man, as the XFL constantly encourages me to be, I'd set my money on this version fading fast without ever burning brightly.

[McCall]

4 minutes ago, Sodboy13 said:

It's not looking great for XFL 3.0 out of the gate.

 

https://www.sportsmediawatch.com/2023/02/xfl-ratings-opening-weekend-fewer-viewers/

 

Ratings across all four games averaged about half of what XFL 2.0 got in its debut week, with similar time slots and network distribution. As the article notes, those 2020 ratings did not factor in out-of-home viewership, either, so that's twice the eyeballs on fewer measured outlets.

 

Reported attendance was in the 12,000s for three of the games, with San Antonio doubling the field at 24K+. St. Louis should be a solid draw at the gate as well, but I don't know if any of the rest are going to build on these numbers. Obviously Vegas is going to be the league's Mullett Arena.

 

It's also worth noting if there is an expectation for the TV and in-person audiences to grow over the season, that would basically be bucking the trend of every alternative football league to come through over the past 49 years.

 

XFL 3.0 has been a real puzzler for me. Say what you will about Vince McMahon (and you can and should say A LOT,) but you could at least see the direction and vision he had in his two attempts. 2001 was "Football for the Attitude Era" with all its wretched excess, and 2020 was more "Football made accessible with ideas for a better game." And of course, the USFL attempts to deploy the nostalgia hook, however limited the reach may be on that in this case. Since Rock Ex-Wife Capital has taken over, it's been "Merge with the CFL somehow" and when that fell apart, it kinda became "Well, we paid for the IP, let's run a football league I guess." Everything about this go-around has just felt so bland, like the marketing peaks at "Here is also some football." We know the steak isn't going to be USDA Prime, the least you could do is offer me some sizzle. Kudos to the DC crowd for at least livening things up with their end zone lemon party. Be weird, have fun with it, that's how you build something here.

 

Maybe the league maintains its audience or even grows it a bit over the season. Or maybe the network financial interests are willing to look past the numbers and keep throwing in money for any sort of unique live football programming at this point, like Fox has done for the USFL. We're in very weird times for the economics of sports broadcast rights, after all. But if I were a betting man, as the XFL constantly encourages me to be, I'd set my money on this version fading fast without ever burning brightly.

They mentioned that they scaled back promotion and that viewership is about where they were expecting, so at the moment I'd say they're gonna be ok... for now. If they are able to complete the season around projections, maybe they'll look for improvement by relocating franchises that struggle to cities that would expect to fare better, like San Diego.

[gosioux76]

18 minutes ago, Sodboy13 said:

It's not looking great for XFL 3.0 out of the gate.

 

https://www.sportsmediawatch.com/2023/02/xfl-ratings-opening-weekend-fewer-viewers/

 

Ratings across all four games averaged about half of what XFL 2.0 got in its debut week, with similar time slots and network distribution. As the article notes, those 2020 ratings did not factor in out-of-home viewership, either, so that's twice the eyeballs on fewer measured outlets.

 

Reported attendance was in the 12,000s for three of the games, with San Antonio doubling the field at 24K+. St. Louis should be a solid draw at the gate as well, but I don't know if any of the rest are going to build on these numbers. Obviously Vegas is going to be the league's Mullett Arena.

 

It's also worth noting if there is an expectation for the TV and in-person audiences to grow over the season, that would basically be bucking the trend of every alternative football league to come through over the past 49 years.

 

XFL 3.0 has been a real puzzler for me. Say what you will about Vince McMahon (and you can and should say A LOT,) but you could at least see the direction and vision he had in his two attempts. 2001 was "Football for the Attitude Era" with all its wretched excess, and 2020 was more "Football made accessible with ideas for a better game." And of course, the USFL attempts to deploy the nostalgia hook, however limited the reach may be on that in this case. Since Rock Ex-Wife Capital has taken over, it's been "Merge with the CFL somehow" and when that fell apart, it kinda became "Well, we paid for the IP, let's run a football league I guess." Everything about this go-around has just felt so bland, like the marketing peaks at "Here is also some football." We know the steak isn't going to be USDA Prime, the least you could do is offer me some sizzle. Kudos to the DC crowd for at least livening things up with their end zone lemon party. Be weird, have fun with it, that's how you build something here.

 

Maybe the league maintains its audience or even grows it a bit over the season. Or maybe the network financial interests are willing to look past the numbers and keep throwing in money for any sort of unique live football programming at this point, like Fox has done for the USFL. We're in very weird times for the economics of sports broadcast rights, after all. But if I were a betting man, as the XFL constantly encourages me to be, I'd set my money on this version fading fast without ever burning brightly.

 

I found this detail to be intriguing 
 

Quote

Viewership also trailed the inaugural games of last year’s USFL (3.07M) and the 2019 Alliance of American Football (3.25M), with the caveat that those aired in primetime (and in the case of the USFL, on two broadcast networks).

 

[Sodboy13]

I think the XFL - USFL comparison is apples to oranges, for the reasons noted in the article. I also would be surprised to see the USFL hit anything close to those numbers this season.

 

If you'd prefer a comparison entirely within the 2023 sports media landscape, the NHL All-Star Game aired two weeks prior to the XFL opener in the same time slot on the same network, and pulled in a nearly identical audience volume (1.5M vs 1.54M.)

[McCall]

50 minutes ago, Sodboy13 said:

I think the XFL - USFL comparison is apples to oranges, for the reasons noted in the article. I also would be surprised to see the USFL hit anything close to those numbers this season.

 

If you'd prefer a comparison entirely within the 2023 sports media landscape, the NHL All-Star Game aired two weeks prior to the XFL opener in the same time slot on the same network, and pulled in a nearly identical audience volume (1.5M vs 1.54M.)

And they didn't go up against the NBA All-Star Game and the Daytona 500.

[kmccarthy27]

One thing I questioned when I saw a similar article is how much just watched on ESPN+ since all the games are streaming there. 

 

My other question is, and I never found out, ESPN is on a TV in every bar and restaurant in America, so in terms of eyes on the product there had to have been a lot. Those places are not going to set and leave on Fox or NBC proper just to make sure a USFL game comes on. 

[Sodboy13]

49 minutes ago, McCall said:

And they didn't go up against the NBA All-Star Game and the Daytona 500.

Neither did the XFL at 3pm Eastern on Saturday, which are the ratings I cited.

[McCall]

4 minutes ago, Sodboy13 said:

Neither did the XFL at 3pm Eastern on Saturday, which are the ratings I cited.

Yeah, but in comparison, the Battlehawks-Brahmas aired Sunday at 3pm ET and pulled in 1.57 million. The Daytona 500 aired at the same time, basically (2:30pm ET).

[tigers]

Well the numbers may be put down to Football overload or some football fans may have just needed a break for a while?

 

Eagerly awaiting the next round.

[Cujo]

XFL 2001.

16 million tuned in for its debut.

Didn't make it to Season 2.

Just wow.

 

[Red Comet]

There's also the whole "most people who even had Internet in 2001 were using dialup so streaming was something out of scifi" so thus TV was far more dominant and having an average audience of 1-2  5-6 million would be a death sentence. For the current media environment? 1-2 million on average is pretty good for football that isn't college or the NFL.

 

 

Edited February 23, 2023 by Red Comet
Apparently the XFL of 2001 had an average Nielsen rating of 3 or so which IIRC translates to 5-6 million

[Sykotyk]

People don't realize that the value of live TV has increased drastically in the past few years. Not just streaming but so many just get their entertainment from social media like tiktok. 

 

Live TV means ads are getting watched. And that ups the value of them compared to viewers watching things from streaming or on dvr. 

 

I know between last year and this year I cut cable. I had enough streaming services that it was practically redundant. 

 

Right now one million lives viewers is a good crowd where in 2001 a 1.5 would've been seen as a cataclysmic failure.