XFL - End of Season and Failure

End of Season and Failure

On April 21, 2001, the season concluded as the Los Angeles Xtreme defeated the San Francisco Demons 38-6 in the XFL Championship Game (which was originally given the Zen-like moniker "The Big Game at the End of the Season", but was later dubbed the Million Dollar Game, after the amount of money awarded to the winning team).

Though paid attendance at games remained respectable, if unimpressive (overall attendance were only 10% below what the league's goal had been at the start of the season), the XFL ceased operations after just one season due to low TV ratings. Facing stiff competition from the NCAA Basketball Tournament, the NBC telecast of the Chicago/NY-NJ game on March 31 received a 1.5 rating, at that time the lowest ever for any major network primetime weekend first-run sports television broadcast in the United States.

Despite initially agreeing to broadcast XFL games for two years and owning half of the league, NBC announced it would not broadcast a second XFL season, thus admitting failure in its attempt at airing replacement pro football. WWF Chairman Vince McMahon initially announced that the XFL would continue, as it still had UPN and TNN as broadcast outlets. In fact, expansion teams were being explored for cities such as Washington, D.C. and Detroit. However, in order to continue broadcasting XFL games, UPN demanded that WWF SmackDown! broadcasts be cut from two hours to one and a half hours. McMahon found these terms unacceptable and he announced the XFL's closure on May 10, 2001.

One reason for the failure of the league to catch on, despite its financial solvency and massive visibility, was the lack of respect for the league in the sports media. XFL games were rarely treated as sports contests, but rather more like WWF-like sensationalized events. With few NFL-quality players, save Tommy Maddox, the league's MVP, and with little thoughtful analysis or even consideration by sports columnists, the XFL never gained the necessary recognition to be regarded as a viable league. The fact that the league was co-owned by NBC made ESPN (which was part of the same corporation as ABC) and Fox Sports Net (owned by Fox TV) disinclined to report on the XFL, though Time Warner properties such as Sports Illustrated, as well as the Associated Press, devoted coverage to the league (Sports Illustrated even featured the XFL on the cover of its February 12, 2001 edition, albeit with the description of it being "sleazy gimmicks and low-rent football"). Many local TV newscasts and newspapers (even in XFL cities) did not report league scores or show highlights. This led to many football fans treating the XFL as a joke, rather than competition to the NFL. Other problems included the scantily-clad cheerleaders, trash-talking announcers, and the lack of penalties for roughness.

Former ECW announcer Joey Styles mentioned on the McMahon DVD (which has a short section on the XFL) that if the league had not been as publicly associated with wrestling and the negative stigma that comes with it, the league might have been successful. On the same DVD, Vince McMahon defends the XFL, saying it did not cost a lot of money for him to try and still thinks it was a good idea.

WWE announcer Jerry Lawler, who made amends with WWE months after the league folded and remains employed with the company today, believes that the league could have been a success if given more time. He stated in his biography that McMahon's approach of adding entertainment to the sport would have made it a more appealing alternative to the NFL. However, because the league was immediately compared to the NFL as a direct competitor, he feels that the pressures placed by NBC ruined McMahon's model entirely. He states "I knew after the very first week that it wasn't going to fly. They said don't mention the cheerleaders, don't shoot the cheerleaders. I realized then they were going to try to take on the NFL and that was never going to work. The football wasn't good enough."

The XFL ranked #3 on TV Guide's list of the TV Guide's worst TV shows of all time in July 2002, as well as #2 on ESPN's list of biggest flops in sports, behind Ryan Leaf. In 2010, TV Guide Network also listed the show at #21 on their list of 25 Biggest TV Blunders.

Many stories recapping the history of the XFL show photos of the crash of its promotional blimp, portraying it retrospectively as an ill-omen for the league. The incident occurred a month before the opening game, when its pilot and a student pilot with him, lost control of the airship and were forced to evacuate. The ground crew were unable to secure the vehicle and the "unattended blimp then floated five miles north over the Oakland Estuary, at one point reaching 1,600 feet, until its gondola caught on a sailboat mast in the Central Basin marina. It draped over the roof of the Oyster Reef restaurant -- next to where the boat was moored -- and a nearby power line." While the pilot was hospitalized no other major injuries were reported. The blimp needed $2.5 million in repairs, the sailboat and restaurant had only minor damages. Also before the season started, a fictional XFL game appeared in the Schwarzenegger movie The 6th Day set in 2015.