Founding
Created as a joint venture between NBC and the World Wrestling Federation under the company name "XFL, LLC", the XFL was created as a "single-entity league", meaning that the teams were not individually owned and operated franchises (as in the NFL), but that the league was operated as a single business unit. Vince McMahon's original plan was to purchase the Canadian Football League (after the CFL initially approached him about purchasing the Toronto Argonauts), while NBC was moving ahead at the time with Time Warner to create a football league of their own.
The concept of the league was first announced on February 3, 2000. The XFL was originally conceived to build on the success of the NFL and professional wrestling. It was hyped as "real" football without penalties for roughness and with fewer rules in general. The loud games featured players and coaches with microphones and cameras in the huddle and in the locker rooms. Stadiums featured trash-talking public address announcers and scantily-clad cheerleaders. Instead of a pre-game coin toss, XFL officials put the ball on the ground and let a player from each team scramble for it to determine who received the kickoff option, which led to the first XFL injury.
The XFL chose unusual names for its franchises, most of which either referenced images of uncontrolled insanity (Maniax, Rage, Xtreme), evil (Demons) or criminal activity (Enforcers, Hitmen, Outlaws, and the Birmingham Blast).
After outrage from Birmingham residents (who felt that the word 'Blast' may have been misconstrued as a reference to the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing in 1963, as well as Eric Rudolph's 1998 bombing of a local abortion clinic), the XFL changed the name of the Birmingham team to the more benign "Birmingham Thunderbolts".
The XFL had impressive television coverage for an upstart league, with three games televised each week on NBC, UPN, and TNN.
Contrary to popular belief, the "X" in XFL did not stand for "extreme", as in "Extreme Football League". When the league was first organized in 1999, it was originally supposed to stand for "Xtreme Football League"; however, there was already a league in formation at the same time with that name, and so promoters wanted to make sure that everyone knew that the "X" did not actually stand for anything (though McMahon would comment that "if the NFL stood for the 'No Fun League', the XFL will stand for the 'extra fun league'"). The other Xtreme Football League, which was also organized in 1999, merged with Arena Football before ever fielding its first game.
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Famous quotes containing the word founding:
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