XFL - Legacy

Legacy

Despite its unimpressive showing among the TV audience, the XFL lasted for twelve weeks, more than the eleven weeks played by the three previous professional outdoor leagues combined: the Regional Football League of 1999 played nine weeks, the Spring Football League of 2000 survived just two, while the Professional Spring Football League of 1992 folded before playing a single game. It restored an outdoor professional franchise to Birmingham, Las Vegas and Memphis—each of whom had lacked an outdoor pro team since their CFL franchises were shuttered in 1995, but for a single season for the Tennessee Oilers in Memphis before moving to their permanent home in Nashville and becoming the Titans—and to Orlando, which had had no professional outdoor football since the WLAF (later NFL Europa) folded North American operations in 1992. The XFL brought a football franchise to Los Angeles—a market which has lacked an NFL team for years—and demonstrated that a baseball-specific stadium such as San Francisco's Pacific Bell Park made a suitable venue for football as well. However, none of these novelties translated into overall commercial success.

The defunct league also popularized "in-game" interviews. Today, National Hockey League players are interviewed between commercial breaks and Major League Baseball has managers and coaches being interviewed. During Fox's Saturday Game of the Week, players often wear microphones for a "sounds of the game" segment. The National Basketball Association also often features in-game interviews with coaches on games televised on ESPN and TNT following the 1st quarter of certain games.

NBC continued airing professional league football beyond the demise of the XFL. While no football aired during the 2002 season due to the Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, NBC struck a deal with the Arena Football League and aired games from that league from 2003 to 2006.

In 2006, NBC returned to coverage of NFL games with NBC Sunday Night Football. The occasional use of the "sky-cam" and sideline interviews are the only features common to both the NFL and XFL coverage. NBC's lead announcer for XFL coverage, Matt Vasgersian, later became an announcer for the NFL on Fox. Minervini joined the United Football League broadcast team for Versus in 2010.

XFL team names and logos also appear in movies and television where professional football needs to be dramatized, as licensing for NFL logos may be cost prohibitive.

In an episode of The Simpsons, Homer is wearing an XFL cap and waving a flag with the XFL logo at the beginning, looking forward to the new season, only to have the news broken to him, by Marge, that the XFL has folded. Marge then tells him that the league MVP told her, and that he was now sweeping up nails at the hair salon. In reality, the league's only MVP, Tommy Maddox, would resurrect his once-undistinguished NFL career with the Pittsburgh Steelers and win the NFL Comeback Player of the Year award in 2002 before giving way to Ben Roethlisberger two years later. It was also mentioned in a later episode, in which Homer mistakenly believed one of the teams was the "Long Island Ice Teas" when asked what was the best team to never win the XFL.

The yardage-based conversion rule, which was introduced (and only used once) by the XFL, also saw new life. The all-female Lingerie Football League adopted a yardage-based conversion rule similar to that used in the XFL playoffs. In that league, a one-point conversion can be scored from the 2-yard line while a two-point conversion can be scored from the 5-yard line. The LFL, which targets a similar audience as the XFL did, does not feature any kicking. The Stars Football League, a regional minor league that began play in 2011, also features a three-point conversion from the 10-yard line.

The United Football League later placed all four of its inaugural franchises in former XFL markets and stadiums. However, the UFL drew far fewer fans than the XFL average (though the XFL was marked by a notable disparity between the beginning of the season and the end of the season). The difference between the XFL's San Francisco Demons and the UFL's California Redwoods was particularly striking; despite both playing in the same ballpark, the XFL Demons drew an average of 35,000 fans, compared to only 6,000 for the UFL Redwoods. (The XFL's heavy promotion, coupled with a lack of competition against the San Francisco 49ers that the UFL had to face as a fall league as opposed to a winter league like the XFL, are the most likely reasons for this disparity.) Three of the four charter teams, including the Redwoods, moved to other markets by the time of the UFL's third season.