1. The XFL 1.0 was a spectacle that lasted all of one season. XFL 2.0 was a lot of fun with cool trick plays, PJ Walker's breakout, hard seltzer celebrations and incredible in-game interviews.
2. 2020 XFL Defensive Rankings Ranked by Yards/Game Allowed. Team Yds/Gm; Tampa Bay Vipers Tampa Bay: 258.8: St. Louis BattleHawks St. Louis: 264.2: Houston Roughnecks Houston: 307.6.

Many football leagues have tried to fill the gap left by the NFL in the summer. One of the most ambitious of them is the XFL, founded by Vince McMahon.

History of the XFL For those who followed sports in 2001, there’s a good chance you’ll remember the massive lead-up and media attention that the brand new XFL managed to generate upon its launch. It promised to be a more action-packed, wild, and violent game than traditional American football. XFL (2001), a defunct American football league that played its only season in 2001; XFL (2020), a professional American football league; Vehicles. Bell XFL Airabonita, a 1940 U.S. Navy experimental interceptor aircraft; Jaguar XFL, a 2016–present Sino-British executive sedan; Loening XFL, a canceled 1933 U.S. Navy fighter aircraft; See also.

The XFL was first launched in 2001 but ended after the inaugural season. After a pause of almost two decades, the project returned for another season in 2020.

Below we explore the complete XFL history, starting from the origins of the initial 2001 project and continuing through the present day.

The Origins of the XFL

There were two major players behind the idea of the XFL. Both were looking to enter the football market and had similar timing.

The first one was Vince McMahon and his World Wrestling Federation. He wanted to buy the Canadian Football League in the late 1990s and, by his own words, “migrate it south.” He failed in his attempt, so he had to find another solution.

Around the same time, NBC was looking to bounce back after losing the TV rights to the NFL in 1998. The plan was to create its own football league with Time Warner.

The interest of both parties was enough of a reason for them to join forces, and that’s how the first iteration of the XFL was born. It was a 50-50 joint venture, and the future competition was announced to the world in 2000.

The goal of the XFL was to run right after the Super Bowl ended and cover the fans’ need for competitive football in the spring.

After several years of preparations, the XFL was finally launched in 2001.

The season featured eight teams and started on February 3^rd, about a week after Super Bowl 35 had ended.

Here is a list of the teams that took part in the inaugural XFL season in 2001. They were all owned by the league.

Birmingham Thunderbolts

The Thunderbolts played their games in Birmingham, Alabama. Tim Berryman served as the general manager, and Gerry DiNardo was the coach of the team, which finished last in the Eastern Division

Chicago Enforcers

The Chicago Enforcers reached the playoffs under the guidance of head coach Ron Meyer, playing their home games at the Soldier Field arena

New York/New Jersey Hitmen

The Hitmen shared the stadium of the Giants and were led by head coach Rusty Tillman and GM Drew Pearson

Orlando Rage

The Orlando Rage finished with the best record in the East under head coach Galen Hall. They wore red, navy blue, gold, and white

Las Vegas Outlaws

The team played its home games at Sam Boyd Stadium. Jim Criner was the head coach, but he failed to help the Outlaws reach the playoffs in 2001

Los Angeles Xtreme

The LA Xtreme proved to be the strongest team in XFL’s inaugural season, winning both the Western Division and the Championship under Al Luginbill

Memphis Maniax

The Maniax came close to the playoffs but eventually finished third in the Western Division

San Francisco Demons

The Demons barely made it to the postseason under Jim Skipper but then improved to reach the XFL Final. They were destroyed by the LA Xtreme in the deciding game

The maiden season of the XFL started on February 3^rd with the game between the New York/New Jersey Hitmen and the Las Vegas Outlaws. Each team then faced the opponents from its own division twice and the ones from the opposite division once for a total of ten games in the regular season.

The Western Division turned out to be way stronger. The LA Xtreme won it with a record of 7 wins and 3 defeats. The second place went to the San Francisco Demons, who had a 5-5 record. Their record was the same as the Memphis Maniax, but the Demons won both of the direct meetings and earned a place in the playoffs.

In the other division, the Orlando Rage won comfortably with a record of 8-2. The Chicago Enforcers finished second at 5-5, so those two teams reached the 2001 postseason.

The format of the league back then meant that the winners of each division had to face the second-placed teams in the opposite division in the first round.

The LA Xtreme comfortably beat the Chicago Enforcers to reach the final. In the other semifinal, the San Francisco Demons just edged the Orlando Rage to progress to an all-Western final.

The Xtreme proved that they were the best team in the XFL final game, which was branded the Million Dollar Game. They demolished the Demons by 38-6 to become the first team to win the XFL.

Why the XFL Folded

The start of the XFL was exceptional in terms of TV coverage, as the first games reached almost 15 million viewers. Week 2 saw a drop to fewer than 4.6 million people, and the ratings continued to decline throughout the XFL 2001 season.

The XFL was something of a mockery for many football specialists and fans of the sport. It was hardly a shocker that both the WWF and NBC lost $35 million during the inaugural season and decided to call it a day.

The league wasn’t prepared to provide a reasonable alternative to the NFL, and it paid the price. The losses were too big to handle, and the decline in viewership suggested that all momentum was lost. It seemed like the whole project was dead, and it stayed frozen for almost two decades.

For a long time, there were no reasons to believe that the XFL might be revived. The first signs that the project might be returning came in 2017. ESPN created a documentary about the competition called “This Was the XFL.”

During an interview for the film, Vince McMahon hinted at his plans to revive the XFL and give it another try. There were no major indications of what was going on for a while, but the WWE owner founded a new project called Alpha Entertainment.

In January 2018, the company announced that the XFL was coming back for the 2020 season.

McMahon’s ambition was to use his 2001 experience to create a better product, and the hard work started. Oliver Luck was named commissioner in 2018, and the locations of the new teams were decided.

Quarterback Landry Jones became the first XFL 2020 player in April 2019, and slowly, Vince McMahon created the new XFL. He kept his word, and the competition was revived for the 2020 season.

The rebooted XFL shared some similarities with the 2001 format, but plenty of things changed, too.

For starters, new teams were announced for the 2020 XFL.

• Los Angeles Wildcats
• Dallas Renegades
• Houston Roughnecks
• Seattle Dragons
• New York Guardians
• DC Defenders
• Tampa Bay Vipers
• Louis BattleHawks

Similar to the inaugural season, these teams are in two conferences.

The Western Conference features the Los Angeles Wildcats, the Dallas Renegades, the Houston Roughnecks, and the Seattle Dragons. You will find the New York Guardians, DC Defenders, Tampa Bay Vipers, and St. Louis BattleHawks in the East.

The locations were picked by McMahon based on the market size. The XFL owner wanted to go for the biggest ones out there, and that’s how each team was born. The organizations are owned by the XFL, unlike other major US sports leagues where the franchise system is in place.

If you want to learn more about each team and the current roster, the page below will answer all of your questions.

The XFL 2020 draft took place on October 15, 2019. The teams selected their players in different phases. The first one was for the quarterbacks, and then another five for players in other positions took place.

At the end of the day, each team had a roster of 72 players that had to be cut down to 52 for the start of the regular season.

There was a supplemental draft on November 22 of the same year that saw an additional 66 players selected.

If you want to learn everything about the XFL draft structure and flow, check out the following page.

The schedule announced for the 2020 season was similar in structure to the original XFL schedule of 2001. Ten games across the regular season, with two games in the playoffs and then a final Championship game.

You can explore more about the XFL schedule on the following page.

XFL Schedule and Results

One of the key points Vince McMahon needed to succeed in this time around was to add rules that make the XFL more interesting without going too far away from the traditional guidelines used in the NFL and college football.

Some of the main changes in the rules were to give the offense certain advantages and also provide more opportunities for dramatic comebacks late in each game.

There were also various timing changes designed to make the games shorter in terms of overall length.

We go through all important details about the format and rules of the XFL here.

XFL 2020 vs. XFL 2001

Some believe that the XFL will follow the fate of the XFL 2001 and other football competitions that failed to find a place in the market.

Vince McMahon has another opinion, so let’s take a look at the key differences between the two editions.

For a start, the approach of the owner seems more moderate. In the first edition, he was going for a more sensational style that brought him success with wrestling. Just take a look at the names of the teams in 2001 — the Outlaws, the Maniax, the Hitmen, and the Enforcers sound like something that belongs in the WWE, not in a serious football competition.

McMahon’s 2020 approach looks mature in comparison, and while his goal is to make the whole league fun, it won’t be in a controversial fashion.

The XFL team locations look better, too, as the focus is on the big markets across the USA.

Another key factor that could bring success is that McMahon managed to get solid TV coverage on ESPN, Fox, and ABC. They broadcast the games not only in the US but in other various markets in Europe, MENA, and Asia.

Another reason to believe that is the XFL’s ambitions to attract top talent.

Various former NFL players and college prospects were acquired for the 2020 season, with a view to making the quality of the football higher than in 2001.

It’s hard to know for sure if the revived XFL will succeed in the long run, but the signs are good. It seems like Vince McMahon learned his lessons from the 2001 experiment. He’s invested a ton of money in his latest attempt to establish an alternative to the NFL for the spring.

For the sake of the football fans in the US, let’s hope that the future of the XFL is brighter than its past. You can keep up to date with what’s happening in the league on our blog. Here are the latest XFL related posts.

In 2020, the XFL will be revived by the chairman and CEO of WWE, Vince McMahon. The first incarnation of the league left behind a legacy of missteps, questionable decisions and failure, but added new innovations to the game that the NFL uses to this day.

The XFL was first introduced in 2000 by McMahon and then-chairman of NBC Sports, Dick Ebersol. They pushed the concept as a more fun alternative to the NFL, which McMahon christened as the “no fun league.”

It ran for one 10 game season with strong ratings for the first week’s games. The debut game had 54 million views, compared to the 84 million Super Bowl XXXV drew. Afterwards, ratings tanked due to poor quality of play, and negative reactions from fans and sports media.

The league had an ever changing rulebook that included no fair catches (a major part of the marketing campaign), no point-after kicks and the controversial opening scramble.

The scramble replaced the coin toss at the beginning of games. One player from each team would line up on the 30 yard line, and fight to retrieve a football sitting at midfield. At the sound of a whistle they’d rush to the ball, and whoever got it chose their possession.

This resulted in many injuries. It included Orlando Rage’s free safety Hassan Shamsid-Deen, who separated his shoulder in the very first scramble. He missed the remainder of the season.

The constant changing of the rules hurt the quality of play as well. Coaches and players struggled with adjusting to the changes. This led to games with little offensive production that was criticized as slow, sloppy and uninteresting by the media.

Another factor in the company’s game quality were the players. There were 475 players involved in the inaugural season’s draft and each team had a roster of 38 athletes, compared to 53 in the NFL, resulting in a lack of depth in non-quarterback positions.

Most eligible players came from either the CFL, the Arena Football League, NFL Europe, were retired NFL players or were previous college players who had gone undrafted by the NFL but had not yet signed with another league.

Xfl History 2001

The presentation of the league was a source of controversy. McMahon was ridiculed by mainstream sports media, due to his connections to fake pro-wrestling. This perception followed the XFL, as few mainstream sports media entities would cover it, and the ones that did were not kind to the organization.

A February 2001 edition of Sports Illustrated featured the XFL on the cover with the description being “sleazy gimmicks and low-rent football.”

McMahon appeared on longtime football analyst Bob Costas’ program “On the Record” in the middle of the season. McMahon’s confrontational and defiant attitude only lowered public opinion of the league.

Costas later commented his feelings on the encounter with McMahon and the league as a whole:

“Everything about it screamed to me schlock and crap. Everything that subsequently occurred validated that impression.”

The addition of wrestling elements such as storylines, commentators playing characters and skits hindered the league as well.

Every team had scantily clad cheerleaders that danced provocatively and were encouraged to participate in storylines and become romantically involved with players. It was an environment fostered by McMahon in an attempt to increase viewership according to the ESPN “30 for 30” film called “This Was the XFL.”

The use of storylines, appearances by WWE personalities such as McMahon and The Rock and games being commentated by wrestling announcers Jesse Ventura, Jim Ross and Jerry Lawler damaged the reputation of the league and caused fans and media figures to believe the action was fake and pre-determined like professional wrestling.

Accidents also plagued the season. During the Los Angeles Xtreme versus Chicago Enforcers game in week two, a power outage occurred due to a generator not being fueled. The game was off the air for 15 minutes before the problem was fixed, causing a drop in viewership.

The same game then went into double overtime, and pushed back the airing of “Saturday Night Live” by 45 minutes, angering its creator and influential NBC personality Lorne Michaels.

Teams faced a large number of injuries during the season, with two running their third string quarterback by the end of the season.

These issues led to a loss of $35 million dollars by the end of the season and the ending of the league. It was considered a flop by sports media, those involved with professional football and McMahon himself, who called it a “colossal failure.”

However, some aspects of the XFL lived on after its death. While it wasn’t the first to do so, it popularized the use of the sky cam, which was an overhead shot that focused on the action behind the offense. It was an acclaimed choice and was picked up by the NFL, becoming a staple of their camerawork.

They also used the Bubba cam, which was a cameraman running on the field and getting up close with the action. It did result in a couple injuries, but was applauded for making the presentation look like a video game.

There were some notable players to come out of the XFL as well, including Tommy Maddox and Rod “He Hate Me” Smart.

Original Xfl Teams

Maddox was the quarterback for the LA Xtreme and led them to win the final game of the season. He was the league MVP. He then signed with the Pittsburgh Steelers in 2002, leading them to a 10-1-5 season.

He was injured after two more seasons and became a backup to Ben Roethlisberger. He was part of the team when they won Super Bowl XL in 2005.

Rod Smart played for the Las Vegas Outlaws in the XFL and became popular for the phrase on his jersey, “He Hate Me.” It became the highest selling jersey in the league.

Smart explained the meaning of the phrase in 2004:

“Basically, my opponent is going to hate me. After I win, he’s gonna hate me. It is what it is. It’s a saying I was saying when I’d feel something wasn’t going my way.”

Xfl History 2001

He then went on to play for the Philadelphia Eagles for a season, and then joined the Carolina Panthers from 2002 to 2006, winning an NFC Championship in 2003 and playing in Super Bowl XXXVIII.

In total, 39 XFL players went on to play in the NFL. Nine of them played in a Super Bowl and six of them won.

The XFL was a failed experiment that was a spectacle for sports media and fans, and provided innovations in camera work and noteworthy players to the NFL.

Xfl Football History

Henry Wolski
Executive Editor