Perhaps the most notable achievement of the XFL season is that it concludes this weekend with no questions asked about its immediate future.
The 2001 edition of the league folded within weeks after the conclusion of its season. In 2020, the league suspended play mid-season due to the COVID-19 pandemic and quickly entered bankruptcy. Under new ownership in 2023, the XFL has played a full 40-game regular season, along with two semifinal games, and will stage a championship game Saturday in San Antonio between the Arlington Renegades and DC Defenders (8 p.m. ET, ABC/ESPN/ESPN+ ).
During an interview this week with ESPN, owners Dany Garcia and Dwayne Johnson declared the season a success and began looking forward to 2024. Garcia said the league’s front office staff will soon be taking an off-site retreat and several staples, including a series of collectibles and player offers. , has already been scheduled.
Quantitative results were mixed. As Garcia said, “There are areas that have completely exceeded our expectations, and there are areas that are newly discovered.”
Games averaged 2 hours and 49 minutes – 12 minutes shorter than the NFL in 2022 and in keeping with the league’s hopes of producing a fast-paced event. As of midweek, 54 players have received invitations to try out for NFL camps this month.
On the other hand, the attendance figures were lower than the 2020 season, which was shortened due to the coronavirus. “We have a lot of work to do,” Garcia admitted. Regardless, Johnson insisted that the ownership group — which also includes Jerry Cardinale, founder and managing partner of RedBird Capital Partners — had always planned multiple seasons of product development.
“We’ve been in business for a long time, Danny and I, starting in the late ’90s,” Johnson said. “We went into this XFL season determined and committed to playing the long game. So as the numbers came in, they were what we expected. We didn’t expect to blow the roof of the venue with incredible numbers. You want to see steady growth, you want to get feedback from the fans and the public, you want to see How to play the game on TV and then play the long game.
Let’s take a closer look at the XFL season and what it means for the coming years.
economics
“You never know how these things are going to change,” Johnson said. “Especially in spring football, which hasn’t worked out historically.”
Indeed, in the 40 years since the AFL’s 1970 merger with the NFL every spring or fall replacement league has failed as a business. The current incarnation of the USFL debuted in 2022 and was the first professional football league to return for a second season in that time period.
Garcia said the 2023 XFL was about “laying the groundwork.” She admitted that the university “needs to be capitalized” after buying it in bankruptcy court for $15 million. Like many businesses, it will require private funding to operate at least in its initial stages.
But in terms of attendance, the league averaged 14,398 fans per game, down 23% from the 2020 season, amid a wide range for its eight teams. The St Louis BattleHawks reconnected with their roaring fans for 2020 averaging 35,104 per game. Meanwhile, two relocated teams for 2020 — the Vegas Vipers and Orlando Guardians — have averaged less than 9,000 per game.
“Numbers always matter,” Garcia said. “Every number. But they came up exactly where we feel and what makes sense.”
Narrative
Attendance reflects part of any league’s financial health, but on several occasions Garcia and Johnson have emphasized the value they see in storytelling as an important part of the business. To that end, he leaned into Johnson’s personal history as a college football player who didn’t make the NFL roster. They tagged the topic “The 54th Player”, based on the NFL roster limit of 53 players, and produced a documentary series under that title that airs on Hulu.
“We knew we would have the space, the time and the bandwidth to make the best decisions to build the league,” Garcia said. “We weren’t just building for a TV property. You have to put in the infrastructure.
“It’s not just the sport of the game, but we had to take responsibility and polish everything around the game. Because that’s not only what our players want to experience but that’s what our fans and partners demand. It’s not just a linear relationship anymore. What is content? How does content feel? What What are you creating What is a brand What is a partnership What is true innovation?
“And I absolutely believe that today’s consumer, fan, and audience want to know that you’re doing a good job for your teammates, our athletes, and the sport. … And that to me is definitely one of the parts of longevity, in addition to that complication and making the strategic move that says we’re going to tell the story, And we’ll build relationships and we’ll continue the story to make sure you understand the full emotional range that goes into the game.”
The league also bowed to St. Louis quarterback AJ McCarron after his emotional reaction to the Week 1 comeback victory, which was brought up by his children joining him in the postgame interview. The moment “really embodied our narrative,” Johnson said, reflecting on the emotions felt by players on the NFL’s outer perimeter.
AJ McCarron was emotional after celebrating the @employeeWinning back with his kids @10AJMcCarron | Hahahahaha pic.twitter.com/6NJ9lViJvc
– ESPN (espn) February 19, 2023
McCarron followed that path in Week 2 after another comeback victory, saying he hoped his kids would one day appreciate “watching Dad never give up.”
“Since I got out of college, I’ve been statistic a little bit,” McCarron added.
NFL Connection
Although the XFL has made it clear that it does not envision itself as an NFL developmental league, Johnson spoke candidly and extensively about the NFL this week. He said he first broached the idea of a “Player 54” during a 2021 meeting with NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell and other league executives, and views the topic as “one of the staples and anchors we have in the XFL.”
Johnson described it as “my personal hope and wish” that “the players feel they’ve passed, they feel they have a real chance to play after this season, whether it be in the spring or play in the fall.” [in the NFL]. “
The road to the NFL has also been a major selling point for players and agents deciding whether to play in the XFL or USFL. The February-May XFL season time frame corresponds to when NFL off-season programs begin, in theory, giving players a chance to make an impression before training camp rosters are made. USFL players will not be available until the end of June or early July. To that end, the XFL has been promoting players who have received invitations to try out for the NFL’s rookie camps this month. According to XFL rules, these players can start signing NFL contracts next week.
The XFL has also reached a cooperation agreement with the NFL to share the results of its rulebook innovations as well as to serve as a developmental ground for field officials. Three officials who have worked XFL games this season, on loan from the NFL’s Mackie Development Program, have been hired to work NFL games this fall. One of them is Jeff Bilbo, who Garcia said he approached during a hiatus to say he thought the XFL was his ticket to the NFL.
hub model
The XFL will likely maintain its seasonal model of centrally located practice — in 2023, it’s in and around Arlington, Texas — while playing games in local markets.
“To me it was always very important,” Johnson said, “that if we called ourselves the St. Louis Battlehawks, we’d be in St. Louis and not go to Virginia or another state to play.”
The league is considering the possibility of hosting small winter camps in home cities to begin contact between teams and fans. But a shift to an all-domestic structure is not on the near horizon.
“It’s a sophisticated answer,” Garcia said. “One of the most important things we had to provide was a certain level of quality of sponsorship, play and supervision with our athletes. We didn’t want any differences so the center helps us a lot. Because of the weight of our strong content and the amount we do, the hub allows us to be around the clock All days of the week.So it was very valuable.
Then as the league continues to grow and when we get to a point where we can replicate the excellence that exists within our center in Arlington, that will be it [when we face] resolution.”