Vince McMahon considers move to bring back the XFL

[kelownabomberfan]

not sure I'd be starting another football league right now with all the concussion stuff going on.

[JCon]

17 minutes ago, kelownabomberfan said:

not sure I'd be starting another football league right now with all the concussion stuff going on.

And with football, seemingly, on the down swing.

 

What gap do they expect to fill? People can't get enough football? Well, that's what they thought prior to Thursday night games. Apparently, people can get enough football.

 

EDIT:  And, he's going to have his own moment of reckoning when the wrestlers start suing the WWE (and winning) over concussions.

Edited December 19, 2017 by JCon

[Tracker]

On ‎2017‎-‎12‎-‎19 at 11:32 AM, SpeedFlex27 said:

doThat thing will be awash in losing money. If Trump endorses it, it'll be guaranteed to fail. Vince may be rich but he's not a fool. At least you'd think...

Trump's reputation as an astute businessman has taken a real beating in the past 2-3 years as his financial affairs have been combed through. There have been some ugly rumours about McMahon circulating for years as well.

Edited December 22, 2017 by tracker

[SPuDS]

jesus christ. does everyone here need a valium or cuddle some puppies? 

 

I get off-season is a time for cranky pants and civil disobedience but do we really need to take it out on each so badly?    anyone need a freakin' hug or something?

[Mr Dee]

Shouldn’t those two recent posts go in the respect when posting  thread?

[SpeedFlex27]

1 hour ago, SPuDS said:

jesus christ. does everyone here need a valium or cuddle some puppies? 

 

I get off-season is a time for cranky pants and civil disobedience but do we really need to take it out on each so badly?    anyone need a freakin' hug or something?

We'll all be happy, happy, joy, joy when Ritchie Hall gets axed. If not, all bets are off.

[SpeedFlex27]

5 hours ago, Goalie said:

Ratings down. Attendance down. 

Im not talking WWE. Im talking NFL. 

Despite what some might say or think... A large portion of the American population is annoyed with the NFL and protests by its players. 

While i dont think XFL is returning i do think a UFL might be coming. And at this time with ppl legit turning the NFL off... It might work. 

Trump might not be well liked but... Players protesting the anthem is hurting the NFL BIG time right now and ppl are turning it off and staying home also. 

They don't even show the US National Anthem on tv anymore before games. I don't hear or read a lot about continuing angst from Americans anymore. The networks have killed the protests. Eventually the protests will peter out. The players have lost their forum. 

[Brandon]

I don't believe the anthem issue has any real impact on the popularity.    If I were to guess the league is lagging because of the lack of superstars and/or powerhouse teams that are must watch to see how they stream roll the competition.     Also the crazy amount of different entertainment options makes it very hard to continually be dominant.

[TrueBlue]

20 hours ago, kelownabomberfan said:

not sure I'd be starting another football league right now with all the concussion stuff going on.

I still think a National Touch Football League would take off like a jet plane.  

[Mark F]

2 hours ago, Brandon said:

I don't believe the anthem issue has any real impact on the popularity.    If I were to guess the league is lagging because of the lack of superstars and/or powerhouse teams that are must watch to see how they stream roll the competition.     Also the crazy amount of different entertainment options makes it very hard to continually be dominant.

I agree. about the anthem.....

also, most of the games are boring, too much focus on refs and rules, too many advertisements,  (touchdown... ads, extra point, ads, kickoff, ads. etc) too many hotdog players, celebrating things like a five yard catch, too many pre and post game shows, too many pompous announcers and experts, too many not funny jokes, too much "we love the military" too many horrendous helmet to helmet hits, too many guys carried off on a stretcher....

I actually find arena football  more entertaining. way faster paced.

 

Edited December 20, 2017 by Mark F

[JCon]

1 minute ago, Mark F said:

I agree. about the anthem.....

also, most of the games are boring, too much focus on refs and rules, too many advertisements,  (touchdown... ads, extra point, ads, kickoff, ads. etc) too many hotdog players, celebrating things like a five yard catch, too many pre and post game shows, too many pompous announcers and experts, too many not funny jokes, too much "we love the military" too many horrendous helmet to helmet hits, too many guys carried off on a stretcher....

 

Is any of this new, though?

I think it comes down to saturation.

[Mark F]

Just now, JCon said:

Is any of this new, though?

I think it comes down to saturation.

yeah you are probably right. just too much of it.  but look at how they turned their draft into a huge event. talk about boredom.

[JCon]

Just now, Mark F said:

yeah you are probably right. just too much of it.  but look at how they turned their draft into a huge event. talk about boredom.

Although... in agreement with what you're saying, social media has pushed all these themes.

If you complain about refing (which I do regularly), there's plenty of social media discussions to support your opinion. Any topic gets beaten to death.

[Mark F]

also, ESPN and the like play a roll in turning people off, they ... turned Lebron changing teams into a breathless, non stop, months long media extravagazana culminating in a giant media event, with live tv etc.

talk about ansurdity.

Crap like that, eventually people just can't take it any more.

 

[Tracker]

7 hours ago, TrueBlue said:

I still think a National Touch Football League would take off like a jet plane.  

If a lingerie football league can't make it, what hope is there, really? Its the inevitable decline of western civilization.

Edited December 20, 2017 by tracker

[The Unknown Poster]

Vince sold $100 million of WWE stock to fund Alpha so something is definitely happening. 

[Tracker]

2 hours ago, The Unknown Poster said:

Vince sold $100 million of WWE stock to fund Alpha so something is definitely happening. 

A fool and his money etc... he may also need that money to settle lawsuits.

[The Unknown Poster]

9 minutes ago, tracker said:

A fool and his money etc... he may also need that money to settle lawsuits.

He has a ton. Maybe he plans to use some of his own money but he has a ton of personal wealth and this was wwe stock of which is still owns millions and millions of shares and controls over 80% of the voting stock. 

I don’t think they will have any lawsuit issues to be honest. 

[Goalie]

19 minutes ago, The Unknown Poster said:

He has a ton. Maybe he plans to use some of his own money but he has a ton of personal wealth and this was wwe stock of which is still owns millions and millions of shares and controls over 80% of the voting stock. 

I don’t think they will have any lawsuit issues to be honest. 

Hes from north carolina. Panthers for sale. Just saying. 

[Goalie]

36 minutes ago, tracker said:

A fool and his money etc... he may also need that money to settle lawsuits.

What lawsuits? Your attitude towards a successful self made billionaire pretty much is pretty outdated actually. 

[Zontar]

Supposedly McMahon was offered Argos but wanted to buy the whole league.

Stephen Brunt said years ago McMahon then wanted the CFL to merge and came within two owners of agreeing to it. HAM and SSK saying no.

[JCon]

7 hours ago, Goalie said:

What lawsuits? Your attitude towards a successful self made billionaire pretty much is pretty outdated actually. 

McMahon has faced many lawsuits over the years for a variety of reasons. 

Also, this man already lost heaps of money when his last foray into football failed. So, there is a precedent. 

He's also not self-made but he did take his dad's company to remarkable heights. 

[The Unknown Poster]

3 hours ago, Zontar said:

Supposedly McMahon was offered Argos but wanted to buy the whole league.

Stephen Brunt said years ago McMahon then wanted the CFL to merge and came within two owners of agreeing to it. HAM and SSK saying no.

That’s a true story. When the Argos were in big trouble (and the whole league) the cfl tried to get him on board. And he countered with wanting the whole league. 

[The Unknown Poster]

2 hours ago, JCon said:

McMahon has faced many lawsuits over the years for a variety of reasons. 

Also, this man already lost heaps of money when his last foray into football failed. So, there is a precedent. 

He's also not self-made but he did take his dad's company to remarkable heights. 

Depends on your definition of self made. He bought his dads company.  But he also went bankrupt beforehand.  

He grew up with his mom and was not wealthy. Worked for his dad as an adult and his dad made him learn the business from the ring crew up (same way Shane and Steph basically did too). 

He spent fairly significant money buying wwe from his dad, he didn’t inherit it   But it was structured in such a way that he’d make payments over time but take control immediately. If he missed a payment the whole thing would revert back to his dad.  So he basically made the  payments from profit the company generated. But a deal like that is smart and credit to him so self made in a way. 

He came very close to losing it all with the wrestlemania gamble. From that point on it was a runaway train. He used his PPV success to leverage companies to squeeze Crockett (wcw) and effectively bankrupt them into selling to ted turner. 

Very close to financial issues in the mid 90’s when raw was almost cancelled. 

Business turned around suddenly and massively in 97. And he smartly went public and became a billionaire. 

I think it’s fair to call him self made. Even if he was a millionaire when he bought wwe which he wasn’t, he became a billionaire eventually (more or less). 

He lost tons of money on XFL or more accurately WWE did since it owned XFL. But Vince spent a ton of his own money on Linda’s failed senate run (tens of millions). But in the end it made her a successful candidate for Trump’s cabinet 

Vince has always wanted to be “legit”. He’s 70+. He’s filthy rich. He’s at no risk of his massive income disappearing anytime soon. He has a huge bank account. Why not play with some of that money?  

[The Unknown Poster]

And regarding law suits, he does have. Concussion related suit against him (well against wwe). But it’s run by a shady lawyer. And it will be very hard to win for the complainants. 

It’s mostly older guys. And they can never prove they suffered from working for wwe since they all worked a variety of places. 

The wrestlers who could have an impact on a lawsuit like that are more recent guys who have great relationships with wwe and won’t sue them. 

And wwe also has done impact testing for years and is generally very conservative on injuries (part of why Bryan is iced out). They also sit on the board of Concussion Legacy Foundation and provide financing for research (all good PR moves). 

They just won a lawsuit over network royalties. He beat the feds years ago and came back from a sex scandal. Vince is a fighter. I don’t think they sweat any current lawsuits.