Then NBC turned to the XFL, owning the football league 50-50 with World Wrestling Entertainment.
Around the same time, the fledgling XFL had three months to hire 120 people.
XFL, by blending the ever-popular flavours of sex, violence and gambling, may also find plenty of enthusiastic viewers.
The XFL, by contrast, was a single entity under the leadership of Vince McMahon , the WWFE's chairman.
While many upstart sports leagues have come and gone, none have failed as quickly as the XFL. More...
When the UPN network also backed away, its pullback sealed the XFL's fate.
Indeed, the stunning fact about the XFL was how poorly its backers understood the nature of sport and sports fans.
No one is saying the Olympics are going the way of the XFL. But they are trending in that direction.
Although the first XFL program broadcast on Feb. 3 achieved high ratings, those ratings soon plummeted like a wrestler jumping off a turnbuckle.
Not only did the XFL fail faster than even the most outlandish dot-com, the speed of its demise set records for the sports industry.
Roseman even thought about trying to break into the XFL during its brief existence but, before he could apply, he got his first break.
The XFL was, on the evidence of its ratings, bad television-- despite the stripperesque cheerleaders, microphones on the field, and a putatively more violent form of play.
The United States Football League, the World Football League, the World Hockey Association, and the American Basketball Association all lasted far longer than the XFL, despite the fact that none had network television contracts in their first seasons.
If the Olympics seem to be too attentive to the broadcasters, the Olympic Games could start to feel like professional wrestling or the XFL. For a short time NBC did well televising the violent football games geared completely towards television's lowest common denominator.
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