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And a nation yawns: McMahon, NBC fold the XFL

By SHARON GINN

© St. Petersburg Times, published May 11, 2001

What has been dubbed NBC's weakest link is now the ex-FL.

Pro wrestling guru Vince McMahon's startup football league, which kicked off three months ago with much fanfare and impressive Week 1 ratings, ended unceremoniously -- and expectedly -- Thursday when McMahon's World Wrestling Federation Entertainment Inc. failed to reach a deal with UPN.

That, combined with NBC's decision to drop the XFL from its Saturday night lineup after ratings dipped to record lows for prime time, meant the league was no longer viable, McMahon said.

"It's really unfortunate that the numbers didn't play out for us," he said in a conference call Thursday, less than a month after Los Angeles beat San Francisco in the title game. "We had several different models to make this work. Despite where our heart was -- which unquestionably was with the XFL -- we just couldn't make it financially.

"I didn't come to that realization (that the league had to fold) until maybe four hours ago at the most," McMahon continued, prompting chuckles from NBC Sports chairman Dick Ebersol. "You may think that's laughable, but that just gives you some idea of how many combinations and permutations we came up with to try to make this work."

WWF officials said their share of after-tax losses was about $35-million. Analysts have pegged NBC's losses at around $50-million. Ebersol said Thursday that number was "in the ballpark." McMahon and Ebersol announced the creation of the league last year. For NBC, which no longer held NFL broadcast rights, it was an opportunity to get back into football without paying exorbitant rights fees. The idea was to pair football with the personalities and story lines found in the popular, soap opera-like WWF. NBC hired Minnesota governor and former wrestler Jesse Ventura as lead analyst.

Curious football and wrestling fans tuned in to the season opener the Saturday after the Super Bowl. Even though the final score was 19-0 (Las Vegas beat New York-New Jersey), NBC's national rating was an impressive 9.3, meaning about 9.5-million homes with TVs tuned in.

But even though the XFL delivered on the promised in-your-face action -- putting microphones on players and coaches, and cameras in the locker rooms -- the football, especially in the early weeks, didn't live up to the hype. And most of the the promised real-life story lines didn't prove as compelling as those written for the WWF. Ventura's work, meanwhile, was skewered by critics.

"The launch worked, the people were there, and we didn't answer their expectations, I guess," Ebersol said. "If we'd had more time, we certainly could have, from an offensive standpoint, had a more consistent product."

Ratings were cut in half for NBC's Week 2 broadcast and another 30 percent the next week, and advertisers -- Honda was the first -- began pulling out. Twice during the second half of the 10-week regular season, ratings hit an all-time low for a prime-time broadcast on one of the big three networks, dipping to 1.6 on March 17. On UPN, ratings were 57 percent below what advertisers had been promised.

Ebersol said that "from early March on" he knew the XFL would not return to prime time next season. McMahon said a new deal with UPN might not have guaranteed another year but the XFL definitely could not survive without it.

As ratings plummeted, Ebersol and McMahon took plenty of heat. But both seemed unruffled Thursday by the failure.

"As strange as it may seem to many of you listening ... this was one of the most fun experiences of my life," Ebersol said.

McMahon agreed. "You don't often have the ability -- and it is to be applauded in this wonderful country we live in -- to be able to take a calculated risk," he said. "Some of them work, some of them don't. ... I don't regret for one moment attempting this."

And Ventura, who was told after the season ended he would not return?

"I don't care," he said of the XFL's demise. "I don't work for them anymore."

- Information from other news organizations was used in this report.

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