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The XFL American football league, which played a single season in 2001, could return in 2020:
Television ratings for the N.F.L. have fallen 17 percent over the past two seasons. The league is embroiled in a continuing crisis over concussions, and youth participation rates are falling.
All of this suggests a difficult future for the sport, yet the N.F.L.'s most notorious competitor, Vince McMahon's X.F.L., has a comeback in the works. McMahon, the chairman and chief executive of World Wrestling Entertainment, announced on Thursday that he would take a second crack at professional football, with play scheduled to start in early 2020.
McMahon first tried to reimagine pro football 17 years ago. The old X.F.L. was a joint venture between the World Wrestling Federation (W.W.E.'s former name) and NBC, which had lost rights to broadcast N.F.L. games. Violence was amped up: An opening scramble replaced the coin toss and fair catches were banned. So was the sex appeal, with cheerleaders who were even more scantily clad than the ones in the N.F.L., and advertising that included innuendo about them.
[...] Other than the name, this version will have little in common with the old X.F.L., he said. There will be no cheerleaders, McMahon said. Players with criminal records will not be welcome. Political statements, such as kneeling during the national anthem, will be prohibited.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 27 2018, @06:18PM (4 children)
NFL (and college football) ratings drop matches general overall TV ratings drop attributed to "cord cutting".
Nothing to see here.
Plus, XFL won't be going head-to-head (yet) with the NFL.
McMahon is putting up only $100M into it. good luck with that, Jim.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 27 2018, @06:25PM (1 child)
Give me a break.
Besides the fact that NFL games are also broadcast OTA, people bought cable packages specifically to watch sports; indeed, sports channels have always been the big selling point.
Thus, if people are cutting cords, it must be that sports aren't all that interesting anymore. Why could that possibly be? A shift in the culture? No. A shift in the sports. People (men and women), when they "go to war", don't want to be lectured about breast cancer, inclusiveness, and how much black lives matter. They want action; they want sex; they glory; they want excitement; they want the yin and yang of masculine dominance and feminine allure.
Well, people ain't getting that from the NFL anymore.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 28 2018, @12:37AM
Or, and hear me out, the cable has gotten too fucking expensive.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Saturday January 27 2018, @08:56PM (1 child)
Not even close.
Cord cutting has nothing to do with local TV. You can always watch your local TV, and teams via broadcast TV with a $25 antenna you tack to your wall.
You want some other team, that's available without a TV package as well for the cord cutters.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 29 2018, @02:56PM
Not entirely true. I'm a cord cutter and the one (and only) thing I miss is sports. You get your OTA Sunday NFL games, and in my major TV market you get maybe one MLB game a week (even though I'm in the market [DC/Balt] that has two teams). You get the major network Saturday college football games (two or three), and that is almost it. There are essentially no NHL or NBA games broadcast. ESPN bought out the NBA, MLB, college football, and part of the NFL. Almost the whole extended college bowl season is exclusively on cable, including the national title game (it boggles my mind why they don't show that on ABC for maximum interest and viewership).
I don't know if the numbers of cord cutters can be attributed to any significant part of the football viewership drop, but in my case it directly applies to Thursday night broadcasts, Monday night broadcasts, and all of the bigger college bowl broadcasts.
The thing I miss the most is coming home between April and November and turning on an evening baseball game. I miss it enough to almost want to purchase some kind of package to see those games, but I just can't get myself to want to do that.