the abbreviated reign of “neon” leon spinks

Lesson #19
DON’T MESS WITH SUCCESS
the xfl’s quick takedown
In a single season of televised T&A, backstage buffoonery,
and second- rate football, the league launched by wrestling
impresario Vince McMahon and NBC recorded the lowest
prime- time ratings in network history.
ON THE SMALL screen, at least, the climactic game of the XFL’s
inaugural season might have seemed like a legitimate event in the bigmoney
world of sports televi sion. The championship “Million Dollar
Game,” hyped as the upstart league’s Super Bowl equivalent, was played
on April 21, 2001, in no less storied a stadium than the 92,516-seat Los
Angeles Coliseum. The massive sports arena had been the stage for countless
culturally significant events, including two Olympiads, two Super
Bowls, a World Series, John F. Kennedy’s 1960 candidate acceptance
speech, a 1987 Papal Mass, and sold-out concerts featuring the Rolling
Stones and Bruce Springsteen. It’s likely no coincidence that the XFL’s
visionaries—World Wrestling Entertainment (formerly World Wrestling
Federation) chief executive Vince McMahon and NBC television sports
czar Dick Ebersol—chose the coliseum for another reason: In 1967, it had
been the site of the very first AFL- versus- NFL championship game,
which later became known as the Super Bowl. From the beginning, the
whole point of the XFL was not only to challenge the NFL head-on, but
to go the established league one better.