WWF Plans Football League in 2001

WWF Plans Football League in 2001

The Associated Press
Thursday, Feb. 3, 2000; 10:26 a.m. EST

NEW YORK –– The World Wrestling Federation is forming a pro football league that plans to kickoff next winter in hopes that fans won't be able to go cold turkey after the Super Bowl.

An eight-team league, to be known as the XFL, will begin play in February 2001, Basil DeVito, president and director of World Wrestling Federation Entertainment Inc. said today.

The X stands for exciting and exhilarating. "It will be extreme," DeVito said.

But while the enterprise that brought "Raw is War" wrestling bouts to cable TV plans to use its promotional skills to merchandise its football venture, the XFL "will be 100 percent pure sport," he said.

Still, there will be an emphasis on entertainment. DeVito said the XFL will use helmet cameras and will let viewers have greater access than NFL broadcasts to activities on the sidelines during the game.

He said rules would be adopted to accent faster play.

Six cities already have been selected for teams: New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Miami, Orlando, Fla., and Washington, D.C. Two more U.S. cities will be selected within 60 days, DeVito said.

The 10-game regular season will be played outdoors in the heart of winter and early spring. At the end of April, four teams will advance to a playoff round leading to a championship game.

DeVito said the teams will be owned by a WWF subsidiary and that general managers and coaches will be hired soon. Players will be offered a salary and benefits second only to the NFL, he said.

Terms of the WWF's financial commitment to the league were not disclosed. DeVito said no television rights have been decided, although talks are being held with broadcast and cable networks.

Plans were to be formally unveiled at a New York news conference today, but reports of the league first appeared in USA Today, The Wall Street Journal and the Toronto Globe and Mail.

"The NFL has become too conservative, too corporate with too much regulation," Vince McMahon, the chairman of the WWF, told USA Today. "We're bringing back old-fashioned, smashmouth football but with cutting-edge marketing and production values."

DeVito said no franchises are immediately planned outside the United States, but that the XFL could expand into Canada and that Toronto would be among the cities considered.

CFL president Jeff Giles said he is aware of the new league's plans, expressing concern about its immediate repercussions.

"My first thought is players," he told the Globe and Mail. "They have to get their players from somewhere, and I'm sure they'll be looking at us. ... I'm sure they'll offer more than we can pay, and we have to hold the line on salaries."