XFL Gameday Online
XFL, LLC was a professional American football league operated as the XFL, founded by World Wrestling Federation (now WWE) owner Vince McMahon. With eight teams (all fully owned by the league corporation) in two divisions, it was intended to be a major professional sports league complement to the off-season of the National Football League, but was unable to find an audience and ceased operation after its debut season in 2001.The XFL was widely ridiculed; McMahon conceded that the league was a "colossal failure".
| Series cast summary: | |||
 | Rod Smart | - | He Hate Me 1 episode, 2001 |
The XFL introduced several concepts later adopted by the NFL, including an overhead camera that zoomed down the field and players introducing themselves.
Vince McMahon created the XFL, a football league intended as an NFL alternative, in 2000. The show was a combination of regular football and WWF-style theatrics. Despite heavy promotion, including ads on all of the WWF shows, ratings were low. The show was canceled after 1 season, the league disbanded, and McMahon's company lost $35 million.
Instead of an opening kick-off, the teams were forced to scrum for the football. Like a hockey face-off, one player from each team scrambled to recover the football and win possession for his team. The concept can be traced back to the 1920s NFL.
The league was originally named "Xtreme Football League," but an arena football league with that name was already in development. The "X" didn't stand for anything.