In this downtime for either college or NFL football, I was just curious if anyone's going to watch any XFL games this weekend. I think there's a game on Saturday on ABC.

At least in the beginning it should be interesting. The rules to speed up the game and others sound interesting.

 

17 former MAC football players named to initial XFL rosters

Until you pointed out that they're on this weekend, I didn't even know they were starting already.

There's a NY team.
So the XFL has been getting quite a bit of press coverage in this area.

Watched pretty much every game, some more than others, but overall I enjoyed them. I plan on watching next week as well and i would think many who tuned in are looking forward to week 2.

I really like the sideline coverage. Its really cool how reporters are able to interview players right on the sideline as soon as they come off the field. Coaches too. It really taps into the emotion of the game and gets viewers another look "inside". Now there was a massive F-bomb following a little skirmish and honestly, I hope we get plenty more. Its the XFL after all.

The kickoffs are much better in my opinion and I really think the NFL could make the switch no problem. Its more or less the first offensive play of the drive as opposed to a fair catch 90% of kickoffs. One missed tackle from going taking it to the house and appears to do a great job of limiting injuries.

I think the next step is to start marketing the crap out of the players. My only issue at this point is that I only know maybe 5 players total. It makes it difficult to bet/play daily fantasy if you don't know anything about the rosters. If they can figure out how to connect these guys to the fans, I see some serious potential.

All they have to do is notify the officials and then would line up like a traditional onside kick we see in the No Fun League.

That's what I was assuming. It kills the idea of a surprise onside, but I guess that works.

The XFL rules for extra point(s) pretty much nullifies the need for an onside kick. A team can opt for a 3 point extra point play if they so choose.

Honestly, I haven't watched any of it, I doubt I will. I guess I heard something about a 3 point play and a moving clock and I thought what is with this, it seems they are trying to appeal to our limited attention spans? Can't we just accept the rules we have and play them in their traditional seasons? I just don't get it. The funny thing about 80s style Big Time Wrestling was that it was so ridiculous, you had to laugh. Multiple new teams in the baseball playoffs, arena football and indoor soccer aren't very funny to me. It all seem to be making a mockery of a particular sport that is already great. Why mess around with it?

RpBobcat, I think the Major Indoor Soccer League went belly up as well. I remember the old ABA from when I was young. I even have some old ABA cards, which reminds me that I will have to check on their value. It seems sports cards haven't gone up much in 30 years, well at least compared to how they boomed in the 80s.

Anyway, I could be wrong but wasn't the ABA competing against the NBA and outside of the 3pt line and the red, white and blue basketball, wasn't everything else pretty much the same? They just located in cities that weren't in the NBA. As as matter of fact, didn't the NBA just recently pay off the Silna brothers to the tune of $500 Million to get out of the crazy 1976 termination agreement that gave the St Louis franchise owners some weird percentage of NBA money "In Perpetuity." I believe this was because their franchise wasn't being absorbed into the NBA? I will have to look that up, but I think there might have been a segment about it in a 30 for 30 show on the ABA-NBA merger. Sorry for rambling, but that is an interesting topic.

Re Major Indoor Soccer, during the 1980s our family became big fans of the Cleveland Force. Home games were in the Richfield Coliseum and the Force was consistently outdrawing the Cavs. 14,000 or more was common and for home playoff games the Force filled the Coliseum. It was a fast, rugged, thrilling sport.

The ABa competed against the NBA, though not as successful as the AFL, but they did leverage expansion franchises and some adoption of their rules and the flair of the game.

There were over 17000 people at Met Life for the NY Guardians game last Sunday.

Not bad for a Sunday in February.