Author: Scott Adamson

XFL Rocks on

After filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in April, it appeared the story of the rebooted XFL was over.

Scott Adamson writes about alternative football leagues because it makes him happy. Follow him on Twitter @adamsonsl and Instagram @adamsons60

Instead, a third chapter is apparently about to be written.

The brand that dropped and flopped in 2001 only to return in 2020 – making it through half a season before being halted by the COVOD-19 pandemic – will try again thanks to Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, Dany Garcia and RedBird Capital Partners.

They were the winning bidders on Monday as the XFL’s parent company, Alpha Entertainment LLC, prepared to go up for auction. However, the group bought the assets for roughly $15 million and the auction was canceled. The deal is expected to be approved at a bankruptcy court hearing on Friday and will become official on August 21.

Garcia, the former wife of Johnson and still his business partner, becomes the first woman to own a professional sports league.

“For Dwayne, (Redbird founder and managing partner Gerry Cardinale) and myself, this property represents an incredible opportunity. It is the confluence of great passion, tradition and possibility” Garcia said in a news release. “Sports and entertainment are the foundations of the businesses I have built. Melding our expertise combined with our commitment to deliver exciting and inspiring unique content, has us all focused on developing the XFL brand into a multi-media experience that our athletes, partners and fans will proudly embrace and love.”

Following the abrupt end to the 2020 season there was reason to believe the league – then owned by professional wrestling mogul Vince McMahon – would return in 2021. But in April most of its employees were laid off and the XFL filed for bankruptcy.

Four months later, it’s back in the game.

“The acquisition of the XFL with my talented partners, Dany Garcia and Gerry Cardinale, is an investment for me that’s rooted deeply in two things – my passion for the game and my desire to always take care of the fans,” Johnson said. “With pride and gratitude for all that I’ve built with my own two hands, I plan to apply these callouses to the XFL, and look forward to creating something special for the players, fans, and everyone involved for the love of football.”

Before it was forced to pull the plug due to the pandemic, the XFL had made a positive impression. The St. Louis BattleHawks and Seattle Dragons were the biggest hits at the box office, with St. Louis averaging 28,541 fans per game and Seattle pulling 25,616. TV ratings were starting to slip a bit but were still respectable, and the quality of play was solid.

It certainly wasn’t on par with the NFL, but saying it was Triple A level pro football is accurate. As for its third go-round, what can we expect?

BRANDING

There’s no reason to think the new owners won’t stick with the “XFL” name, which is a decision I understand but don’t particularly agree with. The acronym is well-known, but so was Windows Vista and I don’t think anyone ever wants to use that operating system again.

And don’t forget the XFL is a circuit that is oh-for-two. The demise of the 2020 version was through no fault of its own, but it doesn’t change the fact that it didn’t reach the finish line.

Even though it won’t happen, I think a rebrand would be well-received from a perception standpoint. After all, the Johnson-Garcia-RedBird deal gave it new life, so why not give it a new identity?

PERSONNEL

As for talent among athletes and coaches, there is plenty to go around. And considering how the Canadian Football League can’t seem to figure out how to deal with its workforce in this summer of uncertainty, there could be plenty more down the road. Unless the CFL gets its act together quickly, American players might choose the XFL in an either/or situation.

While there’ll be no shortage of guys who can get it done on the field, I’ll be interested to see if big names like Bob Stoops and June Jones – who coached in the XFL last season – might want to give it another try. Following its collapse there were reports that the league owed Stoops more than $1 million and Jones nearly $600,000, so those significant financial details would need to be worked out to get them back on the sidelines.

STRUCTURE

Another question concerns the organization itself. Will it retain its single entity format and reboot the eight teams from 2020?

“I think there was a lot to build on,” Garcia told ESPN’s Kevin Seifert on Tuesday, “and not so much a matter of changing it. Any format change would be because of COVID-19. That would be the reason. The roots and the bones of what were there were excellent.”

So there conceivably could be a hub situation if they try to go to market in 2021 and the pandemic still isn’t under control, but even so cities will want teams to call their own. And some additions and subtractions involving franchises wouldn’t surprise me.

They’ll surely bring St. Louis and Seattle back, and I’d also think adding San Diego and San Antonio (cities that drew well during the failed Alliance of American Football experiment in 2019) might be smart moves as well.

Finding a smaller venue for New York if the XFL remains in or near the Big Apple is something to seriously consider. The L.A. Wildcats – located in the nation’s second largest city – had plenty of room at 27,000-seat Dignity Health Sports Park. Met Life Stadium was far too cavernous for the New York Guardians, but 25,000-seat Red Bull Arena in Harrison, New Jersey, would be a nice landing spot for the XFL’s top media market.

And Orlando might be a better fit than Tampa Bay if the league plans to stay in central Florida. Officials now have the advantage of seeing where alternative football was a hit and a miss over the last two years and can plan accordingly.

RULES

Finally, one of the best things about the 2020 XFL was rule innovations. There were many I loved and not a single one I thought was bad, so I hope to see them dust off the rulebook and use it again.

The non-collision kickoffs might become standard in pro football sooner than later, and the “less stall, more ball” tweaks that made games move along more quickly were excellent.

“This is a Hollywood ending to our sale process and it is an exciting new chapter for the league,” XFL President and Chief Operating Officer Jeffrey Pollack said. “Dwayne, Dany and Gerry are a dream team ownership group and the XFL is in the best possible hands going forward.”

Whether the XFL can safely start next spring is anyone’s guess. And like all non-NFL pro football leagues in the United States, the odds for sustained success are long.

But for now the XFL is back in business – and that, in itself, qualifies as an upset victory.

The weird world of sports

Life is weird right now, and I’m acutely aware there are far more important (and far more urgent) things to consider than sports.

Scott Adamson’s sports column appears whenever he feels sporty. Follow him on Twitter @adamsonsl and Instagram @adamsons60

But since sports have always been a big part of my life, I can’t help but marvel at how especially weird they’ve become in the era of COVID-19.

Last August no one would’ve thought the NFL would scrap its 2020 preseason and hope – hope – to play a 16-game slate.

Nor could we imagine Football Bowl Subdivision schools deciding to shorten and overhaul their schedules and some Football Championship Subdivision leagues opting to stay off the field completely in the fall because of health concerns.

I mean, everything is just so incredibly out of sync. It’s as though any competition held between now and whenever this pandemic ends is taking place in an alternate reality.

I had cooled on Major League Baseball for the past several years but decided I’d be excited about its return. That excitement waned when the decision was made to play outside a bubble, and now it’s pretty much gone.

With players testing positive for the coronavirus and placed in quarantine – and games having to be rescheduled – the whole idea of a shortened 2020 season now just seems like a mistake to me. When I wake up in the morning I no longer look for scores, I look to see if Commissioner Rob Manfred has pulled the plug yet.

The NBA and NHL are up and running again in hub environments, and as a big fan of both I’m in full watch mode this weekend. Thursday night the game between the New Orleans Pelicans and Utah Jazz had my complete attention, even though the “virtual” fans creeped me out.

And today I’m going to beat the heat by staying inside and watching the New York Rangers skate against the Carolina Hurricanes in a Stanley Cup Qualifier.

But professional basketball and hockey seasons should be long over by now. Even though neither has crowned a champion yet, restarting them as a way to wrap up unfinished 2019-20 business gives all the games more of an exhibition feel to me.

That was the vibe I got when the English Premier League and Bundesliga decided to play out the last few matches of their suspended seasons. The empty stadiums and canned crowd noise didn’t bother me so much as knowing they were closing out an old schedule at a time they should be playing friendlies and gearing up for a new one.

And don’t get me started about my beloved Canadian Football League, which should be nearing the halfway mark of the season but might not have any games at all in 2020.

Look, I understand why all the leagues are trying to salvage what they can, just as I understand why many fans are relieved they’re making the effort. Watching the NBA get back on the court and NHL teams hit the ice is like reconnecting with old friends.

Yet, I’m still unsettled by it all.

But here’s a twist I didn’t see coming. While I’ve had trouble adjusting to the Bizarro World of my favorite traditional sports, I’ve gotten hooked on other athletic events.

For example, I’ve enjoyed World Team Tennis for more than four decades, but I’ve never been as enthralled with it as I have been this summer. I found myself watching as many matches as I could, which was made easy since there were as many as four per day.

Its all-too-brief season ends tomorrow with the championship match at noon, and I’m truly going to miss it when it’s over.

After a long hiatus I was reintroduced to Australian Rules Football this summer, and I’ve enjoyed all the late night/early morning clashes on television. It’s a great hybrid sport for those of us who follow American football, soccer and rugby, and the combination of grace and brawn is quite impressive.

A new WNBA season – even though it’s scaled down from a 34-game regular season to 22 contests – has rekindled my love for women’s basketball. I’ve always said one of the best ways to learn the fundamentals of hoops is to watch an elite women’s game, and the WNBA certainly checks that box.

But there again, we’re dealing with a league playing in a bubble with all its games staged at IMG Academy in Bradenton, Florida, so it’s hardly normal. Nothing is normal these days, though, so we do the best we can however we can.

Maybe this time next year Major League Baseball will be making its post-All-Star Game push to the playoffs, the WNBA teams will be playing home games at their home arenas, and the CFL will be wrapping up Week 8.

And perhaps in August, 2021, fans of American football can look forward to how their favorite team will do in the upcoming season instead of worrying whether or not there’ll even be an upcoming season.

Until then, we have to accept the fact that sports are weird – just like life.

Surviving a power outage

One of my favorite guilty pleasure TV shows is Survivorman, a reality series in which survival expert Les Stroud – armed only with his wits, harmonica, and whatever he finds between the seat cushions of his couch – puts himself in dire situations. Trapped in the most uninviting reaches of the wilderness he demonstrates how to make shelter, live off the land, and reach deep within himself to find the will to carry on against tremendous odds.

Scott Adamson’s humor column appears whenever he has a funny feeling. Follow him on Twitter @adamsonsl and Instagram @adamsons60

I watch because such things interest me, and because I thought there might come a time when what I learned would come in handy.

That time was 10:30 p.m. EDT on Tuesday when our power was knocked out. With no lights and no air conditioning, I was tasked with providing for my family as we faced desperate circumstances. I’m pleased to report I didn’t hesitate in springing into action.

The first thing I needed to do was find a source of illumination so I could search for supplies. Fortunately my fully-charged iPhone was just a few feet away and it has a flashlight feature, so that was one big problem I solved quickly.

I also figured I needed to seek intel about whether or not this was a worldwide outage due to a zombie attack or alien invasion, so I immediately looked at Twitter. While scrolling I saw a video of a cat apparently playing a piano, which was really funny since cats don’t normally play piano.

I then followed a thread where people were arguing about who would win a fight between Wonder Woman and She-Hulk, which was ridiculous because one is a DC property and the other belongs to Marvel. Plus, Wonder Woman is the daughter of Zeus and Hippolyta and possesses the power of the gods while She-Hulk – aka Jennifer Susan Walters – merely has gamma-irradiated blood. Let’s be realistic, people.

Anyway, the flashlight led me to the kitchen and I needed to do inventory on our food supply. I had no idea how long we would be without power, so I had to plan for the most extreme actuality.
I tend to hoard fig bars and I had 27 of those. That meant I was assured of at least 200 calories per day for the next 27 days. (These would not be shared with Mary or any of our critters because as self-appointed team leader I would need to eat one each afternoon so I could stay strong for the others).

A quick glance at the cabinet also revealed three large jars of peanut butter, six cans of black beans, two jars of Portobello mushroom spaghetti sauce, one can of olives, one box of saltine crackers, one can of artichoke hearts, two boxes of Honey Nut Cheerios and a three-pack of Wilson yellow tennis balls (featuring improved durability and performance with exclusive dura-weave felt. I’m not entirely sure how they got there).

Such items probably wouldn’t be as readily available in the wild, so there’s no doubt I got lucky on the food front. And a wave of relief washed over me because even without looking in the refrigerator I knew we had enough food to avoid the unthinkable – the unthinkable, of course, being the prospect of eating our animals.

As I sat in the darkened kitchen looking at videos on my phone and noshing on peanut butter and crackers, I dreaded the thought of having to sacrifice a pet in order to survive.

Which one would it be?

Charlie is too old, so his meat would likely be tough and stringy. He would be better repurposed for parts, i.e. carving his bones into weapons or making custom jewelry.

We’d keep the cats, Bane and Thor, in case we needed to make coats and hats from their fur. Also, they might learn to play the piano.

That meant Steve drew the short straw in the supper sweepstakes.

Young Chihuahuas are high in protein and – when placed on their backs – resemble Cornish game hens. As a vegetarian I shun meats and meat byproducts, but Survivorman makes it clear hard choices must sometimes be made and Steve was that choice.

My next and most immediate worry, however, was the lack of air-conditioning. Environmental temperatures over 130 degrees can result in heatstroke, while the temperature of my bedroom reaching 75 can result in me bitching about how hot I am.

When the power went out the temp in our house was 71, and I knew it was just a matter of time before it became unbearable and I’d be forced to climb on the roof naked.

But just as I opened the freezer and began dumping contents of the ice tray into my shorts, I heard the AC compressor kick on, the ceiling fan began to rotate, and the light I keep on in the bathroom in case I have a bad dream and wake up scared burned brightly.

The crisis was over, and I was able to exhale and admit it was possibly the most intense 55 minutes of my life.

Obviously we all have different ways of dealing with survival situations, but I’m glad the tips I learned from a TV show allowed me to make it through my own private hell.

It gives me a whole new perspective and I vow never to take my creature comforts for granted again.

The only negative is that every time I look at Steve now I can’t help but think about dinner. And truth be told, he does look tasty.