OK, I guess this is what I get for quitting wrestling all together 4 years ago and not keeping up...
 

...but is Vince seriously trying the XFL AGAIN??? Like, WTF? How is he not in a home yet? What's different this time around?

There's a demand for live entertainment. It's why WWE gets TV deals worth $2 billion and AEW gets picked up for $45 million a year, or whatever. Success is not as contingent on...success anymore.

The plan is to shock and awe -- load up the XFL with money and take losses for the first three years, then hopefully secure big TV rights fee deals worth hundreds of millions to make it back.

The sad thing is, it might actually work this time around, lol.

Vince's motivation was pretty much two fold.

The first being him wanting to take advantage of the Colin Kaepernick anthem kneeling controversy that was causing the NFL to lose a percentage of viewers at the time. Its also why the new XFL has rules designed to prevent that from happening.

The other being him getting contacted by the Alliance of American Football who were trying to launch a new rival league to the NFL but wanted to use the XFL name. Instead of working with them, he decided to just try again with the XFL and compete against both leagues.

Misjudged the first one big time since NFL managed to rebound and grew their ratings the following season while the AAF folding as fast as it did soured the idea that a major non-NFL league could be somewhat successful.

I think what's different this time is it's all his bill, doesn't have to answer to partners at NBC. At 74 years old and until a few days ago he was the richest he's ever been, I think he just wanted to take another shot.

I can't fault him for trying, but personally I think it's bullshit that he is taking his wrestling money to start a football league again, in which every player gets insurance. If the reports are true that he got the league coverage at about $10.5 million a year, for roughly 800 players, then he shouldn't have a hard time insuring his wrestlers.

Carny asshole

How much of his unwillingness to insure wrestlers is fear of some sort of lawsuit from ex-employees? I mean, if he starts admitting that Daniel Bryan needs health cover, does a guy like Bull Buchanan get to put his name on a lawsuit and say "Hey, motherfucker -- I bumped for you, where is my cover?"

I honestly don't know how retroactive those things would be. I can see reasons why lawyers would take the case (the concussion thing, con or not, got traction), and how you'd fight it (those were agreed upon terms, legal progression, etc.). But I'm not sure if that's a battle Vince really wants to get into.

... which is pretty fucking stupid to begin with, considering the NFL brought it on themselves. Not only did they repeatedly focus on Kaep kneeling everytime he did it [and not delving into any of the tire fire that the 49ers organization was behind the scenes at the time], but the whole notion of the league just needing to wave the patriotic penis around for the National Anthem instead of leaving the players in the locker room/tunnel until after the fact like they used to pre 9/11 self-created the platform for protest.

The only time that the song used to even be part of the television broadcast and not just for the stadium goers themselves was for the Hall of Fame game at the beginning of the year, the AFC/NFC championship games, and the Super Bowl itself. Broadcasts of rank and file games and most of the playoffs pretty much started right before kickoff, and nobody gave a fuck.

*sigh* I want to kick myself for ever going to the restaurant that had the fucking XFL advertisement I saw. I was on such an awesome streak of not following Vince's slow descent into dementia.

I fucking can't stand the Kaepernick detractors who want to complain about not wanting politics in their football. I'm pretty positive playing the Ash damn national anthem and expecting everyone to salute and feign patriotism and then punishing the ones who don't just to satisfy some weird jingoistic mindset is a form of politics. I am absolutely in the camp of just getting rid of the whole thing. It's seriously devolving into Nazi Germany where we got assloads of American flags hanging above the aisles of Wal-Marts because apparently people are too stupid to remember what country they're in.

Boy you should come around where I live, where everyone is flying the US flag, the Confederate battle flag, and a Trump 2020 KAG flag/sign right next to each other lol.

But, tbf here, most countries play their national anthems at sporting events don't they? I've watched a lot of foreign sports and been to several events overseas and they all did it too. The problem isn't the act, it's peoples overreactions to it.

Flying the Confederate flag on American soil while putting out an image of American patriotism is by far one of the stupidest things I've witnessed coming out of the South and considering where I was raised, that's saying a lot.

That's the problem. Playing it is one thing but to act surprised and/or offended when not everyone is down with it is pretty dumb. Do these people rag on the Jehovah's Witnesses when they don't salute? What exactly do these people gain by ensuring everyone falls in line and goes along with the nonsense? The sad thing is that these are usually the people who want to bitch about the liberal left using schools to indoctrinate children.