Inside XFL 2.0 — which is coming to New York and MetLife
MetLife Stadium has not been home to many wins for New York football teams lately, so how about trying with a third franchise?
The relaunched XFL has picked New York as one of its eight new cities, with play set to begin the weekend after the Super Bowl in 2020, and MetLife will be a host stadium.
“I think the quality of play in the NFL and major college football is as good as it’s ever been,” XFL commissioner and CEO Oliver Luck told The Post in a recent phone interview. “We think a lot of those passionate football fans are in the large markets and are season-ticket holders for the Jets or the Giants or the other teams in the other markets and miss football. Come February, there’s a little bit of a void in many people’s lives.”
The XFL also will establish franchises in Seattle, Los Angeles, Dallas, Houston, St. Louis, Tampa and Washington D.C, with St. Louis being the only city not home to an NFL team as well. The league — founded, funded and chaired by WWE Chairman and CEO Vince McMahon — will feature a 10-game schedule with two weeks of playoffs.
Each team will have a roster of 45 players and a practice squad of seven, made up of former college standouts who might have had a year or two of experience in the NFL or were among the final cuts.
The first version of the XFL came in 2001 — with the New York/New Jersey Hitmen playing at Giants Stadium — and flamed out after just one season in which it lost tens of millions of dollars. Perhaps its lasting image was Rod Smart wearing “He Hate Me” on the back of his jersey, and while the football was promised to be more violent with some of the flair of pro wrestling, the product did not sell.
But Luck believes the rebranded version can be different, pointing to McMahon’s “capital commitment” and the league’s “disciplined decision making.”
“XFL 1.0 was back in 2001. I don’t think we’ll have that much in common with that league,” said Luck, who previously served as an NCAA executive and the president of NFL Europe. “I think our quality of play will be immeasurably better.”
Their season will be played at the same time as the Alliance of American Football, another startup league, which will be kicking off a year earlier, this February, in eight separate markets. While they figure to be competing for similar players, Luck said he has not focused on what the AAF is doing.
Team names, head coaches and quarterbacks and skill players will begin being assigned to the XFL franchises in the first quarter of 2019.
The league has been consulting with former NFL coaches and players like John Fox, Jim Caldwell and Doug Flutie about potential rule changes to the game, which are still under consideration. They are being tested this fall with some junior colleges and more to come with other organizations in the spring, ranging from issues like length of game to health and safety, though the basics will remain the same.
“I’ll emphasize when people watch the game, they’ll see 11-on-11, same field, same 60 minutes,” Luck said. “It’ll look like football, but we do plan on innovating in a couple of spaces. We’ve convened what we call a ‘football reimagined’ effort. Looking to address those issues that football fans tend to complain about.”
Plenty of other football leagues have come and gone, but Luck is confident the new XFL can have staying power.
“We have to stay focused, stay within our boundaries and know we are a spring league,” Luck said. “We want to offer good, quality, crisp football, but we’re not the NFL. Nobody’s the NFL except for the National Football League. I think if we can have that disciplined decision making, we’ve got a pretty darn good shot.”
