The XFL is football for mooks, to the point where it probably should be considered a different sport. Don’t call it football; call it mookball.
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The XFL (the league reminds the media that the name is not an abbreviation but the marketing trademark in its entirety; the X doesn’t stand for Xtreme any more than the league itself stands for quality) is marked above all by two characteristics: its high-tech, made-for-television production values and its fondness for scantily clad cheerleaders, both of which endear it to the mook market. World Wrestling Federation impresario Vince McMahon has brought his flair for production–loud heavy metal music, crisp you-are-there camera work, and a little postmodern self-awareness, especially where big-screen stadium televisions are concerned–to football, and combined it with the pumped-up sexuality (in some obvious cases quite literally pumped up) of cheerleaders. This has all gone over big with the target audience, even if general TV ratings have shrunk in the weeks since the league debuted a month ago.
Do big-league production values turn bush-league football into big-league football? Hardly, but the United Paramount Network, which previously attracted the mook market with WWF Smackdown!, doesn’t care as long as the mooks stay tuned; it’s an attitude shared by cable’s National Network. Even NBC has grown so desperate to seize a piece of the young-adult-male pie that it’s invested in a full third of the league, with McMahon putting up the rest. NBC has thrown the XFL onto Saturday nights, when the broadcast networks have a devil of a time attracting anyone, much less desirable demographics like young men.
The XFL might make it. With everything else–from the TV production to the network contract to the target audience–in place, all it needs is to turn a humble profit before it invests more money and competes with the NFL for the one missing ingredient: star-quality players. But the Enforcers may not. The 0-4 Enforcers are the Bulls of the XFL. I can’t think of a reason to recommend this league to a local football fan.
