This Was Not The National Football League

      As memories of Super Bowl XXXIV between the Saint Louis Rams and the Tennessee Titans were still quite fresh in the minds of football fans when on February 3, 2000 a new football league was announced. The new league announced its name was to be the Xtreme Football League. The league quickly shorten its name to the "XFL". The league was the brainchild of Vince McMahon, the man who back then was in charge of the World Wrestling Federation. McMahon and NBC were the leagues backers. The teams were the Birmingham ThunderBolts, Chicago Enforcers, Las Vegas Outlaws, Los Angeles Extreme, Memphis Maniax, New York- New Jersey Hitman, Orlando Rage and the San Francisco Demons.
  
    Exactly one year after announcing itself, the league hit the playing field with a strong opening. Unfortuneatly it did not last. Many branded the McManhon backed league as gimmick football. Some felt the game was staged, just aas McMahons wrestling is. Many in mainstream media refused to report on the league. With NBC backing the league, other networks including ESPN ignored it. In all forty league games were played. On April 21, the Big Game at the End of the Season was played with the Extreme beating the Demons for the league title by a score of 38-6. Several weeks later on May 10, the league threw in the towel and quieter folded. Today the league is merely a footnote in Football History, McMahon is still enjoying promoting his version of wrestling. Of the players 32 went on to play in the NFL and 12 went to play in the Canadian Football League. Three of the players from the Extreme went on to win a Super Bowl.

    Sports history offers so much more then I am able to show in this blog. If I have inspired you pleasae look into joining any one of the organizations doing sports research and see what they have to offer. Among them are the Professional Football Researchers Association, the Hockey Researchers Association, the Association for Association for Professional Basketball Research or even the granddaddy of sports research groups, the Society for American Baseball Research. I myself have been a memeber of SABR for almost 30 years. 

  Tommorrow is another day.. tune then when we...