This Was the XFL (Charlie Ebersol, 2016)
With our new president, Donald J. Trump, having just taken office, it seems timely that a documentary about the failed professional football league, the XFL, should be released as the latest installment in ESPN's 30 for 30 series. The XFL was not the first, and will undoubtedly not be the last, professional football league to attempt to compete with the NFL. When thinking about This Was the XFL, I couldn't help but recall Small Potatoes: Who Killed the USFL?, a film from Volume 1 of 30 for 30, which featured a chronicle of another failed football league, one in which Donald Trump had stake, and as some would argue, had a hand in bringing about its demise. But where WWE CEO and showman Vince McMahon and friend, NBC Sports exec Dick Ebersol differ from Trump and the USFL was their vision for a "different" brand of football, a product that would compete, only indirectly, with the Goliath that the NFL had become. So then why did they too fail?
I am old enough to remember the inaugural, and only, season of the XFL, if only vaguely, and the buzz that initially surrounded the league which promised to be a different, more genuine version of football when compared to the No Fun League (NFL). This Was the XFL follows fairly closely to the formula ESPN has seemingly created for its 30 for 30 series, which is tried and true, but the choice to have Dick Ebersol's son, Charlie, direct the film feels like a selection way too close to the subject matter, which perhaps just a tad bit too much stake in the game. To be sure, Charlie's film presents the XFL as the failure that it was, but it dodges some of the larger questions, in particular the question as to whether or not the American football fans really wanted to buy into something like the XFL.
The opening game of the league drew 50 million viewers on television, a huge rating. But from there the league went downhill. After featuring an exciting game in Week 2, a power failure which left dead air for two entire minutes spelled doom for the league, according to the documentary. Vince McMahon, Dick Ebersol and company are shown still pinning for an alternative to the National Football League, as though the failure of the XFL was due to minor oversights, like the power failure, and would have succeeded otherwise. The league may have done better, may have extended to a second season, but I have a hard time believing there was ever any hope that the XFL could be any more than the Canadian Football League, or the Arena Football League in terms of its niche appeal to a football craved fan base.
This Was the XFL fails to dig into the inherent issues with the league, sugar-coating many of the leagues issues, flagging them as unfortunate snafus which, if avoided, would have penned a completely different story for the league. Ebersol infuses some fun into this documentary, as should be expected. There are moments of memory which recall some of the more unique and impressive aspects of the league, like the scramble to start the game, the skycam invention which is now used extensively in both the NFL and college football. There is plenty about the XFL to like, but I still come back to the main flaw of the film: Ebersol and McMahon's inability to see that the league was flawed in its conception and was doomed for failure. Especially now in the day and age when player safety is of the utmost importance, the XFL's archaic principles of hard hitting appear even more so. Recall the player who was injured and missed the entire season in the opening "scramble" of the season. Recall Jeff Brohm (current Purdue coach) playing QB with a concussion. None of these things are appealing to me, or I imagine many others.
McMahon is crying out as if to say, "Make football great again!", but unfortunately, many already agree that football is great. If this film contributes anything to the discussion of the 30 for 30 series, it's that niche subjects like this deserve more air time. Oftentimes they provide the most interesting, entertaining and eye-opening perspective on sports. But this film also cements how fairly generic these films have become as they have grown in number, following a rather bland, but tried and true, route to making a decent film which has no ambition to be anything more than another in a series of similar films. If it contributes anything to the discussion of professional football, it may be that technology and promotion have come a long way, and the NFL owes some of that to the XFL directly. But it also goes to show that the NFL has a long way to go to no longer be considered the No Fun League.
**1/2 - AverageThis episode will air Thursday, February 2 on ESPN.