Nearly seventeen years ago, WWE President Vince McMahon saw a vision of his come to life. The career athlete-entertainer fielded a league full of irreverent and entertainment-driven football teams, known more for their charisma and how much fun they were having, as opposed to their skill.
While that experiment failed, then, with the NFL squandering its goodwill among the American sports fan at a frightening rate; the time may be right for McMahon to revive his unique football vision.
And it appears, he’s going to do just that.
McMahon has established a new company, separate from the WWE, called Alpha Entertainment. On December 16th, Alpha Entertainment filed for five new trademarks related to the XFL, the title of McMahon’s football league that he founded in 2001.
According to ESPN’s Darren Rovell, “The filings seek to trademark the XFL as a professional football league and also cover merchandise related to the league. Previous XFL trademarks were abandoned over a period of time from 2002 to ’05.”
Moreover, McMahon has backed this effort with significant amounts of cash. Rovell also reported that McMahon sold 3.34 million in WWE stock worth about $100 million. The money from those stock sales will go to fund Alpha Entertainment.
Any XFL reboot would also benefit significantly from the “bully pulpit” they would have in President Trump. The president has ripped the NFL over the anthem protests, and criticized the league as much as any chief executive has ever criticized a sports league. Meaning, that any rival football league would almost assuredly be backed by the full faith and credit of the most powerful Twitter account in the world.
A few tweets and public shows of support from Trump, would amount to tens of millions of free advertising for the new league.
Reporter Brad Shepard said that McMahon might make an announcement about the new league on January 25, 2018. At the rate things are progressing, McMahon is on track to do precisely that.