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Vince McMahon forms and funds Alpha Entertainment: Possible XFL Revival


zep81

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15 hours ago, johnnyboy said:

The fans get to vote for the NFL Pro Bowl squads (really weak All Star game) so they're fairly interactive.

Ah fair enough, sounds like a token gesture though by that description. Speaking of interaction, I remember watching a MLS game years ago and Landon Donovan was wearing a heart rate monitor and every 10 mins or so it would focus in on him as a special feature. It would bring up a heart rate beep visual and show statistics based on the last 10 mins.. it was bloody crackers.

Did helmet cams ever take off in NFL as a proper alternative option for watching a game? So in theory you could hope around a team, but still hear the commentary?

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On 12/25/2017 at 9:49 PM, Kaz Hayashi said:

Out of curiosity, do any of you know how the NFL works in conjunction with social media/audience interaction etc?

It strikes me that much like footy, that sports in general keep players on a high pedestal, and aren’t terribly accessible by fans and public.

I was chatting with a pal about this and we both wondered if there was anyway to channel the concept of interactive reality TV, through sports. Make it more personal for the viewer, more accessible and viewer directed.

It could be anything from team fans voting on the season strip, music auditions for entrance themes, viewers book the half time show, even as far as doing a tough enough style competition, potentially to viewers picking the winner when it gets to the last two. I’m plucking these out of the air at the moment. Obviously the interactivity would be contained, but if the viewer feels they are part of the show, much like with reality tv, there could be longer term engagement.

Like the world and his wife, the NFL uses social media but I'm not convinced it's even remotely necessary for its continued success. The total revenue for the 2016 season was $13 billion, making it the highest grossing sports league in the world. For comparison Major League Baseball was second with $9.5 billion (and it's worth pointing out there's 162 regular season games per team in MLB versus 16 per team in the NFL, so ticket and TV revenue differ) and the EPL third with $5.3 billion.

I'm sure there are probably lots of stats out there about fan retention and attendances but I'll just use the Cleveland Browns as an example. By any stretch of the imagination, they are in a slump. They haven't had a winning record over the course of a season since 2007, and their last three seasons they've had records of 3-13, 1-15 and 0-16. Yet they still have an average home attendance of 63,882 (admittedly only 24th in the NFL, but Cleveland isn't exactly the size of New York or other major cities). The fans there at least seem to be in it for the duration.

I certainly won't dispute that anyone starting something like the XFL from scratch will need social media to help build a fanbase, but when it comes to the NFL they are sufficiently high profile with a big enough dedicated fanbase to not need Taboo Tuesday type gimmicks to keep people watching.

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8pm UK, I think. XFL relaunch seems most likely.

Website is scant of detail, to say the least, though headlining "investment opportunities" intrigues me.

As I said when it was all first set up, it screams "tax dodge" to me in some way, or some kind of inheritance nest egg outside of WWE's accounts. Politically it's fascinating that Vince would launch something entirely outside the WWE umbrella at this point, and it does make me think he's far more open to the idea of selling up than he ever has been before.

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I've just had the press release from the people who do WWE PR, and we are a very small website, so we rarely get anything from them unless they are spamming it out to absolutely everyone (WWE UK announcement was the last major thing they went this crazy for) , so it must be something substantial. 

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26 minutes ago, BomberPat said:

As I said when it was all first set up, it screams "tax dodge" to me in some way, or some kind of inheritance nest egg outside of WWE's accounts. Politically it's fascinating that Vince would launch something entirely outside the WWE umbrella at this point, and it does make me think he's far more open to the idea of selling up than he ever has been before.

The theory I heard is that he's still into WWE, but he had to make it very clear this is all being done with his own money and that if it goes tits-up, WWE's finances aren't hurt. Without that distinction there's a risk stockholders would panic sell.

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3 minutes ago, JNLister said:

The theory I heard is that he's still into WWE, but he had to make it very clear this is all being done with his own money and that if it goes tits-up, WWE's finances aren't hurt. Without that distinction there's a risk stockholders would panic sell.

100%. The WWE stock would more than likely massively tank if he announced another XFL under the WWE umbrella. After all, why wouldn't it? Vince famously doesn't do well outside of wrestling and the XFL is one of the all time great bombs.

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They trademarked USF or something similar didn't they (presumably for United States Football)? Might explain the colour scheme?

Also, if I were ESPN, I'd be changing the schedule up to stick the XFL 30 for 30 on straight after the press conference finishes. 

Edited by mim731
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7 minutes ago, JNLister said:

The theory I heard is that he's still into WWE, but he had to make it very clear this is all being done with his own money and that if it goes tits-up, WWE's finances aren't hurt. Without that distinction there's a risk stockholders would panic sell.

My main thought was that, even with that distinction, stockholders have always been jumpy at any suggestion that Vince might not be involved with WWE any more - the idea that he'll be dividing his time between WWE and Alpha Entertainment might scare a lot of people, and might even suggest that his heart isn't in WWE now. There's a lot more going on than "just" an XFL relaunch.

Is he a genius for doing this right before the Rumble, heading into the time when the most eyes will be on WWE - where, presumably, he can plug the hell out of this - or is he an utter lunatic for doing it when his workload and stress levels are already at their highest?

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