MikeSherman wrote: ↑Sat Feb 16, 2019 1:52 pm
What's our understanding of the timeline on how all of this went down? I was under the impression that McMahon announced the XFL relaunch when he did to get ahead of the AAF's announcement for 2019. Is that wrong? Did the AAF push things up in order to take the field ahead of the XFL?
I covered this in my The Alliance between Ebersol and McMahon article. Vince has been plotting the return of the XFL for years. He didn’t want to end the original one. Vince even trademarked football league names in 2017.
The This was The XFL special provides the final motivation for McMahon and for Dick’s son. Dick even asks Vince, Would you consider doing it again? McMahon says yes. Ebersol responds, we’d have to do it with our own money. That’s exactly what McMahon is doing except he wanted to do this alone this time, like he originally intended.
XFL_FAN wrote: ↑Sat Feb 16, 2019 5:08 pm
So the home side of the Iron-Stallions was packed, but the road side was desolate, pretty much empty. I'm going to wait for the attendance numbers before I make any assumptions though.
Watching the game on DVR. It looks like it’s comparable to last week. The AAF is wisely using camera angles to hide all the empty seats. The crowd appears to be in that 15k range. It will probably be announced as 21k
XFL_FAN wrote: ↑Sat Feb 16, 2019 5:08 pm
So the home side of the Iron-Stallions was packed, but the road side was desolate, pretty much empty. I'm going to wait for the attendance numbers before I make any assumptions though.
Watching the game on DVR. It looks like it’s comparable to last week. The AAF is wisely using camera angles to hide all the empty seats. The crowd appears to be in that 15k range. It will probably be announced as 21k
The announced attendance is at 17,319, which is a slight improvement from last week.
The low-angles on these broadcasts are pretty bad. I mean the only game where the broadcast actually tried to show the crowd was the Fleet-Commanders game with 28k in a 64k stadium. People who watched felt like that game had a good vibe to it. I expect the XFL will have DC and Dallas at home on National TV week 1.
Mock Opening Weekend Schedule:
February 8th, 2020 @ 8:30 P.M. Eastern on Fox: Houston at Dallas (25k stadium, Bob Stoops, should be a great environment for national TV)
February 8th, 2020 @ 8:30 P.M. Eastern on Fox: New York at DC (20k stadium, should look good on TV too.)
February 9th, 2020 @ 4 P.M. Eastern on ESPN Tampa Bay @ Seattle
February 9th, 2020 @ 8 P.M. Eastern on ABC: LA @ St. Louis (While the dome has 67k, I expect it to hit around 25k so it would be suitable for a National TV audience.) Give the fans a good impression to end the week.
XFL_FAN wrote: ↑Sat Feb 16, 2019 9:48 pm
Here's what the Express stadium looks like tonight:
DzkaBE_XQAAOs5e.jpeg
Haven't watched much action today but caught a few plays of the Memphis game on the app. The (lack of) fans was one of the first things I noticed. I know it's a big stadium, I know attendance isn't everything, but that's embarrassing.
Really hope the big XFL venues don't have the same fate.
XFL_FAN wrote: ↑Sat Feb 16, 2019 9:48 pm
Here's what the Express stadium looks like tonight:
DzkaBE_XQAAOs5e.jpeg
Charlie Ebersol bragging about the genius of choosing non nfl markets. I know that the weather is bad and you can’t expect sellouts in an upstart league but this is really bad for week 2.
XFL_FAN wrote: ↑Sat Feb 16, 2019 9:48 pm
Here's what the Express stadium looks like tonight:
DzkaBE_XQAAOs5e.jpeg
Charlie Ebersol bragging about the genius of choosing non nfl markets. I know that the weather is bad and you can’t expect sellouts in an upstart league but this is really bad for week 2.
[/quote]
XFL DC, Dallas and maybe LA could sell out week one with 27k and below stadiums. Besides that, there won't be a chance of a sellout in the XFL.
MikeSherman wrote: ↑Sun Feb 17, 2019 12:12 am
I'd love to see a side-by-side comparison, but the Iron's attendance definitely looked smaller to me this week.
The Iron got 17,319 yesterday. The Express game got only 11,980.
