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'The NFL is not real football anymore' McMahon confident of success of new-style football
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (AP) -- The wrestling promoter who gave the world Raw is War predicted Tuesday he can do something no one else has: Create a professional football team that survives in Alabama. World Wrestling Federation chairman Vince McMahon, in town to unveil Birmingham's team in the upstart XFL, said the league is going to be "real, smash-mouth football." "There is no question the XFL will be a tremendous success because there's never been anything like it before," he said. But McMahon also said he was aware of the dizzying array of pro football teams that have come and gone through Birmingham, a career minor-league city. "All I'm asking is a chance to earn your respect," McMahon told local television cameras gathered for the news conference. It seemed appropriate: TV is at the core of the XFL. WWF announced last spring it was forming the XFL in partnership with NBC-TV, which has needed sports programming since being shut out of the NFL's nearly $18 billion deal negotiated in January 1998. XFL teams in Birmingham and seven other cities will play 10-game schedules beginning in February, after the NFL shuts down for the winter. Gerry DiNardo, most recently of Louisiana State, will coach the Birmingham team. Promoters are promising a game that's faster, harder-hitting and more viewer friendly than the NFL. "The NFL is not real football anymore," said McMahon. While WWF shows are closely scripted with plots that resemble soap operas more than any sporting event, XFL officials are promising real competition without predetermined winners. There will still be plenty of made-for-TV similarities between the football games and WWF shows like Raw is War and SmackDown! XFL vice president Billy Hicks said ticket holders in stadiums will see a display that includes pyrotechnics, loud music and big video screens -- just like the WWF. On the tube, viewers will get all that plus video clips about the players and the cheerleaders, also shades of WWF. "We're not going to script anything, but we think there are compelling stories on every team," said Hicks. "Maybe if a leader is emerging on a team, we would tell that story." Neither Birmingham nor any of the other XFL teams have been named, but McMahon said he already knows he needs to sell 20,000 seats per game at 83,000-seat Legion Field to break even. Reaching that threshold consistently could be difficult. Birmingham -- which calls itself the "Football Capital of the South" -- is the only American city where four non-NFL teams have failed. The last outdoors franchise to come through town was the Birmingham Barracudas of the Canadian Football League. Plagued by dismal attendance and $10 million in losses, the team abandoned Legion Field after its inaugural season in 1995. The World Football League, the United States Football League and the World League of American Football also came and went. An indoor league, arenafootball2, just completed its first season in Birmingham.
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