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This XFL is going to be a hoot
Posted: Thursday February 01, 2001 5:20 PM
Updated: Friday February 02, 2001 3:39 AM
I've kind of become the resident expert on the XFL in the past few weeks. Working on an upcoming story for Sports Illustrated, I've talked with Mr. Vince McMahon at the World Wrestling Federation's headquarters in Stamford, Conn., and I've gone to Smackdown in Oakland, Calif., and I've been to the XFL training camp in Las Vegas, Nev.
Here are a few observations:
There is interest in this new league. Whenever I would go to one of these places, friends would ask, "What's Vince like? What's the football like? What are the cheerleaders like?" I have never heard this with any other start-up league, not with the WNBA, not with the soccer league, none of them.
The players are sweethearts. They've been working -- over 600 of them at eight camps -- for nothing more than room and board for the past five weeks. If they got cut, they went home with nothing more than a bologna sandwich and a memory. They are all pretty good players, most with NFL experience of some kind, and they will make an average salary of $45,000 for the 10-game regular season. They are refreshing.
The league, before it has played a game, is being knocked everywhere as a symbol of moral decay, part of the dumbing down of American, blah-blah-blah. This is an easy story, fast to type, fast to print. I understand the concerns -- sexism, the triumph of the vulgarians, all the rest -- but I think you should at least see the product before you make a judgment.
I, myself, think the thing is going to be a hoot.
Sports Illustrated senior writer Leigh Montville appears regularly on CNN/Sports Illustrated. The opinions expressed here are solely those of the writer.
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