By
Shaun Clayton
Arizona Daily Wildcat
New football league not half as entertaining as a real sport
If anyone's felt that something good is in the air, it may be because the XFL looks like it's about to be shuffled off to the big trash incinerator of history. Dick Ebersol, president of NBC Sports, said the network is considering pulling the plug on the XFL if ratings don't improve during the new football league's playoff games this month, according to The Associated Press.
The ratings for the XFL, the brainchild of WWF head Jim McMahon, were high at the premiere, reaching about 10 percent of the viewing audience, but then took a dive faster than a mountain climber on acid. Now the XFL is pulling into the two- to three-percentile range, the lowest ever for a prime-time sports program.
Now, sports and theater are two very different things - hence there is an "Arts" section to a newspaper and a "Sports" section to a newspaper. In a way, though, they are both entertainment, except that in theater, there is less of a chance for the person playing Hamlet to be sacked by Laertes and taken out on a stretcher.
The problem with the XFL is that it is neither good sport nor theater, of which it is trying to be both.
As far as the sport part of the XFL goes, it seems the players think they are playing the European version of football (known here as soccer), in that they hardly ever touch the ball with their hands. The quarterbacks aren't even a quarter-of-a-quarterback, and the receivers give more than they receive. The XFL just doesn't match the athletic expertise and finesse that the NFL has, and thus is not as entertaining as a sport.
Now for the theater part. Somehow, watching players with such whimsical names as "He Hate Me," cheerleaders wearing so little that they appear as though they're ready to be given a physical exam, and a camera in the locker room so people can see players sit around and drink bottled water does not make for good television.
When thinking of the XFL, the words "New Coke" come to mind. Like the flawed re-introduction of the red-canned soda in the '80s, the XFL is trying to give people something that they don't want - namely, another WWF.
The WWF manages to mix sport and theater and makes entertainment - entertainment that appeals on a sophomoric, mindlessly violent level. It can be best described as "Redneck Ballet," where grown men (and a few women) fling themselves across a stage to help tell a story. That story usually involves one guy seeking revenge on another guy because the first guy hit him with a chair, pipe or dirty socks and cost him the belt for the "Undisputed Super-World Ultrasuave Championship" or something like that.
The WWF can best be classified as "it's so bad, it's good." It reaches such incredible levels of suck that it actually becomes interesting to watch - for a while. Then, the interest wanes, the higher brain functions kick in, and it's off to seek more stimulating entertainment.
This is the problem. The XFL is the horrible liquid mess that an already damp sponge is trying to soak up. Even if the XFL did approach the "so bad, it's good" level of entertainment, the public is just too full of that particular brand of mindlessness right now to take on another one.
So, goodbye XFL - may you never dampen our floors again.
