Despite declining viewership, XFL will continue to thrive

Vincent Crook, Reporter|March 10, 2020

WEB EXCLUSIVE

Football is America’s most popular sport, with its wide variety of leagues for all ages. Though, in the past few decades, professional football has been dominated by the National Football League (NFL), with other leagues attempting to compete against them. Those league’s are the United States Football League (USFL), the United Football League (UFL), the Arena Football League (AFL), and the Alliance of American Football (AAF).

The most recent attempt at rivaling the NFL is the XFL, which was founded in 2018. The XFL doesn’t have a defined name, but most assume it stands for the “Xtreme Football League.” 

This is actually the second version of the XFL. The original was founded in 1999, and only managed to stay around until 2001. The league did not have enough funds to pay the cost of equipment and renting stadiums, and ended up losing $70 million.

This new version of the XFL hopes to eliminate the threat of running out of money, coming in with a budget of $500 million for its first three seasons. This reboot features eight teams across the nation.

While the XFL started off very well, gaining millions of viewers for each of its debut games, those numbers have declined. According to NBC Sports, the early game on Saturday broadcasted by ABC dropped from 2.3 million viewers in week two to 1.9 million viewers in week three.

Those aren’t necessarily low numbers, but compared to the debut games, they are declining by a very large rate. If the XFL continues to decrease in viewers, they might start losing funds, and eventually go bankrupt like they did the first time. 

The XFL is continuing their season, but there is worry about how long they can keep up progress, and hopefully compete with the NFL, and keep the league going for a long time.

Personally, I believe the XFL will be able to thrive for years to come. It would be good to have football year round, and for a league to compete with the NFL. Year-round football is a wish that a lot of fans of the sport support, and I believe they will continue to watch and invest in the XFL, if it meets expectations.