It’s exciting to see Dwayne Johnson and a group of investors buy the bankrupt XFL.
After all, the league showed some promise in its initial season from its tweaked football rules to its mid-game interviews to the fun its fans had (beer snakes!).
But why would anyone, including The Rock, sink millions — specifically, a reported $15 million — into a sports league when we’re in the middle of a pandemic, particularly one that has been a problem for those who aren’t in a bubble?
The answer? Let’s say it’s February and we’re still in the throes of the COVID-19 pandemic. Maybe the XFL can be played in a bubble.
The idea of putting the NFL in a bubble or two sounds like a logistical nightmare. But there are only eight XFL teams, four per division. There were 10 weeks plus playoffs scheduled before the season shut down. Couldn’t that be done in a bubble in 2021?
That was something ESPN’s Kevin Seifert noted on Monday:
The XFL declared Chapter 11 bankruptcy April 13 and has been seeking a buyer for the past three months, marketing itself as a made-for-TV product that could transition as early as 2021 to a bubble concept during the coronavirus pandemic.
If the NFL has some trouble this fall and the XFL 2.0 (3.0 I guess, if you count the first version in 2001) can get its act together by early next year, it may be worth a lot more than what Johnson and RedBird Capital put in.
