The coronavirus put all live sports to a screeching halt in March, causing the cancellation of the NCAA tournament and all NCAA spring sports, and delaying the end of the NBA regular season and the start of the MLB season.
All of those entities, however, will survive the temporary loss of revenue from the shutdown. The fledgling XFL, halfway through the first season of their new reboot, will not.
XFL COO Jeffery Pollock held a conference call with XFL employees and informed them the league is suspending operations and that all employees have been laid off.
The league did not specifically announce a reason, although COVID-19’s massive impact on the league’s revenue likely has a huge impact on the decision to suspend the league.
The XFL has been in the works for multiple seasons, finally playing games in February of 2020. Eight teams, including the Seattle Dragons, were able to play a five-game schedule before the shutdown.
The league had tv deals on ESPN, FS1 and CBS, and while the talent level was not on par with the NFL, the games were still entertaining and many of the innovative rule changes appealed to fans.
Now, employees will be out of a job and the players will have to hope they performed well enough to land in an NFL training camp, as they no longer have the XFL to continue their professional playing career.
