When Vince McMahon launched the XFL in 2001, he frequently took shots at the NFL and said his league would provide a better brand of football. As McMahon prepares to re-launch the XFL in 2020, there will be none of that.
McMahon is keeping a low profile, and XFL Commissioner Oliver Luck is promising to have nothing but nice things to say about the NFL.
“We don’t compete with the NFL,” Luck said at an XFL press conference today. “I don’t think anybody competes with the NFL. I love the NFL. It’s a juggernaut, it’s an awesome league, I was proud to be a player way back in the day, I’m proud my son can play in the league. We have great relationships with both the league office and the local teams in the markets we’re in. So we want to be a complement. We want to stay away from politics. We want to play good football, make it family affordable, keep it relatively simple, a fun day out at the ballpark, the stadium, and try to stay away as best we can from all the other issues. You’ll never hear me say a bad word about the National Football League.”
The Alliance of American Football is trying even harder to complement the NFL, possibly even positioning itself to become the NFL’s official minor league. The XFL doesn’t seem to be going that far, but suffice to say that neither of the two new spring leagues has any illusions about taking on the NFL.