XFL Officially Files For Bankruptcy

The ongoing global chaos causes Vince McMahon's football to lose up to $50 million!

Vince McMahon XFL
WWE/XFL

Just a matter of days after suspending all operations and laying off the majority of its workforce, the XFL has now filed for bankruptcy.

The future of Vince McMahon’s relaunched football league had been looking majorly uncertain over the past few weeks, as the ongoing global chaos was similarly causing issues for the XFL. And now, well now a bankruptcy order has been put forward.

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The Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing includes the XFL’s assets and liabilities, with the estimated total cost of these being somewhere between $10 million and $50 million. Some of the main creditors of the XFL are coaches Bob Stoops ($1 million) and Marc Trestman ($777,000), Ticketmaster ($655,000), and MetLife Stadium ($368,000).

In addition to being owned by McMahon and the Alpha Entertainment banner, the XFL was actually partially owned by WWE. To be precise, WWE held 23.5% of Class B stock.

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An official XFL statement read, “The XFL quickly captured the hearts and imaginations of millions of people who love football. Unfortunately, as a new enterprise, we were not insulated from the harsh economic impacts and uncertainties caused by the COVID-19 crisis.”

The statement continued, “This is a heartbreaking time for many, including our passionate fans, players and staff, and we are thankful to them, our television partners, and the many Americans who rallied to the XFL for the love of football.”

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After a largely positive initial response to the relaunched XFL, ratings began to wane from week to week, with the league itself only managing to make it to the five-week mark before the action was first suspended. And after five weeks, it would seem that this is once again the end of Vince McMahon's football dream.

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Once described as the Swiss Army Knife of WhatCulture, Andrew can usually be found writing, editing, or presenting on a wide range of topics. As a lifelong wrestling fan, horror obsessive, and comic book nerd, he's been covering those topics professionally as far back as 2010. In addition to his current WhatCulture role of Senior Content Producer, Andrew previously spent nearly a decade as Online Editor and Lead Writer for the world's longest-running genre publication, Starburst Magazine, and his work has also been featured on BBC, TechRadar, Tom's Guide, WhatToWatch, Sportkskeeda, and various other outlets, in addition to being a Rotten Tomatoes-approved film critic. Between his main dayjob, his role as the lead panel host of Wales Comic Con, and his gig as a pre-match host for Wrexham AFC games, Andrew has also carried out a hugely varied amount of interviews, from the likes of Robert Englund, Kane Hodder, Adrienne Barbeau, Rob Zombie, Katharine Isabelle, Leigh Whannell, Bruce Campbell, and Tony Todd, to Kevin Smith, Ron Perlman, Elijah Wood, Giancarlo Esposito, Simon Pegg, Charlie Cox, the Russo Brothers, and Brian Blessed, to Kevin Conroy, Paul Dini, Tara Strong, Will Friedle, Burt Ward, Andrea Romano, Frank Miller, and Rob Liefeld, to Bret Hart, Sting, Mick Foley, Ricky Starks, Jamie Hayer, Britt Baker, Eric Bischoff, and William Regal, to Mickey Thomas, Joey Jones, Phil Parkinson, Brian Flynn, Denis Smith, Gary Bennett, Karl Connolly, and Bryan Robson - and that's just the tip of an ever-expanding iceberg.