4. The XFL Burns A Hole In Company Coffers
It's fairly common knowledge that WWE's attempt to launch an American Football league was a colossal failure, one which caused some amount of embarrassment for the McMahon family. Starting with a bang, the football division hit the ground running, posting a massive viewership of close to 14 million people. Those numbers would quickly nosedive as the weeks rolled on, and the second week's rating was directly halved (down to 4.6 from 9.5 the previous week). It could be argued that you live and you learn - Vince McMahon is a well-known risk-taker, and also somebody seemingly desperate to prove to the world that he can promote at more than just professional wrestling, a form of entertainment viewed as tawdry by many in the mainstream press. With that said, the XFL didn't just cause red faces, it lost WWE a lot of money, cash which could have been invested in the wrestling division itself. Unbelievably, the XFL experiment would cost WWE and partners $116 million all in, a quite mind-blowing figure. Wrestling fans will wonder why this money wasn't better invested, perhaps even in developing the stars of the future for WWE, McMahon's bread and butter.