EVERYTHING Vince McMahon Gave Up On In 2020 (So Far)
9. The XFL
"I wanted to do this since the day we stopped the other one," Vince McMahon told the world as he announced that he would be starting up the XFL again. "A chance to do it with no partners, strictly funded by me."
The Chairman of WWE sold a load of his stock in WWE, and set aside $300 million to last for the next three years of running costs. Funding itself for that long was smart, as it would enable any interested television partners to make a deal with no risks to their bottom line. Unfortunately, the lockdown and ban on sporting events put paid to that idea, and the XFL once again folded.
"There will be no crossover whatsoever," McMahon said in the 2018 press conference unveiling the renewed XFL. The project would be wholly different from WWE, and Vince specified that the companies would not share funding in any way. This is why it was so surprising to shareholders to find that WWE owned 23.5 per cent of the Class B stock in the XFL.
When XFL version 3 shows up sometime in the future, Vince's finances are going to be under a lot more scrutiny.