Vince McMahon's 10 Biggest Failures
1. XFL
What
more can be said about McMahon’s alternative to the NFL? ESPN did a 30 for 30
earlier this year and Prichard gave the wrestling side of it as well. It was a
well-promoted experiment that simply couldn’t live up to the hype.
Perhaps that’s due to the rush: McMahon announced the league’s creation in 2000, and the first game kicked off a year later. The players weren’t ready for televised prime time competition, and the media wasn’t ready to trust that the Walt Disney of the Attitude Era would present legitimate sport. Despite the many innovations the league brought to football, it was doomed after the first week.
Ratings
spiraled downward and the league folded after one season. The XFL ranked No. 3
on TV Guide's
ranked it No. 3 on its list of the worst TV shows of all time, and ESPN ranked
it No. 2 on its list of biggest flops in sports. McMahon and NBC reportedly
each lost $35 million.