The 2020 XFL season was the first season in the reboot of the XFL, and the second in the history of the XFL brand created and owned by professional wrestling magnate Vince McMahon, coming 19 years after the 2001 XFL season.
The season began on February 8, 2020, with the DC Defenders hosting and defeating the Seattle Dragons. The league planned to have a ten-week regular season through April 12, with division championships April 18 and 19, with the XFL Championship scheduled for April 26 in Houston.
In March 2020, amid the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States, the XFL announced that the league would be canceling the rest of the season, ahead of the league's suspension of operations and bankruptcy filing a month later.
Background In the 2017 ESPN 30 for 30 documentary This Was the XFL, McMahon openly mused about reviving the XFL, noting that changes would need to be made compared to 2001 in order to make it viable and relevant in the modern era. McMahon had purchased the trademarks of the defunct United Football League and an alternative brand, "UrFL" (Your Football League), in early 2017. The following year, the director of the documentary, Charlie Ebersol (son of Dick Ebersol), would go on to help form the Alliance of American Football (AAF) in 2018, hoping to beat the revived XFL in being the first to play (they did by a year).Eight-Team XFL Competitor Plans to Launch in February 2019, Dan Gartland, Sports Illustrated, March 20, 2018 While the league was able to launch in 2019, a year before the XFL's first season, it went bankrupt before its first season finished after it twice lost its major investors. On December 15, 2017, Bleacher Report columnist Brad Shepard reported that McMahon was seriously considering a revival of the XFL, with an expected announcement on January 25, 2018. In a statement to Deadspin, WWE did not confirm or deny the rumors, but did state that McMahon was establishing a new company known as Alpha Entertainment, which would "explore investment opportunities across the sports and entertainment landscapes, including professional football." On December 21, 2017, WWE issued a filing to the Securities and Exchange Commission, stating that McMahon had sold $100 million worth of WWE stock to fund Alpha Entertainment. Alpha Entertainment is headquartered next door to WWE headquarters in Stamford, Connecticut.
On January 25, 2018, Alpha Entertainment announced a new incarnation of the XFL, which would begin with a 10-week inaugural season beginning in January or February 2020. In a press conference, McMahon stated that the new XFL would be dissimilar to its previous incarnation, stating that "There's only so many things that have 'FL' on the end of them and those are already taken. But we aren't going to have much of what the original XFL had." McMahon stated that the league would feature eight teams as a single entity owned by Alpha (the previous XFL was also a single-entity league), which had been revealed in 2019. Alpha Entertainment was established in order to keep the league's management and operations separate from that of WWE. McMahon is prepared to invest as much as $500 million, five times as much as his investment in the 2001 XFL. The XFL's decision to nix cheerleaders is in part due to changing attitudes regarding women's participation in entertaining sports fans. He liquidated an additional $270 million in WWE stock (representing a 4% stake in WWE) in March 2019 to provide additional funding for the league.
McMahon stated that he wanted to play in existing NFL markets but did not identify potential cities specifically and did not rule out any specific cities. McMahon also did not rule out playing on artificial turf. The original XFL avoided artificial playing surfaces (as most such surfaces then were more carpet-like); however, the technology has advanced considerably since 2001, with modern artificial turfs mimicking real grass more closely. John Shumway from KDKA-TV in Pittsburgh and local media from Orlando and San Diego both inquired about potential teams in their respective cities, but McMahon (while stating that "I love Pittsburgh") declined to name any cities for teams. McMahon also stated that teams would have new identities compared to recycling old identities from the old league. The league sent solicitations to thirty metropolitan areas as potential locations for a team.
Teams As with the 2001 XFL, the 2020 XFL operated eight teams, all centrally owned by the league's holding company, Alpha Entertainment LLC, as a single entity. Alpha Entertainment was spun off from WWE to keep the league's finances separate from the publicly traded professional wrestling enterprise, with McMahon the sole proprietor.
The emergence of the Alliance of American Football created issues selecting cities to host XFL teams, as many potential candidates became home to AAF teams (notably Orlando, the next largest city without an NFL team and an acceptable stadium. Orlando was also one of the original XFL's most successful markets and second in attendance for the 2019 AAF season). Not wanting teams to compete against other spring football teams in the same market, the XFL chose different cities than the AAF.
Commissioner Oliver Luck announced the eight host cities and stadiums for the first franchises on December 5, 2018, and also announced the starting date of February 8, 2020, the weekend after Super Bowl LIV, as the league chose to focus on placing teams in large media markets, selecting five of the top seven largest media markets in the U.S.; based on 2017 census bureau estimates, all eight XFL markets have over 2.9 million residents each (the smallest being St. Louis). This was seen as a stark contrast to the other emerging spring football league, the Alliance of American Football, which primarily chose markets without NFL teams, seen as a decision to avoid competing with existing fan bases; three of the AAF's markets (Birmingham, Memphis, and Salt Lake, the first two of which had teams in the first XFL) had populations less than half that of St. Louis's. The only 2020 XFL market which did host an NFL team was St. Louis, which in 2015 saw its NFL team (the Rams) return to Los Angeles.
Two of the original league's metropolitan areas also received teams in the revival: New York and Los Angeles. All eight teams received new brandings on August 21, 2019: the New York Guardians, DC Defenders, Tampa Bay Vipers, St. Louis BattleHawks, Dallas Renegades, Houston Roughnecks, Seattle Dragons, and Los Angeles Wildcats.
Names and logos for the XFL teams were to be revealed in early June but were delayed over two months from that date. The XFL filed trademarks for five potential team names for its Seattle-based franchise in late June, including one for the eventually chosen name Seattle Dragons, but not for any of the other seven teams. The names, logos and colors for all eight teams were revealed on August 21, 2019, in a livestreamed special. The 2020 XFL draft was held on October 15 and 16, 2019. Training camps began in November.
Besides the eight competitive teams, the XFL had operated a centralized practice squad and farm team, which operated as a full team with a coaching staff and a 40-man roster (encompassing offensive and defensive players but no special teams) but did not play any on-the-record games against the other eight teams. The team shared practice facilities with the Dallas Renegades and was internally known as "Team 9". Team 9 replenished itself after Week 5 when the team's members were assigned to rosters when it expanded to 57 players each; but the season ended abruptly.
Club City/State Stadium Surface Head coachWest Division Dallas Renegades Arlington, Texas Globe Life Park in Arlington Grass 48,114Bob Stoops Houston Roughnecks Houston, Texas TDECU Stadium 40,000 June Jones LA Wildcats Carson, California Dignity Health Sports Park 27,000 Winston Moss Seattle Dragons Seattle, Washington Lumen Field 69,000Jim ZornEast Division Washington, D.C. Audi Field 20,000Pep Hamilton New York Guardians East Rutherford, New Jersey MetLife Stadium 82,500Kevin Gilbride St. Louis BattleHawks St. Louis, Missouri The Dome at America's Center 66,965 Jonathan Hayes Tampa Bay Vipers Tampa, Florida Raymond James Stadium 65,618Marc TrestmanPractice squad Team 9 Arlington, Texas Globe Life Park in Arlington 25,000Bart Andrus
Full stadium capacity. The large stadiums with multiple decks only open the lower bowl for XFL games, similar to the former AAF games and MLS matches played in large stadiums. The XFL has a target stadium size of 30,000 seats, so that in the event of playoff games, the upper decks can be opened to increase capacity.
Team 9 Team 9 was a specialized team that acted as a hybrid farm team and practice squad for the league, and was inspired by a similar scheme employed by NFL Europe. It held a maximum of 40 players at a time and was meant to prepare players for call up to one of the XFL's 8 teams to fill roster vacancies due to injuries of other players or if the teams see a player as a "hidden gem". The team shared practice facilities and support staff with the Dallas Renegades but maintained its own coaching staff; its head coach was Bart Andrus, who was assisted by Pete Kuharchek (defense) and Peter Vaas (offense). Team 9 did not include the specialist positions of kicker, punter, or long snapper, who were instead reserved in a separate "player pool."
During the first two weeks of the season, teams were encouraged to use players from Team 9 to fill roster spots, but were not required to do so, as they may prefer to sign a player unaffiliated with the XFL or re-sign a player who participated in their preseason camps but was cut. After Week 2, exclusively using Team 9 players to fill rosters became a requirement, with Team 9 constantly replenishing itself by adding new players from outside the XFL.
On March 10, each team's maximum roster size increased from 52 to 57 players and the majority of Team 9 was dispersed. Team 9 was to reload to approximately 36 players.
Players and coaches Each XFL team had 52 players regular-season roster, far more than the 38 in the original XFL and comparable to the size of the 53-man NFL rosters; 46 of those 52 were active on any given game day.
XFL did not have the same eligibility requirements for players as the NFL. Currently the NFL requires all players to be at least 3 years removed from high school to be eligible for a team's roster. Almost all prospects then participate in NCAA football for the 3-year waiting period. This eligibility requirement is an agreement between the NCAA and the NFL. The NFL, in exchange for not signing young players who would ordinarily play in the NCAA, is allowed nearly unlimited access to scout and recruit college players. In the league's inaugural season, safety Kenny Robinson, who had run into eligibility issues that led to him being expelled from college, chose to play in the XFL instead of transferring to another college; Robinson was a success in the XFL and was ultimately selected in the 2020 NFL Draft.
The first head coach and general manager, Dallas's Bob Stoops, was announced February 7, 2019, with the coaches for Seattle (Jim Zorn), Washington (Pep Hamilton), and Tampa Bay (Marc Trestman) following later in the month. Kevin Gilbride named New York's head coach/general manager on April 16, while Jonathan Hayes was announced as the head coach and general manager of the St. Louis franchise two days later. Winston Moss was announced as Los Angeles's head coach on May 7. The last of the inaugural head coaches, Houston's June Jones, was hired May 13 and introduced May 20.
Draft