the removal of PATs was probably their best idea

The problem was over-estimating how much American loved football. The off season it what makes it special. Football isn't good enough on its own to last all year round without an off season. Wrestling is the only sport that can do that.

Football isn't good enough to last a season, not without lots of beer, and you the watcher having been born in an unsophisticated generation, which never got to experience the electrifying power of the Stone Cold Stunner.

The XFL was like if Sony decided to release their own hightech Cup n' Ball device. The Facebook Telegraph Machine, or Wikipedia on giant cuneiform tablets.

Some sports remain entertaining when the quality of players drops. Aside from basketball, football is probably the sport that most comes to mind where B talent playing B talent makes the game considerably less entertaining.

Hockey could have worked (except for most Americans not caring about hockey), some crazy arena soccer variant might have worked (given that good play leads to airtight defense and low-scoring games), lacrosse could have been okay along with a bunch of other obscure full-contact sports (rugger, Aussie rules football, Gaelic hurling etc.). Or gone full short track car racing/demo derby. Streamline the rules to cut out play stoppages and you're good to go.

I don't think it's impossible to overestimate how much Americans love football. I've never met anyone into sports who wasn't also into football. It doesn't last year round simply because the beatings players take is crazy.

Baseball would be a good sport for a "B on B" league. Along with desperately needed updates to bring it out of the 19th century. It's crazy how the least physically demanding sport in the world has the most downtime.

http://www.poetv.com/video.php?vid=17419

This would have been equally viable.

I loved the XFL. Imagine how much fun we'd be having with Deflategate if it was puppeted by Vince and the gang. Instead it's just boring meetings and such. I don't really follow football, or sports in general, but football's a great excuse to find a place that has the game I'm looking for, or hang out with friends. This is not the case with Baseball or Basketball, at least not for me. Both are legitimately fun sports to play, but basketball is too fast-paced and baseball's just boring to watch. Football's the only one where you can have a conversation with your friend over a few beers and still be fully tuned in to the game. I think the problem is unless you're directly from a place with a team, there wasn't really anything to root for right off the bat. Like, I'm from Portland but I root for the Green Bay Packers. That's because of generations of my family rooting for anything Wisconsin. I am surprised that people have gone so crazy over the Portland Timbers, but that's kind of a fluke and doesn't happen very often. Maybe XFL should try it again. I'd watch it, and I still have my XFL shirt and hat no shit!

If they were going for stunt spectacle, they should have gone full on Great White Hype. Take a sport and have the best men's high school team in the country play against a professional women's team.