Until just before 3 o’clock Sunday afternoon, my plan was to watch the entire XFL game between the Dallas Renegades and the Los Angeles Wildcats, then share my thoughts on the new league.
And, no, this wasn’t because I was suffering from professional football withdrawal. I don’t dislike pro ball, but I don’t miss it when it’s over the way I do college basketball, the Masters or Wimbledon.
However, it had occurred to me earlier in the day that I was once a huge fan of the Birmingham Americans during the summer of 1974 when they began their quest to become, as it turned out, the only champion ever crowned by the World Football League, mostly because the WFL went out of business the following year.
Even if it wasn’t the NFL, and even if the Americans’ uniforms were confiscated by Hibbett Sporting Goods as soon as their 22-21 title win over the Florida Blazers inside Legion Field was over the night of Dec. 5, 1974, because the franchise never paid for them, it really was fun football while it lasted.
And maybe the XFL will have better financial luck than the WFL, the United States Football League, the original XFL – which lost $35 million in its lone, loony 2001 season – or the Alliance of American Football, the most recent alternative pro league to collapse.