The XFL is planning its return after a 17-year hiatus with a focus on drafting players cut from the NFL and experimenting with player-tracking technology and in-game betting.
The league, founded by Vince McMahon, announced on Wednesday that it will launch the weekend of Feb. 8, 2020, one week after Super Bowl LIV, in eight inaugural cities. Roughly half the teams will play in NFL stadiums, including MetLife Stadium in New Jersey, home to New York’s Giants and Jets.
The other teams will be located in Dallas at Globe Life Park (home of MLB’s Texas Rangers), Los Angeles at the StubHub Center (home of MLS’s LA Galaxy, and temporary home of the NFL’s Los Angeles Chargers), Houston at TDECU Stadium (the University of Houston’s football stadium), St. Louis at The Dome at America’s Center (a stadium that mostly hosts concerts and events), Seattle at CenturyLink Field (home to the NFL’s Seattle Seahawks), Tampa Bay at Raymond James Stadium (home to the NFL’s Tampa Bay Buccaneers) and Washington, D.C., at Audi Field (home of MLS team D.C. United). All XFL teams will be owned and operated by the league.
As the league makes preparations over the next year or so, it will be focusing on ways to incorporate new sports betting, gaming, and player-tracking technologies to enhance the game and overall well-being of players, according to XFL Commissioner and CEO Oliver Luck, a former Houston Oilers quarterback and father of Colts QB Andrew Luck. The XFL will also launch an app that will be designed to engage fans, though Luck didn’t expand much on the details of that app’s design.
“In our mind the difference between gaming and gambling is slowly merging as folks like Draftkings and Fanduel get more engaged,” he said. “We’re going to see how it all plays out. We have to try to understand the market and project where things will be November and December of 2019, which I think could look differently than it looks today. This whole thing is changing very rapidly and I think trying to be nimble, agile, and relatively clever and strategic about it will be helpful. It’s hard to know exactly how our app will engage with the gaming/gambling space.”
One way the organization is sure to use technology will be in player-tracking wearables and chips, with Luck specifically citing Zebra Technologies (the chips in NFL balls and shoulders pads) and Catapult. Unlike in the NFL where Zebra chips are mostly used for fan engagement, Luck said the XFL is most excited about how they might be used to enhance player safety. The XFL plans to establish a health, wellness, and safety program. Interestingly, the NFL announced this week that it made available proprietary data from its Zebra RFID chips as part of its annual entrepreneurial challenge to improve player safety.
“We will possibly use it [for fan engagement], it depends a little bit how important that data really is. We have to be somewhat respectful—we don’t have unions—of the player’s privacy so we’ve got to sort-of figure all that out,” said Luck. “Where biometric data can I think be really helpful is in the health and safety aspect.”
The XFL said the league will be fan-centric, innovate, include faster-paced games (with fewer stoppages) than the NFL, and be complemented by cross-platform viewing options and real-time fan engagement.
In a press release, the league added that it will “embrace the latest on and off-field technology, providing live game coverage, content and real-time engagement across multiple platforms, giving fans greater access than ever before.”
SportTechie Takeaway
The XFL will launch one year after another new spring league: the Alliance of American Football. The AAF’s cofounder and chief executive, Charlie Ebersol, has similarly emphasized the importance of in-game betting and fantasy through the league’s app. When asked whether he’s concerned about the Alliance of American Football’s 12-month head start, Luck said no. With football’s 85 million fans, the demand for spring football, and the fact that hundreds of NFL players are being cut from the league each year, Luck said he believes there is room for more than one spring league.