I hereby plead guilty to a charge of moral depravity because I cannot, with all honesty, say that I detest the XFL. In fact, I am ambivalent about the new league. I don’t know what to make of it and haven’t spent a whole lot of time dwelling on the subject.
This, of course, is at least a misdemeanor, because it means I have not followed instructions by some really smart people on what to think. The only thing worse than having a positive opinion of the XFL is having no opinion whatsoever based on the possibility, however remote, that a TV pilot mixing football and wrestling really doesn’t matter.
Again, I’m just guessing, because nobody has told me that, especially the pundits who have been pounding their fists for the last week or so. But in case I have company and you, too, aren’t certain that the XFL represents the decline of civilization, I suggest you pick up the current issue of Sports Illustrated.
In no uncertain terms, the weekly magazine devotes its cover story to the “cheap thrills” and “sleazy gimmicks” of the XFL. I would suggest that, if you’re undecided like me, SI’s take might convince you what to think. I would also remind you this is the same publication that makes a fortune off its annual swimsuit issue displaying nearly naked women. Moreover, this year’s edition will feature, doubtless to satisfy our animal instincts, Siegfried & Roy.
Now that’s sports, and the XFL isn’t, or so we’re supposed to believe, according to those whose job it is to inform the public. I can be a puppet like anybody else, but when I do lapse into rare moments of independent thought, I tend to categorize the XFL as schtick, as entertainment, no less or no more dangerous than some of the other stuff that appears on TV, or in newspapers or movie theaters.
The reality that the XFL landed a major network before even one game was played is impressive, especially when you consider that the man who took the plunge is Dick Ebersol, chairman of sports for NBC. If anybody can manufacture programming from nothing, it’s Ebersol. He’s Mr. Olympics.
At least NBC is televising the XFL live instead of giving us yesterday’s events tomorrow.
Many of the same news organizations that are bashing the XFL send fleets of reporters all over the world to cover ice dancing, which doesn’t make either endeavor necessarily bad or Ebersol evil. He also helps fund the NBA, which has a police blotter the XFL can’t touch. But TV is TV. You don’t need a personal seat license, only a channel changer.
I, too, was astounded at the huge rating registered in Chicago for the first weekend when the local team was blacked out. But maybe consumers around here have had it with the high cost of mediocrity at the United Center. Maybe Chicago fans don’t want to hear any more about Sammy Sosa fighting with the Cubs and maybe they can wait to learn the reason Frank Thomas missed last weekend’s SoxFest.
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I risk a felony count here, but maybe we aren’t as stupid as the smart people think we are.
Maybe we realize that Charles Barkley is right when he says parents and teachers, not athletes, should be role models. Maybe we’d like to root for the underdog just once instead of the overpaid. Maybe we prefer witnessing minor-league football at a brutal facility like Soldier Field without major-league prices.
Dick Butkus, a legend, is a big boss with the XFL. I’m naive, of course, but I don’t think any less of him now than when he went Hollywood. Maybe Butkus has something we could all use, a terrific sense of humor. And maybe Jesse Ventura became a governor because he’s not afraid to take a stand that offends the sensibilities of those really smart people who are maybe really out of touch.
I don’t know whether this new league will survive, I don’t know why wrestling beats “Monday Night Football” on TV, I don’t know who stuck a gun to the heads of any of those XFL cheerleaders. I don’t know all the answers, because I’m not that bright. And if you’re like me, eager for advice from experts on what to think about the XFL, two words: Siegfried & Roy.