Everyone and their dog knows what the definition of insanity is, so there were plenty of raised eyebrows – fitting, given that it was one of his signatures during his WWE days – when it was announced a Dwayne Johnson-fronted consortium had purchased the rights to the bankrupt XFL football league for a cool $15 million.
The first iteration of the outfit was bankrolled by Johnson’s former boss and WWE owner Vince McMahon, and it ended in unmitigated disaster and catastrophic financial losses after the brand was shuttered one season in with an estimated $70 million loss, while plans for a second were scrapped after it failed to secure additional monetary backing.
Fast forward two decades, and McMahon brazenly decided to try the exact same thing again while hoping for different results. The XFL’s sophomore iteration was admittedly faring better than its progenitor for a while, the pandemic came along and torpedoed the entire operation, with pro wrestling’s version of an oligarch taking another $35 million hit.
Given that the combined losses hit an astronomical nine figures in the past, you’d have to be nuts to even contemplate a third go-round. And yet, Johnson seems confident that XFL V3.0 will be able to stick it out as he reflected on the league’s success at the midway point of the season.
The Rock is hardly known for being short on confidence, but he’ll still be hoping the XFL doesn’t head down the Black Adam route and end in a smoking pile of nothingness when all is said and done. A second season isn’t guaranteed by any means, but by reaching the midpoint, he’s now officially the second most-successful owner in company history, so there’s that.
