Does Linda McMahon know why the N.Y.-N.J. Hitmen and the XFL went out of business suddenly?
THURSDAY, 07 OCTOBER 2010 12:11

http://www.newjerseynewsroom.com/professional/does-linda-mcmahon-know-why-the-ny-nj-hitmen-and-the-xfl-went-out-of-business-suddenly#
BY EVAN WEINER
NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM
THE BUSINESS AND POLITICS OF SPORTS
There has been an awful lot said about the Connecticut Republican Senate candidate Linda McMahon and her role with the World Wrestling Federation and World Wrestling Entertainment as chief executive officer. When you run for political office, everything is fair game and rightfully there has been a major focus on the McMahon family bankruptcy in the 1970s and questions about former World Wrestling Federation/Entertainment performers who died as young men while either working for Vince and Linda McMahon or shortly after they left the wrestling organization.
But there is one area of the McMahon portfolio that has not been given a lot of scrutiny.
The short-lived XFL.
The XFL was born after Vince and Linda McMahon past on an opportunity to buy the Toronto Argonauts of the Canadian Football League and then the entire league in the late 1990s. McMahon and General Electric's NBC division teamed up in early 2000 and started to put together a single entity owned league with each side owning half of the product. The league was scheduled to start in February 2001 and came to life around the same time that Time Warner was thinking about creating a professional football league.
The McMahon-NBC venture failed and was done by May 2001 and left a lot of football people rather bitter because of just how the end played out.
Vince and Linda McMahon did not put the XFL out of business. Ken Schanzer, an executive at NBC Sports did according to numerous insiders who were employed by the league or NFL people who were friends with XFL football people.
The late George Young, who built two New York Giants Super Bowl teams as the franchise's general manager, used to carp about how someone would not allow the football people to run the show. The someone was not Vince McMahon nor was it Linda McMahon. It was NBC personnel that decided to give the league a wrestling persona which included having the network's football analyst Jesse Ventura try to bait the New Jersey-New York coach Rusty Tillman to create some sort of storyline.
The tactic failed miserable and caused George Young one day to complain vehemently to anyone who listened that it belittled Tillman and the other coaches looking for a place to hone their craft. George Young never had a problem with the XFL as it gave people opportunities to play, to coach, to scout, to market and to announce.
People like Bob Costas and John Sterling cut their teeth on upstart leagues.
The story that former XFL people tell is that NBC executives were still miffed at the National Football League for accepting a 1998 CBS offer to get the rights to American Football Conference games, playoff contests and an occasional Super Bowl for $4 billion over an eight year period which was about a 130 percent increase over what NBC had paid for the contract. NBC wanted to stick it to both CBS and the NFL in a rather childish manner and hoped to get good ratings for a late winter-spring product.
It was not until late in the 2001 season when the XFL fell off the map that football people took over the product. The XFL might have lasted into season two, 2002, had Schanzer and NBC not pulled the plug. According to one XFL official who was present at the end, everyone acknowledged that the league had lost some $50 million but ESPN in Bristol, Conn. had interest in picking up the programming in 2002 and TNN would have returned for a second year. UPN had dropped out but ESPN's interest would have more than made up for losing the weak UPN network. But according to the league insider Schanzer, (the insider did not know if Schanzer acted on his own or if a higher authority made the call) and didn't want a competitor.
With that the league disappeared leaving an awful lot of angry football people stewing both in the NFL and XFL.
McMahon wanted to keep going according to the XFL insider.
Western civilization survived the first weekend of the existence of the XFL on February 3, 2001. The first game pitted the New Jersey-New York Hitmen and the Las Vegas Outlaws in the desert. Las Vegas won the game 19-0. The XFL didn't change the world despite the horrors predicted by the very predictable sportswriters of the time who in the Pavlov dog thinking abhorred the thought of somebody starting a new football (or basketball or hockey or soccer) league and other naysayers like George Will.
The XFL didn't prompt China to bringing the tanks back to Tiananmen Square in Beijing; the Wall didn't go up again in Germany, there was no reversal of the Florida Presidential Election results.
The XFL featured just a bunch of football players who played the game in various sites around the country with scantily clad cheerleaders on the sidelines.
Vince McMahon's latest contribution to American society at the time really didn't make very much difference. There was the assertion from then Baltimore Ravens owner Art Modell that McMahon was selling sex and violence. But Modell was stopped in his tracks when the name Sam Huff came up and then the Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders was the second part added to the conversation.
Nearly 40 years ago, on October 31, 1960, CBS aired as part of the network's Twentieth Century series, "The Violent World of Sam Huff" which was narrated by Walter Cronkite. Huff was the tough New York Giants linebacker who was also the first NFL player to appear on the cover of Time magazine on November 30, 1959. The Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders became a brand name and were regulars on TV shows.
The XFL was a made for TV show for NBC, the UPN Network (which is now out of business) and the TNN cable network, which is now Spike TV. The first week's TV audience was a pleasant surprise. The actual football though was ragged at best but the XFL was not necessarily going to be about football. Wrestling had storylines and was a soap opera. McMahon and NBC, who had some experience with daytime soap operas on the network, were going to create storylines. But they would have had to go a long way in 2001 to catch the real life drama of some NFL players like Rae Carruth the Carolina Panthers player who was standing trial for the murder of this girl friend, the Baltimore Ravens Ray Lewis, who was arrested on murder and aggravated assault charges (Lewis copped a plea for obstruction of justice and got one year probation) and Green Bay's Mark Churma who just a couple days after the start of the XFL was acquitted of sexual assault charges.
McMahon and professional wrestling in general always presented lowbrow entertainment. There was nothing ever sophisticated about professional wrestling in the TV era and a lot of it resembled Three Stooges shorts. The critics fired at McMahon and the XFL but his presentation was really lame and at best fourth grade humor. The XFL didn't have DWI arrests (a common occurrence in football), wife beaters, coke addicts like the other "established" sports leagues at the time.
But University of Chicago economist Allen Sanderson was quoted that he "hopes the league fails" because Professor Sanderson "doesn't want the bar of entertainment to be lowered." Then there was the conservative columnist, baseball shill and member of two baseball franchises' board of directors (the liberal Peter Angelos' Baltimore Orioles and John Moores' San Diego Padres — Moores was a major contributor to Bill Clinton's Presidential campaigns) George Will's comments.
Will worried that the XFL would continue the "further coarsening of America."
McMahon may have come up with a lot of sports and entertainment ideas in his Cape Cod Coliseum incubator but he didn't invent bad behavior in sports.
George Will probably likes to draw a blank on the illegal steroids usage in baseball while he served Angelos and Moores but the former professor, one time Republican political operative and conservative writer and TV talking head is smart enough to know that bad behavior started long before Vince and Linda McMahon.
When the New York Islanders Pat Lafontaine suffered a concussion during a game at Madison Square Garden against the New York Rangers in 1990, Rangers fans blocked the exit out of the Garden for the ambulance and then rocked the ambulance as it was leaving. Jeffrey Lange was arrested at Giants Stadium for throwing a snowball and he wasn't the only one pelting the field with snow and ice balls during a Giants-San Diego Chargers game on December 23, 1995. Lange was arrested with 17 others that day. Some fans in various cities around North America used championship celebrations as an excuse to go on rampages. The XFL crowds were not dangerous. The XFL did not have European soccer crowd lunatics.
The XFL lead TV analyst Jesse Ventura was the governor of Minnesota at the time. George Will didn't take note of this in 2001 because he is a baseball apologist in many ways. But Governor Ventura issued an apology statement after Minnesota Twins fans at the Metrodome pelted former Twins and New York Yankees leftfielder Chuck Knoblauch with garbage from the stands in 2001.
By the time the XFL's life support was pulled by Schanzer, the XFL didn't cause gas prices to rise, the XFL didn't create tension between the US and China, the US and North Korea nor did McMahon cause the US to lose its United Nation's seat on the Human Rights Commission in that body. It was just a TV show but it is interesting to read all of the negative reaction to the McMahons, the wrestling industry and how the real story of the failure of the XFL has never really been fully explained.
The XFL was just entertainment, a made for television show. In 2001, the XFL expired and that aspect of Linda McMahon's life and business has not been explored. It deserves a look, not only for Connecticut voters but for sports business management students who need to see how sports and business intersect. The questions of why the XFL didn't go on should be asked and the first question that Linda McMahon or Schanzer should be asked is this. Did NBC really pull the plug because a Connecticut business, ESPN, wanted to get involved? Nine years later with the senatorial campaign nearing an end, and Linda McMahon claiming she knows how to create jobs, there may be some people who want an answer.
Evan Weiner is an award winning author, radio-TV commentator and speaker on "The Business and Politics of Sports" and can be reached atevanjweiner@yahoo.com

Will Senate Candidate Linda McMahon Talk About Pro Wrestlers Dying from Drug Overdoses on Her Watch?

http://www.mcnsports.com/en/node/7533


Will Senate Candidate Linda McMahon Talk About Pro Wrestlers Dying from Drug Overdoses on Her Watch?





By Evan Weiner



September 16, 2009



3:00 PM EDT





(New York, N. Y.) – There is yet another Republican running for the Senate seat held by the Democrat Christopher Dobbs in Connecticut. Linda McMahon, the Chief Economic Officer of World Wrestling Entertainment, has decided that she is qualified to replace Dodd in the November 2010 election.



Here is the problem for the wrestling CEO, how does Linda McMahon explain the many deaths of performers, some with ties to her organization and others who were employed by competitors, caused by the usage of illegal substances. Substances that were banned in legislation that went through the Senate in 1990, the very institution she would look to join.



Those deaths that should have rattled and ravaged her business, the wrestling industry. Fortunately for Linda McMahon, her husband Vince, their son Shane and daughter Stephanie and her husband Paul Michael Levesque a.k.a. Triple H, there is very little scrutiny of the industry.



The drug issue, which seems to cloud hovering over Major league Baseball for years, is for the most part a non-issue even though Linda McMahon’s husband was indicted in November of 1993 on charges of possession of steroids and conspiracy to distribute steroids. McMahon beat the rap after a jury came back with a not guilty verdict on July 22, 1994. In 2005, McMahon’s wrestling circuit was still wrestling with drug issues and following the death of Eddie Guerrero, the McMahons imposed new drug testing policies.



The number of wrestlers who have died before their 50th birthdays is staggering. Most of the deceased performers overdosed or died of heart attacks.



Linda McMahon needs to be asked about the whole illegal drugs issue. Wrestling resides in a murky area in sports and entertainment. The genre has some athleticism but in 1989 Vince McMahon testified before the New Jersey State Senate that his product was not a bona fide competition and that wrestling matches were staged events. McMahon was trying to catch some tax breaks from the state of New Jersey for his live shows and his pay-per-view TV offerings.



The United States Congress went after Major League Baseball with a viciousness after a number of factors influenced them including the International Olympic Committee’s fit of pique in 2003 after Major League Baseball refused to let stars compete in the Olympic Games that included IOC criticism of baseball’s drug testing procedure and a threat that New York would not get the 2012 Summer Olympics unless baseball knuckled under to the IOC. That caught Congress’s attention along with Jose Canseco’s tell all book about banned substance usage in baseball. Congress also made some noise by also calling in National Football League, National Basketball Association and National Hockey League people to testify in what really were dog and pony shows.



Perhaps Linda McMahon fits the position after all.



For whatever reason, Congress has never go after the entertainment industry about the usage of illegal substances or looked into banned substance usage by teenagers who are not athletes.



If Linda McMahon is running for a Senate seat, maybe it is time for some Congressional committees to review professional wresting. The carnage has been documented and the toll is large especially compared with the number of deaths attributed to drug overdoses in Major League Baseball. The answer in baseball appears to be zero, although Ken Caminiti died of a drug overdose in 2004 at the age of 41. Caminiti was the National League’s Most Valuable Player in 1995 and discussed his steroids usage with a reporter from the America magazine Sports Illustrated in 2002. Caminiti did not have steroids in his system at the time of his death.





Mrs. McMahon is getting more coverage than normally allotted to first time candidates because she has been involved in the on going storylines of the World Wrestling Entertainment. What is going to be interesting is to see how the local NBC affiliate in Hartford handles Mrs. McMahon’s campaign. General Electric’s NBC unit has had a very long relationship with the WWF/WWE. Dick Ebersol, the chairman of NBC Universal sports and Olympics, is one of Vince McMahon’s best friends. NBC has throughout the past two decades given exposure to the WWF/WWF in form of TV specials and NBCUniversal’s USA Network has the cable TV rights in the United States to McMahon’s product.



McMahon’s failed football league, the XFL, was co-owned by NBC in 2000-01. It was Ebersol’s assistant NBC Sports President Ken Schanzer who pulled the plug on the XFL, not Ebersol after the league lost millions of dollars.



Mrs. McMahon will boast of building a company that has more than 500 employees in Connecticut and the truth is that Vince and Linda McMahon took out loans and mortgaged and hocked everything they had to push the World Wrestling Federation (Titan Sports) beyond a northeastern United States base in a gambling to make the WWF a national property in the U. S. They rolled the dice and gambled that Wrestlemania in 1985 would put them on the map.



The McMahon’s empire was built on a house of cards and a naiveté of other wrestling promoters in 1983-84. The McMahon’s bought out Vince’s dad’s Capital Sports in 1982 and changed the business. Because Capital was based in the US northeast and promoted shows in Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, and south to Washington, it was thought the McMahons had deep pockets because of the markets and some TV deals. Wrestling was a regional business with promoters having handshake deals not to invade other territories.



Those other regional wrestling operators watched as the McMahons signed their talent (as independent contractors) and thought they could not match the McMahon’s deep pockets. They thought wrong; the McMahons had no money and were literally living from show to show. The McMahons desperately needed the pay-per-view Wrestlemania show at New York’s Madison Square Garden to score big.



It did.



Mrs. McMahon is correct that she is a businesswoman who helped shape a fast growing business in Stamford, Connecticut over on Holly Hill.



The McMahons got lucky.



If reporters are not diligent and in this political climate of my team is better than your team stuff of talk radio and cable TV that passes for journalism, Mrs. McMahon may catch another break. She needs to be held accountable for the deaths of the performers in her business from drugs. She is a flawed candidate but will anyone bother to look at the other side of wrestling beyond the Undertaker character that appears on the McMahon family TV productions and house shows?



The democracy deserves an answer.





eweiner@mcn.tv