The Bottom Line: Observations and Arguments on the Sports Business

Part VI. Media and and the Regulation of Steroids

VI Media and the Regulation of Steroids 284 Extreme Is Mediocre and XFL Is the Name Last fall, Vince McMahon's World Wrestling Federation (WWF) knocked Monday Night Football from its pedestal atop the television ratings on Monday evenings among the twelve- to twenty-four-year-old male demographic. This is a key demographic not only because its members do a lot of consuming and they are relatively easy to target, but because it is an age group when lifetime habits are formed. IfMcMahon knows the way into the hearts and minds oftwelve- to twentyfour -year-old males, then maybe his new XFL, to begin play in four months, will become a permanent fixture in the u.s. professional-sports landscape. NBC's Dick Ebersol is betting that it will, though these days that may engender more skepticism than confidence. NBC has partnered with the WWF to own the eight XFL teams, purportedly as a single entity. Among other things, single-entity status will mean that within the league there will be no competition for the players. That is, XFL teams will not bid against each other for the better players, and the league plans to set players' base salaries at $35,000 for kicking specialists, $50,000 for quarterbacks , and $45,000 for all other positions. In addition, the XFL will give each player on the winning team of every game a bonus of $2,500 and a bonus of $25,000 per player for winning the league championship game (to be played on April 21, following a ten-game season). The XFL plans to present an in-your-face attitude. McMahon calls the NFL the No Fun League. XFL players will have fun, we are told. On the field they will be encouraged to flaunt their individualism-dancing or spiking footballs after touchdowns. No more sissy rules, such as two feet in-bounds, fair catches where the receiver can't be tackled, or prohibitions on helmet-to-helmet contact . And in case you haven't picked up the vibe, all this will be fun for fans, too. Just to make sure, the XFL will run a thirty-five-second play clock and limit halftime to ten minutes so games will last no more than three hoursunless , of course, it takes more than a few seconds to remove each immobilized player with a spinal-cord injury from the playing field. But it is not these gimmicks, or McMahon's transcendent connection to the psyche of twelve- to twenty-four-year-old males that gives the XFL its best chance of success. Rather it is two developments in the telecommunications revolution. The first is the expansion of national television networks beyond the big three. Ever since the NFL signed up ABC to televise Monday Night Football in 1969, the league has partnered with ABC, CBS, and NBC, making Sports BusinessJournal, October 2-8, 2000 Media and Steroids 285 it very difficult for a rival league to get the type of television exposure and rights fees it would need to compete with the NFL. In 1987, the NFL added ESPN to its broadcast partners, and in 1990 it added Turner. Now, with the emergence of Fox as a bona fide national network, and with Fox replacing NBC in the NFL broadcasting mix, one network was left out in the cold, opening the door for the XFL. The second development is the advent of TiVo and Replay-new, simplified digital recording devices for use with television sets. These devices make recording television shows as easy as Monday morning quarterbacking. It's bad news for TV serials and movies because consumers can now "tape" the shows they want to see with the touch of a button and replay them at their leisure, skipping over commercials. As TiVo and Replay technology becomes widespread, the value of prime time will diminish, as will the value ofall shows that are not time-sensitive. The value to advertisers of West Wing and similar hot shows will fall because viewers can tell their TiVo systems to record them and then watch them on their own schedule without commercials. Not so with sports programming . Fans want to watch games as they happen. This phenomenon will further enhance the cachet of live sports competition on television. And this helps to explain why NBC is willing to take a gamble on the XFL. Instead of investing $1 million per...