Long Bomb

Book excerpt: They had names like the Xtreme, the Demons, and the Rage. They eliminated the coin flip and instead had one player from each team race for a ball at midfield to determine possession. They miked anything that moved, bringing viewers inside the huddle, onto the sideline, and into the locker room. And they failed. Miserably. The league opened up the season with higher television ratings than the NFL Pro Bowl but finished with lower ratings than the NFL draft. Long Bomb: How the XFL Became TV's Biggest Fiasco tells you how and why. Dick Ebersol and NBC were still smarting from the loss of the NFL to CBS. Vince McMahon was shut out of buying a team by the NFL and even the CFL. Together, they thought, they could introduce a new football league, geared more toward the fans and in direct contrast to what McMahon called the "No Fun League." Author Brett Forrest gives a firsthand explanation of how the XFL combined the exposure of NBC and the marketing genius of the WWE's Vince McMahon and managed to produce the lowest-rated prime-time telecasts ever. Forrest followed the Las Vegas Outlaws, with the original XFL poster boy, Rod "He Hate Me" Smart, throughout that inaugural final season. He pulls no punches when describing the failures of the league, why they occurred, and what possibly could have been done differently. The best-laid plans of mice and men often go awry. Now, we know, so do those of peacocks and McMahons.