Football League XFL Set To Return In 2020, WWE’s Vince McMahon Makes Announcement

The controversial football league XFL is slated to make a return in 2020, nearly 20 years after it disappeared.

XFL 2020 return news

Vince McMahon, the WWE chairman who originally founded the league in 1999, made the announcement at 3 pm on Thursday.

The XFL was a joint venture between WWE and NBC. Last year, ESPN produced a “30 for 30” documentary on the successes and failures of the XFL. In short, the documentary revealed that the league failed because it attempted to do too much, too quickly.

According to CBS, the result of the revival of the XFL is expected to be a “toned-down version” of the original “more akin to the NFL and college football but with enough unique elements that will set it apart from the pack.”

CBS also stated that McMahon and other XFL executives will likely need to find a broadcast partner or streaming service as one of their first orders of business. The WWE Network has seen much success, so perhaps a streaming service may be more likely. McMahon reportedly recently sold  3.34 million shares of WWE stock (about $100 million worth) in order to help fund Alpha Entertainment.

Alpha Entertainment filed trademarks for “XFL” last month, according to U.S. Patent and Trademark Office records.

“Vince McMahon has established and is personally funding a separate entity from WWE, Alpha Entertainment, to explore investment opportunities across the sports and entertainment landscapes, including professional football,” WWE said in a statement in December. “Mr. McMahon has nothing further to announce at this time.”