XFL football league picks Conn. native to lead N.Y. team
Vince McMahon’s revived XFL made several key hires last week, personnel moves that included the appointment of a Connecticut native as head coach and general manager of the football league’s New York team.
“It’s impossible to walk around this city (New York) and not feel the energy,” Kevin Gilbride, who was offensive coordinator of the New York Giants’ 2008 and 2012 Super Bowlwinning teams and is a Southern Connecticut State University alumnus, said in a video posted last week by the XFL. “I just love the fact they’re so passionate about their sports, so knowledgeable, so discerning. ... That’s part of the challenge: We’ve got to put something out on the field that they can relate to, identify with and get them so that they’re passionate about us.”
Gilbride’s hiring, alongside the appointment of former NFL player and coach Jon Hayes as St. Louis’ head coach and general
manager, leaves the league with two more top coaching spots to fill among its eight teams set to take the field in the inaugural 2020 season. At the same time, the XFL has been making a number of other executive hires including the recruitment of former Madison Square Garden senior vice president Janet Duch as the New York team’s president.
XFL officials said they remain confident about their preparations for the first season, which would start the weekend after next year’s Super Bowl. The New York squad would play its home games at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, N.J., sharing the venue with the New York Giants and New York Jets.
“The XFL is well funded, we have time before kickoff to execute our business plan, and we will soon announce a national broadcast and cable TV schedule that makes it easy for fans to find our games consistently every weekend when we launch next February,” XFL said in a statement earlier this month. “There is no doubt that avid football fans want more, and we’re excited to get going in 2020.”
Other new football leagues, however, have struggled to gain traction.
Earlier this month, the Alliance of American Football halted play eight weeks into its first season, despite a $250 million investment in February from its chairman, Tom Dundon, who is owner of the NHL’s Carolina Hurricanes.
XFL officials rejected a proposed merger with the AAF, which was grappling with financial troubles before its season even began, according to Sports Business Journal.
“The likely demise of the AAF doesn’t bode well for the XFL,” said Daniel Durbin, director of the Institute of Sports, Media and Society at the University of Southern California. “McMahon may have more resources available than the AAF did. But, in the end, he will have to be willing to wait out possibly years of losses to develop a stable and successful league.”
To shore up the XFL’s finances, McMahon has made a series of major investments. He sold nearly $272 million worth of WWE stock last month to fund Alpha Entertainment LLC, a business that is supporting XFL’s launch.
In December 2017, McMahon sold about $100 million of WWE shares to fund Alpha. He made an additional $22 million stock sale last December.
While McMahon is financing the XFL, he has said that he has no plans to step down as WWE’s CEO.
The two enterprises are neighbors: WWE is headquartered at 1241 E. Main St., on Stamford’s East Side; XFL is based at 1266 E. Main St.
In 2001, the XFL followed a similar schedule in the sole season of its original version. It started with strong ratings, but soon saw its audience decline.
“I have long believed that the strategic vision for ‘XFL 2.0’ was never modeled at all after the first incarnation,” said Josh Shuart, chairman of marketing and sports management at Sacred Heart University. “The XFL leadership have plenty of time to tweak anything that they now feel might not be successful. Locking in a broadcast partner soon will be a major, positive, first step.”