Staes of play

0 Comments | Sunday Herald, The, Feb 18, 2001 | by Art Spander

It was the literary nabob HL Mencken who said you never would go broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public. The statement may end up a bit skewed in its definition this time, but that depends how you judge acceptance of the XFL.

We are into the third weekend of this supposedly radical gridiron pro football league, the one built on a concept that a female cheerleader's rather impressive breasts will more than compensate for a quarterback's rather unimpressive arm, a league constructed around those old staples, sex and violence.

"It has all the ingredients to be successful," said Joe Lapchick, director of the Center for the Study of Sport at Northeastern University in Boston.

I'm not sure that's a positive statement. Nor can we be sure that's an accurate statement.

The opening weekend of the XFL, NBC-TV, which helped finance and create the league, out of spite if you will, had a remarkable 10 rating on the Saturday night game.

That means 10% of the millions of sets in the United States, 15.7 million viewers, were tuned in. That means the curiosity factor was at work. That means Americans need to get a life.

But last Saturday, the second of the season, we could once again believe in a future that didn't include the XFL.

The ratings had dropped to five. The telecast of the annual Westminster Dog Show had more viewers. And the game between the Los Angeles Xtreme and Chicago Enforcers lasted so long it delayed the start of Saturday Night Live,' which was hoping for a huge audience because Jennifer Lopez was hosting. Speaking of women with impressive, uh, well, bodies.

Saturday Night Live' founding producer Lorne Michaels was infuriated. As opposed to most of the XFL viewers. They merely were bored.

Dick Ebersol is the president of NBC Sports. He's the one who gave us the Sydney Olympics delayed 15 to 18 hours. He's giving us the XFL, in the company of World Wrestling Federation chairman Vince McMahon.

Because NBC was outbid in its attempt to retain rights to the NFL, it decided to shove the XFL down our throats in February and March, after the end of the Super Bowl and the beginning of the baseball schedule.

However, baseball spring training started three days ago, and the XFL is being relegated to the back pages of the papers.

McMahon and Ebersol went after the lowest common denominator, although they disguise that philosophy with the explanation that it gives the middle-class an alternative to the expensive, corporate, buttoned-down NFL.

Hey, we're told, the tickets are cheap ($25 or half of what NFL games cost), the cheerleaders are wearing very little, and the players are friendly.

The players also are bad. Imagine your football players not good enough for the Premier or Scottish Football League, players who stumble and bumble and fumble. That's basically what the XFL offers, if you ignore the titillation.

Last weekend in Los Angeles, a city without an NFL team since 1995, the second largest city and TV market in the US, McMahon stocked a jacuzzi bath with writhing women on the field of the Coliseum for the game between the Xtreme and Enforcers.

Crowds were in the 30-35,000 range the first home games, about half of what NFL teams draw.

The fans seemed somewhat interested in the football and very interested in the cheerleaders they hoped would be dressed revealingly enough for the Cleveage Cam and shown on the giant screen at each stadium.

During the game on opening weekend between the Extreme and San Francisco Demons at Pac Bell Park, where the San Francisco Giants play baseball, a sign was held up by Chris Wright that read, "I'm here for the cheerleaders". Chris Wright is 11 years old.

That's fine with NBC. The network has dropped to third in overall ratings behind ABC and CBS. It will do anything to attract a new, young viewership, the sort prized by advertisers who want to get them early to buy Big Macs and Cokes and keep them for life, advancing to beer and Volkswagens.

McMahon and Ebersol wanted these fans, teenagers and young men who follow wrestling, who want another excuse to hoist a brew and scream a few obscenities and do some ogling.

"The XFL," said Lapchick, the sports sociologist, "may become to sport what gangsta rap is to music."

And then again, it may become nothing but a bad memory. When a Jack Russell terrier can attract more viewers on television than a young lady attired in very little, the XFL could quickly become the ex-FL.