Think the idea of a new XFL is folly? Think Vince McMahon is crazy? Think the XFL can’t possibly compete with the NFL? You may be right. It couldn’t the first time around. But in this really interesting piece at reason.com, Eric Boehm illustrates how the old XFL — and its failure — actually improved the NFL.
Don’t believe it? When you’re watching the opening kickoff of next Sunday’s Super Bowl, take a moment to appreciate the camera angle being used. Nearly every kickoff, field goal, and punt (along with many replays) in every NFL game is shown via the so-called SkyCam, a camera suspended over the field on a set of wires, giving the audience a low-flying bird’s eye view. In many ways it’s a better perspective on the game than you get from the traditional sideline camera, and it gives the TV audience a better view of the players than what the fans sitting in the front row get.
And for that, you can thank McMahon. The SkyCam is probably the most longlasting contribution the former XFL made to the game of professional football, or at least to how we watch it. That camera angle is now a staple of NFL broadcasts. The league even used it as the main camera angle for one Thursday night game this season, to mixed reviews.
Even when a single entity dominates a marketplace like the NFL has dominated the market for American professional football for five decades—the NFL, which has a special exemption from federal antitrust laws, has become the epitome of a corporate monopoly—it must continuously evolve to stay on top. Often, those evolutions come from the absorption of ideas pioneered by smaller firms trying to gain a toehold in the market. Even failures, such as the XFL, provide fodder for improvement of other products. Creative destruction needs bad ideas as much as good ones.
So if you’re a football fan, it’s time to route for the XFL. For when you cheer for a new league, you’re cheering for new ideas and innovations — even if it flops.
