If you smell what The Rock is cooking for the XFL, it’s pretty exciting. Back in December 2020, former footballer, WWE wrestler, and current global acting megastar Dwayne Johnson acquired the XFL in a $15 million deal. Since then, there has been plenty of speculation about what Johnson’s plans for the league are.
The most recent reports suggest Johnson and his business partner Dany Garcia are drafting plans to merge the XFL and CFL. While some rumors suggest the league’s will be linked and not merged, the plans seem to suggest this would be a merger in all but name.
That’s because linking the leagues is one thing but allowing interleague play between the XFL and CFL is another. Johnson wants XFL teams to be able to face off against CFL teams. This would broaden the market and also give fans more scope for sports betting with the help of betoclock.com across the leagues. It seems Dwayne Johnson and his team want both leagues to play their regular seasons. These regular seasons may include some games between teams from both leagues. It’s a similar approach to the MLB. Both leagues would run their own individual post season to find the individual champion of the CFL and the XLF.
Once the champions are crowned, they will face off against each other in a grand finale to find which will be the interleague champion.
As well as the leagues meeting during the season, The Rock also wants to see an “All-Star Game” that will see the best players from both leagues meet. As mentioned, this is a merger in all but name, but the league’s will continue to operate independently. However, looking to the future, Johnson and his team to envision a merger of the XFL and CFL.
While such a tie up may be good for the XFL, it is less clear the benefits for the CFL. Would Canadian fans want their league to become a byproduct of a U.S. organization? There’s also the Grey Cup, which is the Super Bowl of Canadian football. Would this game, which has been held since 1909, be removed if Johnson’s plans move ahead?
The Canadian Football League has taken a year out because of the COVID pandemic but is expected to return for the 2022 campaign. As is the XFL, which had five regular season weeks during 2020/2021 before previous owner Vince McMahon declared the league bankrupt.
It’s possible Dwayne Johnson and his consortium think they can make changes to the CFL and take advantage of the league’s current “postponed” situation. Of course, that consortium does not own the CFL so would have to seek a deal with the league to link it to the XFL. There’s also the small problem of the two leagues having some significant differences in rules.
For example, the CFL has 12 men on a team while also having just three downs and a different size playing field. How a merger would overcome these differences remains to be seen, but it’s likely one league would have to change its rules to match the other.
