Gambling In The XFL, No XFL Player Union And More From Luck

The 2019 Bloomberg Business of Sports Summit (Podcast) had XFL CEO Oliver Luck on this week. It was a 10-minute interview covering topics from ‘He Hate Me’ to gambling on XFL games. He was on around the 30-minute mark if you’d like to listen. Not much new here but a couple of minor tidbits.

Notes from the Interview;

• The new XFL will be a league for ‘Serious Football Fans’
• It will be a fast pace game with fewer breaks and stoppages
• Looking at innovations to improve the game
• Rod Smart ‘He Hate Me’ the name had overshadowed the player. He came a good NFL player for the Panthers and played in a Super Bowl.
• XFL will be fun but not the gimmicks from the past
• Serious, legitimate concern for health and safety of the players this time.
• No one was talking about head injuries in 2001
• 85 million football fans, 40 million are passionate fans and the XFL targeting the bigger markets than the AAF
• Plenty of space for AAF and XFL to co-exist
• Wants to offer fans the ability to gamble on games
• Learned from his days with the NCAA it is tough to make an NFL roster
• Luck’s job is to look out for the players since there is no union for players like NFL. Players are the working capital for the league. They need to be taken care of.