This has been a rough year for Vince McMahon. Not only has the WWE stock been plummeting, but the coronavirus forced them to shut down their house shows and live events. As if crowdless televised events were bad enough, he was also forced to cancel the XFL’s inaugural season after it showed tons of promise for being an alternative to the NFL during the offseason. Now, after releasing roughly 40% of the WWE staff (including referees, wrestlers, writers, etc) and declaring bankruptcy for the XFL, McMahon is reportedly selling the XFL. Given the state of things, it’s got a few people wondering if Tony Kahn will purchase the XFL.
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Why Tony?
First, we love to throw out what ifs when it comes to interesting speculations, and second it would make sense in a strange sort of way.
The NFL’s Jacksonville Jaguars are owned by his father, Shahid Kahn, and the XFL is often mentioned along with the WWE, so having ties to AEW would make sense.
It’d also keep his father out of the NFL owners’ doghouse, to an extent, for owning and operating another football league that has their teams in NFL cities.
The NFL had a long-standing rule where owners couldn’t practice cross-ownership — owning other sports teams in NFL cities — because they’d compete with other NFL owners. But in 2018 that changed when the NFL owners voted to allow cross-ownership.
If Shahid purchased the XFL, he wouldn’t just own a rival football team, but an entire league of eight teams. If his son bought it, he’d still catch a lot of grief, but he wouldn’t be the league owner, so his hands would be clean. Though he may have to loan his son the money, depending on what McMahon would be asking.
New/old guard
As the rest of this article, this is pure speculation, but Tony could tweak McMahon’s single owner model and sell the different franchises to help offset the cost. Maybe even to those in power in AEW like Kenny Omega, the Young Bucks, Cody Rhodes, etc is they’d be interested in expanding their portfolios.
Tony would also inject some energy into the endeavor, and bring in other investors to help solidify the league’s base and go from there.
He could even work out a deal for it to be a developmental league and work closely with the NFL, further offsetting the cost and adding the stabilization of the league.
As awesome as the XFL was to watch, it was a developmental league as it gave players a second or third chance after their NFL careers floundered or never got started due to injuries, bad luck, or just the numbers game.
Why it won’t happen
And here is where I pop our bubble I so carefully crafted.
If the Kahns would do this, it would signal they are directly competing with Vince McMahon and the WWE. While there’s little doubt the two are competing, this would take it to a whole other level. Especially if the XFL would become a success story by staying afloat.
This would push McMahon into the same desperation he was in during the Monday Night Wars and we’d see the WWE product improve almost overnight. At least, that’d be my hope. It’s great to have so many options available, and it’ll be even better if all of them stay in business for us to continue enjoying them.
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