XFL Cities Announced + Is McMahon Using WWE Resources?

-On the heels of the early announcement last week that professional football was returning to Saint Louis by way of an XFL franchise, the rebooted football organization has held a press conference today to announce the remaining host cities. The league will have it’s first games in February of 2020, the week after the Super Bowl.

So where will the games be played? The first season will have teams in the following cities:

–Saint Loius, MO (The Dome)

-Dallas, TX (Globe Life Park)

-Houston, TX (TDECU Stadium)

-Los Angeles, CA (Stub Hub Center)

-New York, NY (MetLife Stadium)

-Seattle (CenturyLink Field)

-Tampa, FL (Raymond James Stadium)

-Washington, DC (Audi Field)

It’s an interesting list of teams, with the league looking to take advantage of some key cities. Having teams in the major TV markets-LA and New York-is smart. Putting a team in a city that lost it’s NFL team (Saint Louis) can’t hurt either. Also, two teams in football crazed Texas may prove to be a shrewd move as well. What is also interesting to see is that all teams have been aligned with major stadiums-in some instances, the same stadiums an NFL team calls home.

Team names, mascots and rosters will all be announced later on.

-In other XFL news: when Vince McMahon announced the league was indeed returning, he was adamant that XFL and WWE would not be cross-promoted. He went to great lengths, forming a separate entity to own and operate XFL interests. He sold off his stock to ensure he was not draining funds from WWE’s annual budget for the league as well.

In spite of that, Ringside News has pointed out that there does appear to be a crossing over between the two companies. Right off the bat, the site points out that the video package used today for the XFL city introductions bore a striking resemblance to pieces of the package announcing WrestleMania 35.

In the grand scheme of things, using creative groups on similar projects probably isn’t the worst thing in the world. Based on that alone, I wouldn’t be too concerned just yet.

John Deegan

Introduced to professional wrestling in the 1980's thanks to Superstars and Saturday Night's Main Event, John's passion for the medium was reborn thanks to ECW in the 90's. A former in-ring "talent" with a career 0-2 record, he finds it more rewarding, and far less painful, to write about wrestling now.