Semi-tough
Will the Milwaukee Iron survive past its first season? History isn't encouraging
XFL: We hate thee.
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Starting up a new professional football team in Wisconsin is sort of like opening a soda stand in the lobby of Coca-Cola’s corporate headquarters: You can’t help but look dwarfed by the competition. Nevertheless, the city’s new Arena Football 2 (AF2) team, The Milwaukee Iron, is ready to begin its inaugural season on Friday at the Bradley Center with a game against the Iowa Barnstormers. (If the contest were based on names alone, Iowa would already be victorious.) Will the Iron catch on in Milwaukee, where fans still have to wait more than five months for Packers season to start? Decider went searching for answers by looking back on other leagues that have sprung up to challenge the NFL’s monopoly on American professional football.
AAFC (1946-49)
Though largely forgotten today, the All-America Football Conference pushed professional football into the modern era. Cleveland Browns coach Paul Brown introduced the sport to year-round coaching staffs, modern pass patterns, and game film. The AAFC also helped to reintegrate professional football in 1946, when Marion Motley and Bill Willis became the first black pro football players since 1933. The league merged with the NFL in 1949, and today, the Browns still have the coolest helmets in football.
AFL (1960-69)
A product of its time, the American Football League was professional football’s answer to the upheaval of the ’60s. No longer content to be exploited by “The Man,” the AFL challenged perceived NFL superiority by embracing an exciting, offense-focused approach to the game. Revolution was achieved in 1969 when the AFL’s New York Jets—under the leadership of quarterback and womanizing, longhaired Joe Namath—shocked the heavily favored NFL Baltimore Colts 16-7 in Super Bowl III. The two leagues merged in 1970 as the AFL decided it was best to try to take down the system from the inside.
USFL (1983-85)
Any football league that can find a place for bomb-tossing midget Doug Flutie deserves better than a quick death. But the USFL lasted only three seasons, despite attracting top talent like Jim Kelly, Steve Young, Reggie White, Herschel Walker, and Flutie, one of three consecutive Heisman Trophy winners to sign with the league. The USFL served as a guinea pig of sorts for the NFL, testing the waters in future NFL markets in Arizona; Jacksonville, Fla.; and Memphis, Tenn., and introducing innovations like instant replay.
Arena Football League (1987-2008)
The AFL was perfect for people who wanted to like football but didn’t have patience for all that defense. It gave us questionable game improvements like a 50-yard playing field, a no-punting rule, and end zone nets that keep passes in play until they hit the ground. It also gave the world players like Kurt Warner, who got his start with the hated Iowa Barnstormers in 1995. After stopping play in late '08, the league recently announced that it plans to pick up again in 2010.
NFL Europa (1991-2007)
NFL Europa was supposed to be a sort of minor leagues for the NFL that would also drum up international interest in the sport. Because we’re Americans, we assumed Europeans liked soccer only because they hadn’t been properly introduced to “real” American football. It didn’t help that the league was originally christened the World League of American Football, which was soon deemed too jingoistic. The league became the more inclusive World League in 1995, and was again re-branded in 1997 as NFL Europe. In 2006, it became NFL Europa, but by then Europeans wouldn’t even riot at our football games anymore.
XFL (2001)
Meant to complement, even rival, the NFL during the off-season, the XFL lasted only one year. It came across like a WWE parody of professional football—which made sense, since WWE chairman Vince McMahon was a founding partner in the league. A fitting metaphor for the flashy but empty XFL is that “X” didn’t stand for “exciting” or “extreme”; it didn’t stand for anything, actually. Yet the league did provide sports fans with a few lasting memories: the abolition of the point-after-touchdown (deemed as too wimpy); an “opening scramble” where a member of each team raced to the ball like puppies clawing at a new toy; and, of course, “He Hate Me,” also known as Las Vegas Outlaw (and future NFL player) Rod Smart. His memorable nickname later inspired the title of a truly terrible Spike Lee movie about a sperm donor for lesbians, She Hate Me.
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